[miki123211]

I think it's partly also about what you see first.

It's far easier to be transphobic / racist / furry-phobic if the first thing you notice about a person is their gender / race / furriness.

If you are that kind of person, you immediately get into the mindset of "what they're saying isn't worth listening to because they're a <slur>, and <slur>s can't be smart by definition." If you first meet them online, you picture them as smart in your head, before you learn that they're black / trans / furry. When you do learn about that, you already think that they're smart, so it's much harder for your brain to dismiss them just because they're something you don't like.