This is part of a two-week discussion on trans issues. Click here to read the other essays in the series.

Transgender issues have never been discussed more than they are at present. Over the past year, barely a week has gone by without a British newspaper publishing a front-page splash on transgender issues. A rotating cast of columnists appear to be always on hand to discuss the current transgender talking-point. Factions that formed on social media have become real-world groups who hold public stunts, protests and counter-protests.

And yet there was little public controversy in Britain in 2004 when the Gender Recognition Act was introduced, codifying in law for the first time a process for transgender people to change their legal gender. Few paid serious attention to the provisions in the 2010 Equality Act, which cemented the rights of trans people to be treated as their chosen gender, with exemptions for single-sex services.

So when did things change? Why did this become the issue it is now? There’s one very specific moment where the switch flipped: on November 3rd 2015, in Houston, Texas. The city was voting on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, a law protecting gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender people in employment, housing and services. The conservative evangelical movement had been on a losing streak across America, their tired hymn sheet on the perils of homosexuality failing hard against the “love is love” mantra that was busy cementing equal marriage rights, anti-discrimination protections and rights for gay families across many states. But in Houston, a city that had demonstrated its strong liberal streak by thrice electing an out lesbian Mayor, Annise Parker, they opted for a new tactic. Rather than focus on gay people, the campaign hammered one consistent message: If you vote for this law, you are voting to allow transgender women into the women's bathroom. Women are not safe; girls are not safe; your family members are not safe. It was repeated in every interview, every release, every advert. A political action committee produced a targeted video ad depicting the implied rape of a little girl in a bathroom. It was, by all accounts, a low moment. But the campaign was devastatingly effective.

Five years after first electing Annise Parker, 61% of the people of Houston agreed that she and every other LGBT person could be discriminated against in employment, housing and services, owing to a fear of transgender people.

The surprising victory did not go unnoticed, and the tactic spread like wildfire in conservative circles. It spawned North Carolina’s famous bathroom bill, which took advantage of public concerns about transgender rights to undermine anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and bisexual people too. Copycat legislation sprang up across America, and the playbook crossed oceans. When Australia held a plebiscite on same-sex marriage in 2017, the Coalition for Marriage warned people about “gender-bending”. The Australian Family Association even ran a short-lived campaign to convince lesbians to vote against “transgender marriage”, for fear of “men becoming women and getting married”. It wasn’t enough to close the gap against equality, but it was enough to motivate 38% of Australians to vote No.

In Britain, fears unleashed by the bathroom scare have also taken hold, particularly over plans to update the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). But many of the concerns have been exacerbated by media coverage that has too often misunderstood or misrepresented the proposals.

The crux of the proposed changes are this: the gender-recognition system devised in 2004 allows trans people to update the gender on their birth certificates, but requires them to see two doctors, compile a mass of supporting documents and apply to a government-appointed panel who have never met them. It’s a humiliating process that a lot of transgender people are reluctant to undergo.

Campaigners want to streamline the GRA process to make it less bureaucratic, like systems in other countries, while potentially opening legal recognition up to non-binary people and teens. As the British government has been at pains to point out, those reforms will have no impact on where trans people can and can’t go, which has been based since 2010 on an effective self-declaration system with exemptions for single-sex spaces such as women’s refuges.

Much of the current public discourse on trans issues, such as what bathrooms people should use, whether you’re obliged to respect people’s chosen gender and what defines a woman, has about as much to do with these planned legislative changes as it does with gay people getting married in Australia.

But the reality of these reforms is lost in the public controversy. The gender-critical cause has also struck a chord with parts of the lesbian community, where many express concerns about trans women with “male genitalia”. This came to a head at Pride in London this year, when gender-critical activists disrupted the parade to protest against the proposed GRA reforms. The group carried signs claiming that trans activism “erases” lesbians, while their literature accused transgender people of complicity in “rape culture”.

It was a surreal moment, hearing a bathroom attack line that went mainstream fighting against LGBT rights in Houston repeated by lesbians on the streets of London. It was also a symptom of a deep division within the LGBT community, leaving some to wonder if the umbrella of “LGBT” has outlived its usefulness.

An answer of sorts was given in Canada this week where fears over “transgender ideology” were used as leverage to roll back an LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship education programme. Homophobia and transphobia are not the same, but they are linked as powerful tools in the arsenal of those who seek to undo equality.

The LGBT movement must wake up to these shared threats, and start understanding each other’s struggles. Divided, we are an easier target.

Nick Duffy is the Current Affairs Editor of PinkNews.