@Cousin_Isobel @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia Yes, I do believe there are some people who will believe ANYTHING, if it comes from a source they trust. Even something as profoundly stupid as the idea someone could literally change from one sex to another. Unfortunately, a huge number of people blindly trust their news sources, completely oblivious to how much power the LGBTQ lobby has to dictate "facts" to the media.

"... I think a lot of people who oppose religion want to support science..."

^^^ THIS! We all have questions, and we've got to get our answers somewhere, right? Science is the default source for non-believers. Non-religious people want to think of themselves as more modern and evolved than religious people. Quite often we are. It's not that difficult to find problems with a religion. The primitive authors of sacred texts always had their own agenda, and used fear, superstition, and violence to promote their beliefs. The problem is that promoters of various "scientific" ideas operate nearly the same way.

Non-believers often see "science" as a monolithic body of knowledge that has some kind of central clearing house with reliable fact-checkers and a mysterious authority that prohibits the circulation of misinformation. We rely on whistleblowers and lawsuits to keep everyone honest, though history has shown us that integrity goes out the window whenever money is involved. In our own way, we are just as guilty of giving in to blind faith when we refuse to perform our own due diligence.

Getting to the truth is much more difficult than it used to be. Activists have given themselves permission to attack their opponents by any means necessary, including circulating outright lies and making false accusations against people they KNOW are innocent. They don't care. They tell themselves the end justifies the means because everyone who disagrees is a nazi bigot who deserves to die.

And now these maniacs have hijacked science. Throw enough $$$ at a funding-starved clinic and they will churn out whatever results you want. Once someone has packaged any kind of woo bullshit as "science", the woo-mongers will proliferate like crazy, and create official-looking websites for laboratories and research organizations that only exist in cyberspace. These sites are becoming more adept at mimicking the legitimate presentation of peer-reviewed studies. Once people see a science-washed claim appear in several places, they assume it's been cross-verified and must be true. Pin any of this garbage to a colorful feel-good social movement, and the public support keeps the $$$ flowing.

Even the illusion of support is powerful. Most people still DON'T support trans ideology. Major medical corporations want a chunk of that $$$, and are also motivated by the appearance of legitimacy that so many NGOs have bestowed upon gender woo, that it feels safer to go along with it now, and simply claim later that "everyone else was doing it".

In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes". This is why the lie is effective. It's become potentially dangerous to even ASK another person if they believe. People are wearing their compliance like body armor. It's a sad situation when a pronoun pin could save your career.