I think you overstate the level of lasting alienation and understate the cumulative impact that a bunch of small "trivial" changes could have over years.
For a hundred years after the Civil War, and then a solid 50 more after the Civil Rights movement, we had "white people doing nothing" plus "some still-racist white people actively trying to roll things back." Doing things, and keeping the issue in the forefront, even if the things sometime look silly to some people, is going to make us more progress than going back to doing nothing because some people think only the perfect things are worth doing.
(People getting affronted, offended, and alienated by actions that they think are "silly" is another problem entirely... You don't think it'll make a big difference? That's nice. Why are you making a big deal out of it, then? There's a virtue signalling of "look at how more evolved I am to not be fooled by your silly change, and still spot that the world still sucks after it!!")
For a hundred years after the Civil War, and then a solid 50 more after the Civil Rights movement, we had "white people doing nothing" plus "some still-racist white people actively trying to roll things back." Doing things, and keeping the issue in the forefront, even if the things sometime look silly to some people, is going to make us more progress than going back to doing nothing because some people think only the perfect things are worth doing.
(People getting affronted, offended, and alienated by actions that they think are "silly" is another problem entirely... You don't think it'll make a big difference? That's nice. Why are you making a big deal out of it, then? There's a virtue signalling of "look at how more evolved I am to not be fooled by your silly change, and still spot that the world still sucks after it!!")