As a non-USian viewing all this from the outside, I’d say blaming the people at the bottom for what the largest gaslighting machine in the history of human civilization has managed to achieve is absolutely masochistic.

Your anti-democratic political establishment is to blame for this.

We need less progressives and less conservatives. What we need more of is radicals.

We desperately need a third or multi party system

So, instead of fixing the problem, you merely suggest adding a third element to it?

make their gender the defining aspect of their character

The vast majority of cishet people (if not all) make their gender the defining aspect of their character - so why should trans people be any different?

There are very few actual atheists - if any. Most “atheists” I’ve encountered are just edgy non-practising Christians. And I bet that goes for other parts of the world with other religions, too.