My personal feeling is that a large proportion of this is driven by sexual fetish and entitlement. C.f., widows/cotton ceiling etc. Being the very obvious - and highly repugnant ones.
What might've been called transvestism 20 years ago has gone mainstream and by being "nice" we're not screaming "save it for Saturday night clubbing! ". Boundaries of what we should accept sexually have been stomped on - I'm also wholly against the entire pornification movement and modern sexual expectations. Each to their own and all - but.. I think it used to be quite niche to find a soulmate equally into "advanced play".
I find it utterly terrifying that a sexual fetish is out there and we're being coerced into participating by way of threats.
I have gay friends who embrace drag - but don't claim to be women and certainly don't want to have sex with women.
I've tried myself in knots writing this... You know, in case it's "mean" to suggest a significant percentage of a subset are driven by sexual motive. Pretty sure that's a good definition of what it means to be a woman. 
Have I completely got the wrong end of the stick or is there a highly sexualised element to all of this? And... Because it is sexually driven - I believe these people ARE a greater sexual risk to women than others. I don't think transmen are a physical or sexual risk to biological males.
I've known a couple of transexuals over the years - all living as "Maureen the librarian" and not "Tallulah the 18 year old pole dancer".