They will get some people on board by exploiting their sympathy. You're right that the social climate right now means many people are afraid to hurt anyone's feelings, especially since the cancel culture mob is constantly breathing down everyone's necks. Although sometimes people bend not out of an aversion to being mean, but out of self preservation because they don't want to get doxxed or lose their jobs.

I have a few theories for this though. I think people are willing to excuse shitty behavior if they think it comes from a place of pain or mental illness. That's also how TRAs get people to side with them. Their tirades are blamed on dysphoria and 'invalidation'. It's how they've managed to paint anyone who disagrees as violent and transphobic and people believe it because most decent human beings understand that those who lash out due to suffering deserve understanding and support. Obviously we know the majority of TRAs are not innocent victims, but the decent, non GC people who support them don't realize that.

Another theory I have is people who do things like put pronouns in their bio and write those training materials only do that to seem woke but don't actually understand it. I liken it to people who don't understand why some lesbians date butch women but won't date men, yet will say in public they support gay rights because it would be seen as wrong not to. If they were to voice their confusion regarding butch lesbians out loud they may get told they're homophobic and have it explained why. They may smile and nod to save face even though they still might not get it.

Same with this stuff. People who support TRAs might do so because, despite the fact that it doesn't make sense to them, they know it's 'wrong' not to. They get told they need to unlearn their transphobia and accept that without question because they've seen the word salad that accompanies any definition of gender identity. On the surface people see trans rights the exact same way as gay rights, not knowing that if you drill down far enough, homosexuality is real and transgenderism, in a tangible, observable, 'this person is truly female/sexless in a male's body' sense, is not. People don't want to do that though. They'd rather copy and paste 'TWAW' into their twitter bio, get their 'good person' sticker and move on.

I do still think this is too ridiculous to be sustainable. Despite TRAs attempts to get people to see their cause in the same vein as gay rights, at the end of the day LGBs are attracted to the same sex. It's pretty easy to understand, even for homophobes. There are no contradictions about that. Trans ideology on the other hand relies on a never ending spiral of:

I am a woman because I identify as one

what is a woman then?

anyone who identifies as one

so I can be a car if I identify as a car?

no that's not the same because my brain is female. that means im female

say I have a hormone disorder where my testosterone is in male range, does that mean I'm male now?

not unless you identify as male

but you just said you had a female brain and that's what made you a woman. you're telling me all that matters is how you choose to identify? why mention the female brain part then?

fuck off terf. something something biological essentialism. something something white heteronormative definitions of male and female

I'm sure there's more to the psychology of it all regarding why people fall for it at all. I did, and IDed as trans for a few years. I don't think I had the same motivations as people who virtue signal or just want to be supportive though. I'm also curious about that.