I went back and actually managed to do this. For future readers: it's true that in 2022 Google disabled login with the normal login/pw but you can create app passwords to do this.
Thanks! This was actually the only working solution from at least 15 different sites.
:) hurray. I'm very happy it was helpful. I remember your exact sense of exasperation when my original SMTP provider started doing the same crap as the rest and I felt similar despair.