it looks like Pinker is picking his examples to fit the theory

Eurotrib, get your debunkings seven years earlier. How time flies.

Rather, we are being used as a wedge issue to attack both gay rights with an aim on whittling minority rights generally.

Obviously: exploit the visceral fear/disgust and lack of understanding - because dysphoria is pretty much unimaginable to people who don't suffer from it - for trans issues as a wedge issue for the counter revolutionaries. Divide and conquer is the point of the Reagan/Thatcher counter revolution.

Who is using transgender political agitation to "whittl[e] minority rights generally"? Step back from hyperbole induced histrionics in media commentaries on the occasion of 2019 Pride month. Prohibition of sex discrimination (all of its instant permutations, including "gender" perception) in legislation and, most important, case law actually is not excluding transgender persons. Proceeding from a very important series of categorical ("protected class") opinions (beginning with Perry v. Schwartzenegger and culminating in Hollingsworth v. Perry) differential application of any state or federal law is impermissible. Of course, that doesn't immediately guarantee someone won't try. As they will every day, every year somewhere or another to some other representative member of a "protected class".

Iowa Sued Over Ban on Medicaid Funds for Sex-Change Surgery

Two transgender Iowans and a gay rights group backed by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the constitutionality of a new state law barring Medicaid coverage for sex-reassignment surgeries.
[...]
The law, passed on the final day of the Iowa Legislature's session and tacked on to a 108-page appropriation bill, was in response to a unanimous March 8 ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court striking down a state Department of Human Services rule excluding sex-reassignment surgeries from Medicaid coverage. The state's high court said the rule violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which includes gender identity among the protected characteristics.

"When Congress prohibited sex discrimination, it did so according to the plain meaning of the term, and we are making our regulations conform," said Roger Severino, director of the department's Office for Civil Rights.

I could argue that over the last four decades LGBQT have fomented more political divisions (by definition) in the USA than have "right-wing" reactionaries, wherever they may be found embedded in public offices including but not limited to ecumenical agents directed and financed by secular institutions. LGBQT activists have readily adopted specious argument which belie historical and concurrent civil rights legislation, litigation, and enforcement authority from the last century. The political agenda of this cohort is approaching the limit of grievances by its own designs on legitimacy. Competing interest in enforcement --those "wedge issues" inherent to sexual orientation-- within the ranks is illustrated in ideological disarray as well the prompt for discussion, "The lack of dedicated LGBTQ media is a disaster" (Bacharach, above).

I've thought about it --false dichotomies and "intersectional" calculus promoted by "the false left"-- a lot over forty years. I say that as one "in it but not of it", one who has been and remains an ally of "minorities" struggling to secure equal protection and enforcement of the laws of this nation while balancing "normative" shibboleths of "dignity" disposed to mere status quo ante victory; as one who has observed with dismay the degeneration of prescriptive action into revolving, rhetorical descriptions about "equality", "hate", and "empowerment" given by some figurehead of the day; as one who is reasonable suspicious of persuasion which advocates for primacy in peculiarity of suffering.

But for daily, conspicuous consumption of moral and industrial goods by "powerful" individuals, one might forget that we are all suffering at the hand of that nonpartisan minority. For rest of us our goal is to alleviate suffering regardless of hierarchy or condition of servitude, to commit our productive energy to positive reinforcement of institutional adaptation to diverse demands. Which means the majority of us need to acknowledge that barriers to achieving that goal lie not enumerating expressions of humanity by every conceivable ("demographic") characteristic --the infinitesimal "why" in or "how" of discriminatory affects; but in our failures wholly to affirm and demand from private- and public-sector agents of our governments the obligation to delivery essential utilities irrespective of the characteristics of any one.

As to speculation of a revival of "female homosexual" militancy, please note "news" so far removed from "solidarity" and "gender" coherence derived from "sexual revolution" as to be comical: LGBTQ Protest Under Fire from Zionists for Banning Pro-Israel Symbols

Dyke marches are a tradition in the U.S. that typically precede regular pride marches: they are distinguishable because they tend to engage in direct action, such as dropping banners and blocking traffic, and the participants typically hold more radical politics.

Writing a new book? pic.twitter.com/7LUxCnXmVo

— iA Inc. (@iA) 14. Juni 2019

antitrust law, established originally to limit corporate power

There are two rules on which US "elites" agree: (1) "free trade" and (2) the supreme corporate power, US fed gov. Restraint of trade violates the first, private trusts violate the second. See how sloooooowly the wheels of justice turn in the USA to protecting "the little guy".

I've already cited Justice Marshall's decision (1809) affirming the rights of citizens d/b/a corporations. 1st Amd assembly -> association clause. Nothing has changed.

Sherman Act (1890) - reactionary Civil War and Reconstruction era defense by US gov against systematic frauds by US contractors (aided by US reps); child of US False Claims Act (1863) still in force and somewhat productively, tho' attenuated in the yella sheets to protecting individual "professional" whistle blowers' careers. btw, John Sherman is Wm. Tecumseh's bro.

Clayton Act (1914)- amended the Sherman Act initially to exempt human labor (labor unions) from the scope of any law by states or fed gov regulating commodities or articles of commerce; and define four (4) impermissible trading practices. These are categorical. Clayton is the motherlode of antitrust actions across industry sectors. Specific violation is determined by litigation (findings of fact and findings of law), confusing "the little guy" as to which formula of HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL combinations of violations by one or more firms in "combination" (a/k/a cartel, denoting collusion) are or are not permissible. See Essays in competition policy, "Identifying antitrust markets" on how just one formula determines monopolistic effect in order to identify trade practices of one or more firms for prosecution in any industry.

Taft-Hartley Act (1948) - under the radar restrained (or arrested, detained, inhibited) "free trade"  of labor competing with capitalists (firms) for MARKET POWER --control of "prevailing prices" which may or may not reduce to adverse retail ("consumer") commodity rates in the estimation of US fed gov law enforcement, yo. Similarly, the European Labour Authority under the EC under TEU under EU Convention on Human Rights. Do you see all the exceptions to the rules?

Today's antitrust enforcement by US fed gov is the same as old antitrust enforcement by US fed gov with algorithmic "characteristics".

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.