IMO the main thing you are describing here is just the culture war. Trans people are just a vector on which the war has been fought.
I think there is some truth to the idea that it kind of seemed like the left had won the culture war during the Obama administration. I used to think this was the left’s position, but IDK if it was actually an idea also promulgated by right wing alt media in an effort to frame themselves as counterculture.
Either way, yeah, various kinds of lefty ideology (pro LGBT, pro communist, etc.) gained some popularity and traction leading up to that time. And people who fell too far outside of the Overton Window at that time, especially if they were to the right, suffered some social consequences at minimum. Again, how bad those social consequences were, and whether or not that included unjust consequences beyond the social, is something I am less sure of. I used to agree more strongly with your position here, but I’m skeptical now because I think right wing alt media did a good job of framing the discussions at the time.
So IDK how much I got taken in by that. Because even as far back as like 2014-2015, there was a huge explosion of very successful anti-woke, anti-SJW, right wing (or right wing adjacent) media figures popping up all over YouTube and other alternative media spaces. These people weren’t canceled, they were making tons of money and gaining popularity. And I think they played a part in Trump’s rising popularity at that time as well, in the run up to the 2016 election.
So I think the framing that the left was ultra dominant and canceled anyone who disagreed is, at minimum, overstated. But I don’t think it is totally wrong; I find it plausible that e.g. some random college kids who did not have YouTube channels got unfairly ostracized for not being pro-LGBT enough. I’m not trying to discount your perspective on that period entirely.