To be fair, I think it can be difficult to appreciate how it sounds if you aren't LGBT. If you're straight, you haven't been exposed to being demoralized because of your sexual orientation.

I understand the perfectly valid scientific use of it-- I'm just saying that sometimes people weaponize it. When you come across anti-gay rhetoric, it almost never uses the word 'gay'. It has phrases like "the homosexual agenda". The wording is specifically chosen to imply the group is lesser than others.

The preferred word of the ingroup will become the insult from the outgroup while the ingroup settles on a new term and round and round.

You can't really expect the written word to use the current preferred term.

The problem is never the words, it's the person behind them.

I hear “gay agenda” just as often, not to mention it was by far the more common high school taunt.