I saw this* video on YouTube of someone speaking out against government-run healthcare, and says that it shouldn't be compared to services like fire protection because the latter is there to protect the general public while the former is to provide "individual" services (e.g. a fire that isn't put out can spread and destroy others' property while a hurt individual can't "spread" it to others). I do not intend for this to become a debate on the healthcare issue, but rather an analogy and some insight on how TG-related legal issues' outcomes may be affected by whether it has potential to affect the general cisgendered population or is largely confined to the TG community (with the former more likely to result in a favorable decision).

For instance legal issues dealing with names and name changes are ones that have the potential to affect the general public, since everyone has a name and TG-related name changes make up only a small percentage of all name-change petitions. If a court were to rule that a TS cannot change his/her name because the name being sought is one associated with the opposite gender and tries to decide what qualifies as a "male" or "female" name, it may end up trickling down to setting up a list of what parents can or cannot name their children (thus affecting any parent deciding on a baby name).

By contrast the issue of whether or not a marriage involving a TG is valid (a common legal issue in the transgender community) is an example of one whose outcome will largely go unnoticed outside of the TG/IS community and those directly involved with such couples (e.g. a potential heir, as in the J'Noel Gardiner case). An ordinary cisgender couple will not be affected at all whether the courts rule favorably or unfavorably in a TG marriage case.

*These boards apparently automatically embed videos, which I don't want to do, so here is the URL for it (replace the space with a /):http://www.youtube.com watch?v=gCbV6CtFRP0

I didn't see the video, but I'd say that society has decided marriage does affect society, hence laws regulating it (requiring registration of marriage with the state, for instance).

I agree whether or not my marriage is valid is of little direct personal concern to most people.  But whether or not their marriage is valid is equally of little direct personal concern to me.  In fact, that may be an argument for the state getting out of the marriage business.  But the state routinely makes and enforces laws that affect individuals.

I'd also argue whether or not my marriage is valid affects nearly everyone I have a contract with, a loan from, am employed with, who may insure me, etc.  So it turns out to be a lot of people.  It's relevant to the Catholic hospital who must decide whether law requires them to grant me visitation, should my wife be sick.  It's relevant to copyright law (copyrights typically transfer to spouses on death of a spouse).  It's VERY wide-ranging.  It affects whether I can buy $100,000 stuff on credit cards and then sell everything to my wife for $1 and immediately declare bankruptcy without paying any of the credit card bills.  Etc.

For the US, the fire department example is a very bad one BTW.  We have areas without publicly-funded fire departments in the US, where fire response is a private concern contracted between land owners and the fire company.  As for government-run healthcare, I'd argue that communicable diseases are the reasons every state and most cities have a health department - clearly government involvement in health was considered important for other members of the community.