As I observed in a comment such folk have been around for a long time. In the UK in the early 1970s there was a "scandal" about men having to go to Morocco to get the then brutal surgery. Subsequently it was available here. Of course tranvestites and drag queens were known about and as a child I recall Danny La Rue being a star of "light entertainment". The shift from a small part of society gradually getting to be accepted to a cause celebre seems to be, in the UK, the result of graduates of "Gender Studies" seeing the issue as a continuation of the gender war feminists had begun. Certainly in this country it is actually not "trans" people one sees on demonstrations but young people of the sort that always protest. In the last decade it has moved from a niche issue to a "cause". The really strange bit is that the placards are also pro abortion, and anti toxic masculinity , misogyny in the police, Rape campaigns etc.. I really don't know how feminists have the gall to pretend the" trans rights" movement is separate from feminism. At least Professor Stock ruefully admits the majority of its support comes from young women (though she stops short of admitting they're feminists). If they were being honest feminists would admit, as Julie Bindel has sort of, this is a campaign they put effort into in order to undermine the "patriarchy" (in the same way as adopting Gay rights) which has got its own legs now. And as such it has the same sort of intolerance of people wanting a quiet life, rather than seeing everything through a "political" lens.