There have been drag queen shows in America for a very long time and for the most part that teensy percentage of the population coexisted peacefully among other America citizens. For the vast majority of us, there was a live and let live attitude.
And if most citizens considered them weird, freaks, outliers, they were for the most part tolerated and were sometimes entertaining. People had harmless fun with them such as in this scene from "Crocodile Dundee":
They became an issue only because the left has made them the poster children for every immoral thing the left stands for, has been in our faces with them, has infested our schools and institutions with lewd drag queen shows and demands that the huge majority of us accept and make accommodations for that teensy percentage. When they allowed biological males to take records, scholarships, opportunities from women and forced women to be at increased risk in what was once inviolable safe spaces for women.
They became an issue when our government allows them to control national defense and/or policy in ways that most Americans disagree.
They became an issue when they demanded that their most vulgar, obscene elements be incorporated into school curriculum and library books and that very young children be indoctrinated with it.