No Stupid Questions

95% because they're basically nazis.

puts on prof hat

Well, in some countries, there was indeed historical link between sexual/gender minorities and pedophile advocacy movements (well "movements" is kind of a strong word here) during the 1950s to 1980s. It's hard for us to understand today, but during my studies, I've worked on that topic and met a few people invested in creating or dismantling this link.

But :

1. It didn't last for long.
2. That's certainly not what they have in mind.
3. Most importantly, although public and documented cases exist, those minor parts of the LGBT movements were CERTAINLY NOT the strongest allies of the pedophile advocacy movement. Their strongest allies were actually well.. more probably from the ruling class.

Projection and prejudice, probably.

They took all the lessons learned from the satanic panic and the gay panic and applied them to the next target.

if you believe that sex and gender are synonymous and assigned at birth then someone who doesn't like their gender becomes a walking contradiction.
any person with a healthy relationship to having their worldview challenged would see that and think "hey maybe i was taught wrong"

unfortunately for everyone on earth conservatives define themselves by thinking that what they were taught is the rightiest thing ever actually so that doesn't happen

as for why pedophiles specifically, they're a group of people who are so thoroughly hated any and all violence against them is 'justified'

Transgender people often (wrongly) get their gender identity conflated with their sexuality. Transphobes already have a visceral reaction to a transgender person, so those feelings automatically extend to how they see a transgender person's sexuality. And as others have mentioned they may be projecting their own perversions on other people. They have an unhealthy view of sexuality in general, which may be the origin for their transphobia aswell.

When I came out to my mother as transgender she had a hard time dealing with it. She seemed to have a weird fixation with my sexuality and sexual orientation whenever I tried to educate her on the subject, even after I explained to her that sexuality and sexual orientation is not related to my transgender identity.

My mom has always been a prude when it came to raising her boys and constantly would police our vocabulary and sexual jokes. But she had no issues making jokes and comments about my sexuality when I came out to her as a transgender woman. So I can only assume she had unresolved issues with the way she sees sexuality in a way that it makes her uncomfortable and she was projecting her own perversions and unhealthy view of sexuality onto my transgender identity. Because to her why else would I transition if not for my sexual perversions, since that's the only way she can see world.

On a side note, ever since I started my transition I pretty much stopped watching porn all together. I masturbate less and my mind isn't constantly fixated on sex and I'm able to experience the world through a much healthier lense. When I'm attracted to someone now, I'm not distracted by my sexual impulses as much and I'm much better able to connect with them as a person. So in short, embracing my transgender identity has dramatically decreased my uncontrolled sexual impulses. So when people paint us as some sort of deviant perverts, it's actually quite the opposite and nothing could be further from the truth. Not to mention, our sexuality is only a sliver of our transgender identity and we don't care for strangers making it a focus.

FWIW, this was the same thing that homophobes were doing to gay people.

It's not based in evidence or logic.

Could be that phenomenon (illusory correlation?) where there are a few rare examples of someone who is [sexual minority aka. gay/trans] is also a pedophile, and that particular example of a crime becomes prolific...but the general population doesn't have any experience with [sexual minority] people. So they assume that being [sexual minority] means you also have pedophilic tendencies because that's the only connection they know thanks to that prolific crime.

Apart from concerted sociopolitical efforts to make an underclass that can be harmed at will and blamed for everything, there's a couple of less deliberately malicious explanation for a lot of people.

1: Category violation -> perversion -> predator -> monster.

2: I don't think it's real -> they are lying -> why would they lie about gender -> to lull people into a false sense of security -> predator -> monster

Both are of course incredibly false and hateful, and both of course are pushed maliciously and cynically by many, but I think some people are actually taken in by one or other of these.

when most trans people (as do most people) hate pedophiles.

People do not choose to be pedophiles just like gay people do not choose to be gay.

Its the way your brain is wired and hating people because of something out of their control force them into the shadows, prevent them from getting the help they need and make the problem much worse.

As long as a pedophile doesn't not commit a crime by acting on their desires, they don't deserve to be hated

They are pedo projecting. Every accusation is a confession. The ones that call random people & groups pedos without any evidence like Musk does are telling on themselves.

It's just bigotry and there is no logic.

most people already (unfairly) brand pedophiles as monsters, and so placing trans people into the same category as pedophiles is a way of alienating trans people from the "regular folk", marking them as the same "monsters" as "pedophiles".

to clarify on the "unfairly": pedophilia is a paraphilic disorder (a paraphilia (a subjectively "atypical" fetish) that, when satisfied, may bring harm to others), not a crime; attraction is not sexual assault.

Because trans people are different, and they're afraid of different people. So they make assumptions that those people are somehow dangerous. Racism, xenophobia, transphobia; it's all the same stupid mentality.

Once you call someone a pedo, that's it end of thought end of evidence. They are a oedo and so they are evil

projection, mostly. they can't imagine being in a women's space without taking advantage of it, and they don't understand that that's a them issue.

To transphobes, ANY acceptance of trans folks is too much acceptance. So, they try and spread propaganda that’s awful and scary. Unfortunately, enough ignorant people will believe it. When dealing with the general public, you almost can’t have a reasonable discussion on the topic without pedophilia coming up. The subject is complex enough, and this further muddies the waters, which is what transphobes want. Even though it’s been debunked, there’s now an association in some people’s minds between transsexuals and pedophilia.

Eventually people will laugh at this idea, and look at it the way we look at tragic paranoia like the Salem witch trials. Sadly, that won’t happen soon enough to help the people whose rights are being violated right now.

Can’t call em Nazis, so that’s the next worst thing on the list.

Because projection.

Projection is confession when one chooses to inflict pain on others and self.

They want to abuse children. By blaming trans folks, they ate seeing up “see they do it too!” as cover for their evil actions.