If a man in a squirrel suit isn’t really a squirrel, why is a man in a dress a woman

I was watching an old episode of Law and Order, and in it, this young jr. high aged boy is getting dressed, puts on makeup and a dress, tells his parents goodbye and heads off. He ends up in Central Park, a group of young black boys tease him, push him off a bridge, and the young man ultimately dies.
Throughout the episode, the cops on the case continue to refer to the boy as a she and of course, the episode glamorizes the boy and paints him as a hero. The boys are charged with a hate crime and convicted.
It made me wonder, how did we go so quickly from a few years ago when gays weren’t allowed to marry, to calling boys in dresses, women?
Certainly, if the same boy had been wearing a a squirrel suit, the cops wouldn’t have described him in their reports as a squirrel, but instead, a boy in a squirrel costume.
We are being dragged down a very dangerous path.