I think there’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying, though there’s a little more to the story. for reasons I don’t understand, the UK specifically has always been terfier than other Western countries. more lgb-friendly, but historically anti-trans. MumsNet was full of terfs with very similar demographics to Rowling years before trans awareness hit the spotlight.

I think we did a poor job educating potential allies and making a case for ourselves, in a way that got weaponized against us, but terf ideology is as old as Janice Raymond and second-wave feminism.