So what’s up with all these pronouns people demand to be called?

I’m not a bigot and I’m not trying to offend anyone here, and maybe someone from the LGBTQ community can school me on this:

I’m a straight male. Born in the early 80’s.
Here’s where I’m confused; I get that some people are gay and that’s fine by me (live and let live) I get that some people like to play dress up that’s fine if that’s your thing more power to you.

But why do people now feel the need to correct me when I refer to them as their natural gender pronoun when they appear to be a dude or appear to be a woman? Why do some people want to be referred to as “they” or “their”? WTF? And why is this being normalized?

I had a friend who was schizophrenic - he did a lot of acid back in the day. But not even he refers to himself as “they”.

Can someone please shed some light on this topic because I feel like I’ve woken up in the twilight zone.