Fetishism or sexual paraphilia was only ever claimed to make up a portion of transgenders. Personally I think it's a high amount because trannies often act obsessed with sex and their genitals. It's obviously a combination of psychological issues and social conditioning. The theory being discussed in your article has long been proposed to explain homosexual men and metrosexuals.

I still maintain that it's a fetish and a tool used to adopt a group identity because of shame of their core identity.
I don't believe it's a coincidence that with the rise of identity politics we also saw the rise of transgenderism and people identifying as random crap — even some stupid ways to say "straight" but with a convoluted explanation for why it's different. It's trend chasing nonsense overall; which is also why it's most prevalent in youths. The increase has been so dramatic, that in 2007 there was only one single gender clinic in all of America and in 2021 there are now over 300 of them. The industry itself is on its way to becoming a billion dollar industry within the next couple years. But for now, I'm more fascinated by the psychological aspect.

Humans are intrinsically social creatures who strive to fit in with the group, because throughout history that's been the primary method of survival, so at a very core level evolution has wired us to desire social acceptance.
For men, we've seen their core identity shattered and labeled as "toxic" and inherently evil. If you are a "straight [white] man" then all evils of society, both past and present, lie solely at your feet. Even when other groups are the perpetrators, the blame has been shifted to you and they're just a victim of society. Every "victim group" promulgated in media now perpetuates this myth. Many people go along with it excitedly because it gives them the opportunity to absolve themselves of their own actions and place blame elsewhere for their failures. It's built on revisionist history that obfuscates what actually took place in order to prey on people's insecurities. It's ideological fanaticism at its finest. For young men, their core identity has been weaponized against them and used by acidulous activists to further their ideologies. The lack of proper role models, parental involvement, and their consumerism habits, have led to these young men developing a disdain for themselves.

For women, it's a bit of the same but at the same time, the opposite. Women in western society are inherently consumer oriented and raised in a culture that promotes female materialism — they make up something like 85% of consumer purchases. Far more than men, their desire for social acceptance is a top priority for them. This is likely a main reason we see so many "Karens" as well as their constant virtue chasing and appeals to emotion. They seek validation from others because they've been raised to believe social status is a top priority in life.
When they're inculcated with the belief that "men have it so much easier than women in all facets of life," which they're likewise bombarded with through their own consumer lifestyle, it's bound to cause some inimical effects on their psyche. This applies in particular to the ones who can't coast by on their looks alone. When this is combined with a part of their own core identity being shattered through revisionist history, as well as the pernicious feminist belief that essentially amounts to the ideal version of a woman, ironically, being a masculine one, we get results that I feel are somewhat expected.

What are the consequences of these things? Both have been fed mendacious narratives that lead to their core identities being destroyed, which in turn leads to confusion and frustration. They know who they are and that they're not bad people; however, that doesn't stop every facet of life that they participate in from telling them that they are. They have difficulty reconciling with this because they're young, depressed, insecure, have low self-esteem, and a complete lack of self-confidence; a recipe for disaster.
Since they seek social acceptance to try and fill the void inside themselves that only they themselves can fill by being confident, self-assured, firm in their beliefs, etc., they seek out a way to fill it through the validation of others — who happen to be the same people who made them feel that way to begin with. It's almost an alternate form of Stockholm Syndrome. The young men close themselves off, shut themselves inside, become socially isolated, and seek to relieve their loneliness and desire for affection through porn-addiction. The young girls search out groups that will give them the social status they feel denied to them in mainstream culture (a key component), they become hyper-sexual, attention seeking, dive deeper into virtue chasing, and scramble to forge a new identity.
Eventually, many of them will come to the same conclusion that so many have come to before them: if they're core identity is bad and evil, then it would simply be easier to adopt a group identity; one that's protected and above scrutiny; an identity that can make them feel safe and that they can't be attacked for. An identity praised simply by virtue of it's existence. Society will go out of its way to praise and elevate them and the same people who made them feel awful will now fight for them. Now they'll be able to share in all of the successes of the group and feel validated. It reaffirms their belief that they truly were the good ones all along. Then they'll inflict the same pain and suffering onto others that they were inflicted with, because now they, themselves, are part of the victims' group and it's what the group demands — they'll become the abusers of the "bad and evil" group they were previously associated with. All it cost them was their intellectual and individual identity — not a bad deal to them.
This is also why they're so intent on forcing their beliefs onto others and using whatever tools are available to make them play along. Many of them know this group identity is built on top of a foundation of all of the things mentioned. Should mainstream society begin to question it and it slowly begins to fall apart, then they may be faced with the prospect of confronting their issues. That takes a lot more work than letting a group do that for them.
The MtF's come to realize that no one truly sees them as women. Even if they're now "lesbians" or "bisexual" it still didn't help them to gain the affection of women they've been made to believe that they so desperately need to gain. They also realize in many cases the transition only exacerbated their problems and didn't actually solve anything for them. While they certainly enjoy many of the mentioned perks, those weren't the only thing they were looking for and they come to realize that the majority of the praise and adulation is all plastic and fake; a token for people to use to collect virtue.
The FtM's, who have an exponentially easier time passing, eventually come to realize something that's likely even more shocking. They find out that men actually have it much harder in so many aspects of life that they never even considered before. Previously, people would give them attention, acknowledgement, the benefit of the doubt in certain situations, just for being women. After transitioning, they find they're walking on eggshells around women and children, or learn the expectations of current society for men that have been created by activists and women, and it often floors them. In fact, if you're ever bored, go check out one of their communities where they frequently talk about how their lives have become far more difficult as men, because they're no longer elevated as they were as women. On top of that, they have to deal with the emotional expectations that come with being a man and it becomes a very difficult thing for them to deal with. It provides some interesting reading material to say the least.
 
So what happens next? Everyone makes mistakes; it's part of life. When we're young in particular, we do a lot of really dumb shit that we likely end up regretting later; however, the tragedy is that in most cases, society offers pushback on those things — not affirmation. Grown adults should know better than encouraging children to participate in this crap without very careful consideration. Medical professionals especially should know this better than anyone, because of the permanent harmful side-effects this process can entail. That's simply not happening, though. At least, not until it's well after the fact. Already we're seeing huge amounts of trans people regretting their decision as puberty finally passes and the troubles that are concomitant to it slowly begin to subside. They're seeking out support for detransitioning and asking why society never tried to stop them or guide them toward seeking mental health assistance. In fact, there are entire organizations right now being built just to assist with both the mental and physical consequences of transitioning and regretting it. Many within their community eventually come to the realizations I've pointed out, in some form or another, and also realize that the path they chose is like putting a band-aid over a gunshot wound. It's a temporary solution that rarely works in the end, because any identity that has it's foundations in tearing others down to build itself up is always going to be shaky at best. In no better way is this illustrated in the trans community than in their attempted suicide rate of nearly 50% and in their rates of depresion at around 65%.

Ultimately, I do think we're going to see this trend continue while also seeing an even larger trend of people regretting their decision. Right now, we don't know what the long-term effects will be. What we can likely guess, however, is that we're going to see an increase in suicides and mental health issues, as this generation, which has fallen into this abyss, finally gets through their formative years and gains the rationality that comes to most in adulthood. I guess we'll have to see where it goes from there.

 
TLDR; Consumerism and mental illness has screwed their brains.

I thought you'd have something better in store than a BBC propaganda piece.