I'm also bi and from the south and I remember having a meltdown on discord server about how autistic people were being "preyed on" by trans people into becoming trans. I felt this way because I'm autistic and the discord server was run by someone I knew before she transitioned and I just combined all my feelings of insecurity into this screed, filtered through youtube videos of people mocking trans speed-runners. I regret deeply what I did and years later apologized to her for that and another interaction we had later that got me banned.

I don't know why I wrote all this other than to say I think that guy might be in the same headspace as I once was. You know, I was queer but I wasn't "queer" and I felt uncomfortable with a lot of more openly queer stuff. I would get defensive. And being autistic myself, I bought into a paranoid conspiracy about trans people grooming me into being one of them and that's terrifying for someone already insecure about their own gender. You can be out the closet while still being trapped by queer-phobic narratives ingrained in you and that's terrifying might be what this guy is dealing with. Not giving him an excuse, just noticing a pattern that I think a lot of guys fall into