It's pretty much this. Democrats messaging is so weak their platform is being decided for them

There were hundreds of billed proposed and passed by Republican led states. When Democrats even lightly pushed back, Republicans accused then of being more focused on trans people rather than economic issues.

It wouldn't be a problem if they cared about the trans community. An easy platform to stand on is, being an opposition party, to protect everyone from oppressive assault on human rights. But they don't want to say that. They have no coherent platform, which allows words to be put in their mouth