I think most republican law makers don’t actually care about trans people, they’ve just been successfully marketed too by anti trans demagogues that it is in their interests to push these policies.

If they’re evangelicals, then going after trans people is a way to push the Overton window back towards punishing gay people and enforcing their religious vision of patriarchy.

If they’re people who want to privatize all school then it’s another wrench they can throw in to the operations of public schools make them more dysfunctional and hated.

If they’re libertarian de-regulators, then it’s a new minority to scape goat when out of control private companies fuck up. (Read how they blamed POC and gay people for ruining major franchises, rather than unregulated consolidation and shitty management strategies)

Most of these are actually not very sound strategies and probably won’t work, but the anti-trans demagogues have successfully sold right wing leaders and politicians on the idea that this new plank to their platform will help them win in 2024. Frankly, I think they’re setting them selves up for disaster as most democrat politicians and pundits are just going to not engage with them on It and call them weird for obsessing over other people genitals. But the anti trans demagogues will get what they want, the laws will go through in red states with no opposition but from trans people and their actual allies.