I don't think this conclusion is justified by the data, though. If this were just a matter of "they'll humor trans people, but everyone secretly knows trans women are men and treats them accordingly," you'd expect gay men to generally be attracted to trans women. But by all accounts I've heard, the people who are attracted to trans women tend to be straight men, just like any other woman. It's true that straight men are generally less likely to be attracted to trans women than cis women, but this just shows that being transgender is unattractive to them. Gay men are even less likely to be attracted to trans women, so it's clearly not as simple as "people actually perceive them as male and treat them accordingly."

Here’s some actual data that suggests “trans women are women for dating purposes” is the opinion of only a small minority:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026540751877913...

This data supports my point. It does not say "trans women are treated as men for purposes of dating," it says "trans women are not broadly considered attractive." They specifically call out that few people of any sexual orientation want to date trans women. But those who are interested in dating trans women tend to be people who date women.

This paper article cites that 3% of strait people would consider dating a hypothetical trans person of the gender they are attracted to.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog...

The question is not "would you consider a trans person as a sexual partner" -- the question is, "do you consider a trans person to be the gender they identify as".

There are a lot of women I would not want to sleep with. Does not mean I question their gender.

It shows that most people don't consider them equivalent to women as sexual partners. We were discussing how in some demands trans people are considered and are not considered as their gender of choice. If you ask would you date a woman and someone says yes, then ask would you date a trans woman and they say no, that shows that they are differentiated for the purposes of this question

Exactly my point. Many hold the philosophy that discriminating between the two in any context is an attack.

Most heterosexual men identify as being attracted to women, and don't hold trans women in that category.