This is a top-3 culture war issue because it gives a perfect wedge. Gay marriage is lost as that issue, that was the next one theofascists latched on. (It's the same reason state legislatures are so very much concerned with gendered bathrooms these days)

It is deliberately stoked time and again because it specifically fires up a large conservative base, and is life-threatening to a small group. As a bonus point for the wedge issue status, the vast majority in the middle doesn't understand how difficult and dangerous it is to be misgendered as a transgender person, and so it's easy to paint the LGBT community as "rabid" for defending people's right to not be misgendered.

And that's why we're here. One large group deliberately fanning hate flames, and one small group desperately trying to not get killed even more often.