Idk where you grew up but 'gay' and 'lesbian' have a major and protracted history as an insult and slur across the US and UK. Gay in particular was used for decades to mean bad, and lesbian was an outright dangerous thing to be called in a female school communities. Where I grew up, queer wasn't even on the radar as a slur. It was and is the academic term used for LGBTQ+ by LGBTQ+, among other things.