Its legitimately because these people feel like life has zero meaning. I was friends with a guy who looked similar (he once showed me a picture), except this was 2007 so instead of believing he was a girl he believed he was a cat. Clearly the world had been so unkind to him that he wanted to be ANYTHING but himself. Legitimately his life sucked, and I felt really bad for him, he was a decent guy under all of his messiness.

I figure it's the exact same thing, socially outcast kids who have no hope to succeed. They see that basically, by being trans, they can be a sassy punk rock girl lesbian who if they get insulted, get a get out of jail free card. And it works, people attacked this dude for being a pedophile and people were like "noooo, he's trans you can't"