what makes electronic music created in a DAW not “real”?

Multiple problems with this one.

For one, acquiring an instrument is expensive - even secondhand, most instruments cost a significant amount of money. Learning it properly is even more important and expensive - fixing something in a DAW is easy, unlearning muscle memory is much harder.

Keeping up said muscle memory also isn't easy. Sure, if you got a free-standing house, no one will care much about a drum set, trumpet or whatever. But most people don't have that luxury in urban sets any more, and typical residential building quality makes even some electronic instruments (e.g. kicks still cause some amount of noise passing through floors) a challenge. Building noise ordnances / HOA rules are a bitch on top of that - most allow only a limited time window in the afternoon, useless for working-class people.

Local community groups... if your community has one, and they have some studio space where noise doesn't matter, great! Most, unfortunately, don't - space in urban environments is already rare and at a hefty premium, space that accepts noise and has adequate resources (in practice: a usable toilet is the most important) is even rarer.