I think it's healthy to try and avoid being in an echo chamber, and of course, your views don't have to entirely accord with those of your friends.
But as PP have said, there are some issues which are so important it becomes really difficult to be friends with people who feel differently.
I'm GC. That doesn't mean I don't believe that people should conform to gender stereotypes. Biological men can wear dresses, make-up and express themselves in the way that they feel the most comfortable. Same for biological women. Gender non-conforming people aren't anything new - in the 80s (when I grew up), it didn't really seem like such an issue to challenge gender stereotypes - and it feels as if we've regressed from that. No one should feel boxed in by their biological sex in terms of how they want to express their identity.
The reason that GC views are important to me is because it protects women. We are still such a very long way from achieving equality that when a trans woman (ie/a biological man) claims womanhood purely based on their inner feelings, not biology, and then is chosen as a representative for womanhood, we're denied yet another opportunity. We lose yet another chance to be heard. Trans women have not experienced the same things as women, they don't have the same biological disadvantages, and they don't have the same vulnerabilities. Their life experiences may have been difficult, but they're male experiences and very difference to what any woman will have gone through. Any ongoing difficulties they have will be generally relating to their trans identity and won't bear any resemblance to the difficulties women face.
If a trans women is a sex offender and allowed into private spaces, women are put at risk. unfortunately there have already been multiple cases of trans women raping and sexually assaulting biological women in spaces that were supposed to be excluding men - toilets, hospital, prison.
There are very good reasons why biological men are excluded from spaces. And now, women are supposed to allow fully intact males with penises into women-only spaces and just assume that they're safe? And even if they are safe, it's also about female preferences. Women who have experienced trauma or have religious beliefs are now excluded from entering those spaces because of the presence of a male body. Women are being told at rape crisis centres that they have to accept a male-bodied rape counsellor. 1:1 counselling in a small room with a biological male - after you've just been raped by a man. Jesus fucking Christ.
GC beliefs mean believing that women deserve the rights that the law provides them. We SHOULD be able to co-exist peacefully with the trans community and we SHOULD be allies. But while trans women are claiming women's rights for their own, trying to enter women's sports, and don't care about the rights of women, they're no allies.
And people who are on board with the TWAW theory are effectively saying that women's rights don't matter. And that's the problem. If you don't believe that women's rights matter, then it's going to be hard to be friends.
I have a very close gay (male) friend of mine who is vocally very supportive of the trans community - and yet I know for a fact he wouldn't ever consider a relationship with a trans man, even after surgery. So he's being deeply hypocritical but can't actually say otherwise or else he'll be ostracised by his own community. It has now affected our relationship because him and DP had a row about women's rights - and my friend basically said that they don't matter, and women don't have anywhere near the same problems as gay men or trans women. I don't really know how I'm going to continue being good friends with someone who fully expects me to support the gay community (and I do) but then won't extend the same care and consideration to women.