Gender identity politics are tied to a rather high frequency stream of current events; similar to racial politics in the 1950s-1960s, as are the culture wars of which they are a major current battleground (again, just as racial politics were in the 1950s-1960s.)
For vaccines, the main driving force for the issue’s current attention is RFK, Jr.’s Presidential campaign, which is certainly a current event.
If you think Elon is the reason people are talking about those things and not current events, you need to crawl out of whatever filter bubble is shielding you from current events (or just stopping arguing based on your supposed knowledge of them if you are content in that bubble.)
A nonsensical moral panic, concocted by the far right, targeting a vulnerable, minority that is small percentage of the population, is a bit of the tail wagging the dog. Having lost the battle against civil rights for racial minorities, they’ve now found it easier to use social media to rally people around discriminating against a tiny subgroup of gender ones. What a surprise!