It’s worth examining why the moderates are peeling away, falling silent and joining the wrong side though, no?
I think there is something going on that is to do with a complete mismatch in how understanding of the social order is being constructed by (a) the marginalised minority, whose identity is being forced to cohere around their salience of their marginalised category; and (b) the “moderates” (as you call them), who I would describe as the mass of the public who never normally think about the existence of trans people at all.
There have been a lot of attempts to break down how the social order can be represented by different people at different times and with respect to different issues (ie based on dynamic context, not static essentialism). Without wishing to endorse any particular approach, this one seems pertinent (excuse my scribbles).
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This is using a classic 2x2 structure. One axis refers to whether the social order is being normatively described as produced by differences between individuals within the group, or by differences between groups. The other axis refers to whether the pertinent distinction is constructed from the symbolic (morality, culture) or the material.
I think that one thing that is going on is that individuals within a marginalised group find their group identity to be overwhelmingly salient, which makes them construct issues related to the social order with respect to that identity according to the
Social Diversity model. As the highlighted parts note, this includes rights claimed in the name of the group.
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On the other hand, when it comes to issues related to gender, I suspect that the majority of the lay public who have nothing at stake fall back on a more classic
Moral Order social structuring. As the highlighted parts indicate, this simply sees everybody as part of one big group, with Good and Bad individuals, based on whether they uphold or threaten the social order accordingly.
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What all this prevaricating means is that if you’re in one camp and you want to win over the other camp, you have to switch social models in terms of your arguments and appeals. If you want to persuade that trans people should be constructed as the gender they claim (rather than the gender claimed on their behalf), it’s no use doing so based on arguments that start from the
Social Diversity construction of the social order — you need to do it by constructing this approach to gender as unthreatening within the Good Citizen/Bad Citizen stereotype.