I think this all happens mostly due to the stress trans people are inadvertently causing their parents. When your kid comes out of the closet, this will happen to a parent regardless of how liberal-minded they are. Even if you have no problem with the concept, your kid being trans brings about new kinds of threat scenarios you never had to think about before. If you’re a sensible, smart and handsome person like I truly fucking am, you can process it in a few years and come out as not being a 100% asshole towards the issue.

I feel like it’s more the opposite problem. For the parents, trans people are a vague boogeyman. They’ve never meant a trans person personally, and they’re constantly told that trans people are just waiting to jump them in the bathroom, or at sports, or all sorts of other things, so they’ve never had to contend with someone they know being trans.

If it was simply stress or threat to the kid, it wouldn’t really explain the reaction to disowning them, since most of those aren’t about the treatment that their kids would receive for being trans.