This was really surprising to me a few years ago. (The first time I had left the US since I was a small child.) I had thought people were just complaining about long lines.
The Customs guy talked to me for >1 hour because I didn't make enough eye contact. And I'm an average looking white male who was coming back from a country that the US has a good relationship with...
My girlfriend is employed. So once they found that out, they had little concern and it became much more relaxed. My friend's girlfriend is not (student, finished undergrad and taking a bit of time off before starting a PhD program). They give her the third degree.
It doesn't help that it can be pretty arbitrary depending on which agent you get, too. Having a similar description to yours, customs agents have always let me walk through without difficulty. Except for one time coming back from Canada.
This was on the way back from Israel though, so I was very aware of how much easier re-entry into the US was than going to Israel.
But as a US citizen, I have no idea what visitors have to go through.
On the other hand, Israeli officials have been solidly professional when I visited. They can see my deadname too, as they have a data-sharing agreement with the USA.
I have several friends who are not US citizens, so I get to hear about how much it sucks from their perspective. There are differences depending on country of origin and visa type. My friends who are from "bad" immigration countries like India, China, and Russia have a hard time, but friends who are from more "trusted" countries tend to have it much easier. My friends who are on long term / work visas find it a huge pain to deal with renewal and keeping it updated (and sometimes my friends from "bad" countries get stuck outside the US for weeks during renewal, for no good reason), but the actual border crossings aren't too bad, as long as they have all their paperwork in order. I don't really know anyone who visits the US on a tourist visa or similar, so I don't know what that experience is like.
Regarding changes for non-citizens, despite my friends relating their experiences, I don't think I've seen _that_ much of a negative difference over the past few years. The onerous fingerprinting requirements are not new[1], and the idea of the anxiety-inducing chat with the immigration officer is even older and doesn't seem to have changed much post-9/11. The new social media stuff is of course ridiculous, especially if it morphs into a hard requirement (or worse, a soft one, where refusing to provide details habitually results in denied entry). Is there a timeline anywhere of changes to US entry practices in the last decade or two? It'd be interesting to see if there have been a lot of small, incremental, "unnoticeable" changes.
[1] And it seems many other countries have adopted fingerprinting requirements anyway; I was just in Japan and Taiwan, and both fingerprinted me. I believe Japan has been requiring fingerprints of visitors longer than the US has.
Self-censorship is amazing though, before the European refugee crisis, it seems Germans were polite or tolerant towards foreigners, because it's the social norm. Now in some cities, because they know their neighbors think the same about "those people", they've also realized they're free to express their negative views.
Since they'll probably say "Please kindly write down your HN username", hello to the nice immigration officer reading this!