Gay people fought for years for acceptance of the fact that their relationships are valid, normal, equal and acceptable. They were - and still are - told that this simply couldn’t be so, that the biological reality is that sex is for procreation and requires a man and a woman, that homosexuality is a mental illness, that sexual identity is a made up thing.
Firstly 'sexual identity' is not a thing. You can't 'identify' as gay or straight, it is just what you are. It was always called 'sexual orientation' which was a perfectly adequate description, but this has now been taken over by 'identity'.
The argument was that homosexuality is wrong because it 'goes against nature' or whatever. Its never been impossible to have gay sex, people just thought (and think) it was morally wrong or 'a sin'. No one (well at least no one on FWR) is saying that transgenderism is 'wrong' or that it is a sin for a man to want to become a woman. They are just saying its simply not possible, for many reasons.
On the mental illness thing there seems to be a bit of a contradiction going on. Gay people always argued that being gay is not a mental illness, it was unanimous. Amongst the trans agenda, people can't seem to agree. On the one hand we have people saying they have gender dysphoria which is a mental illness, which is why everything should be enshrined in law, and they should have access to surgery and hormones etc. And then on the other hand there is a very loud contingent arguing that being trans isn't a mental illness in the same way that being gay isn't. So which is it?
There was a similar gay panic over children too. Gay people were accused of preying on young people, of pedophilia, of trying to lead children astray and convince them that they might be gay. It was illegal to discuss homosexuality in schools in case it made kids think they were gay, in case it normalised something that many people viewed as threatening and unacceptable.
The section 28 thing was obviously ridiculous because you can't 'convince' anyone to be gay. Telling children that it's OK to be gay, that some people are gay and that's fine etc isn't ever going to make them gay because you can't 'make someone gay'. Because as I said above, being gay isn't an identity, its just a description for who one is attracted to. It's just what you like, and you can't help what you like.
I believe this is very different to telling children that if you like certain things, or want to present in a way that is outside of what is normally associated with your sex, then it is possible that you are trans, that there is something wrong that needs correcting. See Mermaids and their 'are you Barbie or GI Joe on the gender spectrum?' crap that they are now pedalling in schools. If children are being exposed to this then of course anyone who is outside of what is normally associated with 'boy' or 'girl' is going to think they are trans. It's totally different.
And finally, there are safeguarding concerns around some of the guidance being given to schools. For instance encouraging secrets to be kept between staff and children. This goes against basic safeguarding and begins to open loopholes which could be exploited.
Sorry about the essay here, but there are so many differences between the gay rights movement and the current agenda. The concerns of women around some aspects of the trans movement are nothing to do with homophobia, and the homophobia of days gone by is being used as a sort of 'oh, you don't want to end up looking like them do you, you don't want to be on the wrong side of history do you' stick to beat women who have concerns with.