I understand that change is hard and that for many people transgender issues are confusing. (I’m not sure why, exactly, it’s not like it’s new. I knew transgender people back in the 70s…) The apparently desire among the right wing to cause harm to transgender people, ostracize them, discriminate against them — especially those who have turned it into a culture war crusade for cynical political purposes — is making me sick. And the fact that they feel the need to lie about constantly tells you everything you need to know: On Jan. 11, 17-year-old Rebecca Phillips approached the lectern at a sparsely attended city council meeting in Santee, a suburb of San Diego, California. No item on the agenda brought her to city hall that night. Instead, she tearfully recounted how a local YMCA had followed state law and company policy by allowing a transgender woman to use the same locker room that she did. She had no contact with the woman and claimed only to have seen her, but the experience left her “terrified,” she said. From there, a symbiotic network of local and national right-wing media began passing the story upwards, catapulting Phillips to the airwaves of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight in just six days. But while Phillips earned the adulation of a constellation of conservative and far-right actors—including a former politician himself accused of sexual misconduct in public bathrooms—the subject of her outburst became a national target. Christynne Lili Wrene Wood, a 66-year-old Navy veteran and retired civil servant, had…