How I explain this to my friends who like to make jokes about LGBT.

In highschool, I was alone. No friends. No body bullied me. When Ihl joined the work force (in fact, 2/3 jobs I had) it was the straights who made fun of me for being alone/weird.) It was the trans and non-binary coworkers who tried to help me and check in if I'm OK.

So now, even if my new job has no LGBT staff, I will defend them as much as I can, because they stood up for me before.