You only think we're in a regressive slide because you're losing the forest for the trees. When I graduated high school in 2000 there were 3 openly gay people that I was aware of in the entire school, which comprised about 2500 students. And transgender people just simply didn't exist as a part of public life. "Fag" was probably the most common insult almost everywhere. Compare that to today, and we're regressing in the same sense that Bill Gates's fortune regresses when the stock market has a normal noise fluctuation downward compared to what he had before Microsoft was a thing. It would be weird if there weren't societal friction given the radical changes in public life over the last decade or two. Friction isn't fascism. And friction due to giant leaps forward in the way people think should be welcomed, since it's the way we work through things. Denouncing everything you disagree with as fascism pretty much white washes fascism and helps ensure that when truly fascistic things happen that no one will pay any attention since it's hard enough to separate the signal from the noise.
Yes, I agree that the social pendulum swings, but if you can't see how ruthlessly the LGBTQ+ -phobia has been co-opted by the clearly fascist MAGA movement, I don't know what to tell you. And I have a very clear set of criteria for what I identify as fascist, or fascist-enabling, fascism-adjacent, etc. Truly fascistic things are happening. (just for your everlasting love of the .gif, and a big shoutout to Ron and Rand Paul)
The acceptance/tolerance of LGBTQ+ is a seismic shift? edit: Genuinely asking, this isn't a "gotcha" trap. I think that's what you meant, but it was unclear if you meant that the backlash was seismic. I think I know now that you meant the success of the LGBT movement.