1 The piece is very poorly written, but that's today's standard. There are no journalists today.
It is difficult to follow applications of the points being made, but they are not new points. The medical practice has been pointing out these same things for many years, including that "transgenderism" is the only case of a patient's disagreement with reality being treated by encouraging the patient to live in unreality.
It's much like a patient telling his therapist he thinks he's President Trump, so the therapist tells him to move in to the White House.

2 Yeah; writing is a lost art, Bill. And the young people really are bad about it (many of the writers at the Federalist are younger conservatives.) And this is not new information, as you say; it's been around for a long time. I'm just glad to see it out there at a sight that the younger conservatives read; too many of them are on board with this stupidity.