I disagree about Garrison. While Ms. Garrison wasn't portrayed as a very likeable character, she was always shown as somebody confident and self-empowering. She went on a journey, discovered herself, and was immediately fired from her job as a teacher: we the viewers were meant to be sympathetic to that plight. Later, she is depicted as sleeping with Richard Dawkins an uncomfortable number of times on screen, which is clearly not a visual that a homophobe would create.
I haven't seen the detransition episodes, though, so maybe those were different.
I agree on the other stuff you said, though, especially the irreverence and their role as jokers.