Here's to the backlash to the backlash. I agree this is hugely important and I certainly hope women will unite around this.
I'm new to this debate as I'd just had no idea that all of this was happening, so apologies if I'm saying what's been said umpteen times already, but my take on why this group have achieved so much change so quickly is that it's a different paradigm from every other group fighting for change/equality/rights. Every other situation is a case of the less powerful minority taking on the existing power base, and whatever rights they gain involve concessions of some kind from that power base.
It's an uphill struggle all the way: you're going against the status quo, fighting against a more powerful opponent from a position of relative weakness, trying to turn something around and replace what's been around since forever with something new.
Which I guess was the case with the original transactivists too.
But as vesuvia says, the demographic has changed, and the most vocal transactivists now are basically men demanding concessions from women - ie the members of the traditional power base using their traditional power and privilege over the less powerful group. And look how much easier that makes it.
They're walking in the well worn channels of men dismissing women's needs and rights for centuries. They are the more powerful group, asserting their dominance over the weaker. They're not fighting the status quo, they're reinforcing it. There is no uphill struggle because this is the way it's always been.
And yet to rub salt in the wound they get brownie points and extra support from those who traditionally are on the side of minorities, for being "progressive". Traditional male dominance and oppression dressed up as fighting for equality and minority rights. Marvellous.
Slightly off topic, but not really, I was saddened by Obama's message of congratulations to Jenner. I'm sad that he's been suckered by this charade. As an apparently loving husband and father of daughters, I would have hoped he'd examine the implications a bit further before agreeing so glibly that this is a marvellous step forward. But I guess it's a sign of just how far the trans lobby's power reaches, and how intelligent people - men and women - on the liberal spectrum have been seduced into thinking this is a good idea.