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[orange jar]

18. Social media has been awash with this... issue.

Not just with athletics, but also the bathroom debate and viral tweets/social media posts of trans people threatening cis people and wishing for violence against them. This shit obviously does not represent trans people as a whole, but people see these instances (whether the posts are even made by real trans people or not) and it scares them. Think of it like local news stations reporting on crime — the stories capitalize on people's subconscious fears and biases.

Also…some people (including liberals) are taking note of the increase in kids who are identifying as transgender. Their fears may be secret or restricted to friendlier forums, but they exist. They feel like social media is confusing vulnerable kids.

Then there's the inflammatory discourse over whether certain dating preferences are discriminatory or not. That's a whole hot mess in and of itself in every direction.