I didn't post this because I'm passionate about the topic, because truthfully: I'm not. I posted it because

• this has not been published by the alternative-lifestyle-supporting New York Times, but by The Washington Post.  That they see it as an important political culture wars issue is a strong signifier.
• I could be wrong but it seems to me from my reading and bouncing around the net that this is very much a favored culture war issue of the millennial generation, so many of them seem to care deeply about this, to the point of being passionate about it. As if the war over gay rights as well as skin color is over, done with and settled--only old fogies worry about those things and cross-gender are the only people who need a civil rights war now. (That unisex bathrooms are such hot fights is reflective of this.) It seems important to many younger folks that sexual identity of the future not be as rigid as it was in the past, including the effects on hetereosexual people.
• see above on possible millennial voting issues and patterns. For that very reason I was interested in Danny Cardwell's post in the summer: Lil Duval, Non Binary Genders & Questions About Rape. To me it was showing a development in the millennial generation where there is a passionate socially conservative cohort among certain groups of people of color that are otherwise socially liberal, that conflicts with others of their generation. And it's a very passionate fight and could definitely be manipulated by politicians