how is it this common that a person's ideology comes down to being a transphobe or not?
Transphobia is on the borderline of being a socially permissive form of bigotry, which makes it a litmus test ideal for revealing the people who aren't open about being fascists, but still share the complete emotional and moral desolation and the political sadism of the mask-off fascists. Checking if somebody is a transphobe flushes out the ones who are too chickenshit to be, say, outright racists. Although Wu's comments about BLM in the linked tweets make me assume she's also an anti-black racist who merely had the instinct not to be open about her views in 2020.
Transphobia is on the borderline of being a socially permissive form of bigotry, which makes it a litmus test ideal for revealing the people who aren't open about being fascists, but still share the complete emotional and moral desolation and the political sadism of the mask-off fascists. Checking if somebody is a transphobe flushes out the ones who are too chickenshit to be, say, outright racists. Although Wu's comments about BLM in the linked tweets make me assume she's also an anti-black racist who merely had the instinct not to be open about her views in 2020.