Also what has me confused is say I get usdt in Tron network. When you want to send usdt in tron network to someone... do you need to make two separate transactions? One is sending the Tron fee first... and then send the usdt in the tron network? Do you make each payment one after another to the usdt tron address you are sending to?
Tron will serve as the gas fee, it's the same process with USDT(ERC20) Ethereum. So, that's only one transaction that you need to make and you need to make sure that you have TRX as balance for the fee.
I've done this before many times and I can say that it's very cheap.
But with your case,
Would I just get btc and then use one of those anonymous crypto services like changelly to do this? Or fees are very high if I'm doing a small amount?
It's better to just send it directly without going through any swap because with little amount that you want to send, better just use another altcoin like Litecoin or XRP that has cheap transaction fees and easy to trade.