Honestly, I'd go the exact opposite way of it being dress rehearsal- Gamergate successfully having the media turn "hey, wait a minute, there's a very big conflict of interest in the coverage of this video game and we feel it's only fair that this conflict of interest get reported!" got spun by the media the people were fighting against as "...so, you hate women. Got it", and it WORKED, was the first moment most men who weren't the prom king got an undisputable spotlight shined on how profoundly unfair life has become for someone who has "privilege" in this world that was impossible to handwave away as "it's for equality" or "equality will seem like oppression to the people in power"...and it just kept getting worse and worse since then.

The trans shit, on the other hand, is a lot of those loser men who've been broken down by how unfair society is towards them finally giving up and going "if you can't beat them, join them", and thus using the same rules that these people fought to say "So as long as I'm a white male I'm going to be the lowest class of citizen? Well, MAYBE I don't want to be a man anymore! Now I'm a trans woman, and that means I outrank you, so you have to give me my way now! Line up to suck my non-presenting girldick now..."