Call it speculation, but those are minor dips on the whole- any upward trend will come with temporary dips. The strides weve made in queer acceptance since, say, the mid 2000s, are staggering. The dips we notice come as the queer acceptance and gender equality movements have expanded to include fighting for trans folk, as well. We werent capable of even discussing trans rights up until recently, now it is a hot button issue.

Meanwhile, the average conservative is not the donald trump monster a lot of us are continuously made to believe in by the media we consume. The conservatives i work with on the daily are very quick to point out that they are accepting of gay ppl under far less conditions than they were even 10 years ago. As in, im not talking about, "not that theres anything wrong with that," but outright, "such and such coworker whom i hold in high esteem is/was gay," and then pretending that they were never part of the antigay crowd in the before times in the first place. The overall cultural shift in this country over the past 20 years has been astounding to see. I will grant that those same individuals might still have reservations towards gay adoption, but they do not feel like that is a safe thing to openly talk about.