House passes $895 billion defense bill with controversial provision on gender-affirming care : neoliberal

They need to come up with a new strat.

The whole "trans-kids require hormone therapy and surgical intervention or else they will keep themselves safe" was a risky claim that relied on The Science validating them at some point. It was a mostly political angle that relied on prior public trust and goodwill from debates surrounding abortion and standard treatment of mental illness. But The Science never did back up that claim (despite the studies being done by activist researchers).

And I suspect a huge contributing factor was how individuals with severe depression inducing body dysphoria never represented the vast majority of all trans-people in the first place. The attempt to group trans-people for a convenient political talking point to wave around ("You're literally murdering trans-kids if you don't give them hormone blockers chud!") backfired as the Trojan Horse they all climbed into ended up falling apart before the gates.