Help? Supportive person became queerphobic.

Hello, I am new here and in need of advice.

I live in a country where most people are homophobic. I am only out to 2 people, my closest friends. One of them became very religious recently and it changed his views a lot. He used to be an ally, incredibly supportive. Since he became religious we stopped talking about anything LGBTQ+ related, but I thought he was still supportive.

I was wrong. He recently made a very quick transphobic comment publicly. It wasn't a joke, he pretty much said something like "I am against these types of things". I just can't believe this happened. I'm not trans, so I guess perhaps he feels comfortable enough to straight up say that in front of me, while avoiding the topic of orientation (something that specifically applies to me). But I do not want to be friends with a transphobe. I want to talk to him 1 on 1 about his views, and I suspect this will be the end of our decade long friendship. I just don't understand why and how he changed like that. I really really hope there's a chance he'd rethink his views.

If any of you had an experience of successfully changing someone's opinions on LGBTQ+ in a positive way, can you please share your stories and advice? If he changed once already, I'm really hoping he could change again...