Lovesagin, that's been my experience, too. Apart from the self-ID and transing children, there's also a huge lag of understanding about the current state of mainstream trans ideology. Most liberal people are still back in the older, tolerant, 'we need to respect people's lifestyle choices' and 'gender dysmorphia is very traumatic and those who suffer it deserve support, respect and protection' mode. They assume people labelled 'transphobic' must hate trans people and wish them harm, which is why the word has such power. Underneath, there's a bedrock of fact, even if it's unspoken: people know that trans women are born male, and have transitioned to living as women.
I see this everywhere, even on threads where people bemoan how bored they are of the trans discussions and how horrible MNers are.
These people need to know that they are transphobic, under the current terms of discussion. Being trans is neither a lifestyle choice nor a mental illness. Trans women are women. They were born women. To draw, even indirectly, any attention to the fact that they are physically male is an act of abuse akin to physical harm, and to show that you are obsessed with genitals and old-fashioned 'folk biology'. To question any aspect of this ideology is to prove yourself a bigot. If you question the increasingly-wide use of the term TERF, and the accompanying misogyny and threats of violence, then you're probably a TERF.
The bad news is that people are reluctant to risk an accusation of bigotry, and so don't tend to ask questions if the situation doesn't seem conducive to that - and nearly all trans discussions I see outside MN actively dissuade, or forbid, difficult questions. So there's a haze of embarrassed, hesitant confusion over the issue. (And I'm sure a not-insignificant number of people see 'incorrectly assigned male at birth' and assume this relates to an intersex condition.)
But the good news is that I've never seen anyone respond to genuine, comprehensive examples of current trans ideology without eventually saying... what the actual fuck?
Transactivism seems to be one of those issues where the more you're directly exposed to it, the more reservations you develop, until something really pushes you over the edge. So it's great that it's receiving widespread coverage, but it's crucial that it's counterbalanced with a right to reply and express these reservations. Otherwise, it becomes one of those topics where everyone secretly, quietly knows it's bullshit but nobody feels able to say anything, even while legislative changes are codifying it into law.