My daughter is queer and it is to my shame that when I was around her age (13), I used “gay” and “fag” as insults. This was Indiana in the late 1980s. That’s not an excuse for my behavior, just an explanation for why I thought it was okay.
And the really bad thing is my much older brother’s best friend is gay and I had known him since I was 5 or 6 but I did that anyway.