"What would you know about the LBGT community? You're gay!" or "It's funny to me, so lighten up!"
I've already talked about this sort of thing a bit and I'm going to preclude this by honestly saying that I'm pretty much you're traditional version of straight and damn well know that I DON'T know what it's like to be homosexual or transsexual or bisexual or even just not sexual at all (ok, I'm not actively practicing being sexual yet, but I can tell you it hasn't been for lack of urges) and I know that there are probably about a bagillion ways that I don't even know how privileged I am because I'm a girl who prefers boys when it comes to sexuality. Sure, I get that I could get married one day if I wanted to in just about any church I wanted to by any sort of religious authority I wanted to (well, assuming I'd want to convert to something else, which considering how blase I am about Catholicism while still sort of liking bits and pieces of it I can't imagine myself getting jumped up enough about anything else in order to convert) and that for the most part I can go out with my significant other (when he's here, one week till I see him again, YAYZ!) without getting glares from people (my sister and I have gotten this which we find hilarious - apparently we don't look enough alike to be anything other than lovers and of course if we WERE lesbians we'd be riding the fast train to HELLL!!!11eleventy) and if that mythical day ever comes when our lives coincide enough to where we could live together at the worst we'd be seen as "living in sin" rather than people who'd find much worse names to call our living arrangement and would look down on our relationship (not to mention assume we were both overly sexual and continually cheating on each other and drains on society, _insert other LBGT stereotypes here_)

My posting all the above is not to show how good of a PC liberal I am. It's just to note what I know and how there are probably a bunch of other things I don't know. There's nothing wrong with someone or bad about them if they DON'T know or see how they may be privileged in one way or another. But it does make them ignorant of the knowledge and in my opinion it just makes you a stubborn asswipe if you refuse to see that if/when someone else points out "you realize you may just think blank because you're x and y but not z and this culture loves and privileges x and y but not z, right?"

So take for example this epic fail from a supposedly feminist blogger http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2009/04/teabag-me.html
and then it's supposed "apology" which in my opinion may as well not have even been made for all the good it did or how sincere it was http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2009/04/ann-coulter-really-is-cunt-people.html

Now really, Ann Coulter really is, in my opinion a completely embarrassing American, woman and human being. Her uber-conservatism is completely backwards and ridiculous and she really does just strike me as a completely loathsome and hateful individual. However, saying "har har, she's transsexual" in my opinion just completely undermines everything someone who might stand against her would stand for, ie. feminism, LBGT rights, etc. It's strikingly reminiscent of when not long ago newspapers printed awful cartoons of manly looking women as making fun of feminists or suffragists. Hell, isn't there still a huge annoying swag of the population that still abhors the word "feminists" because it's STILL equated with "bad, awful, ugly women who cause trouble and cause trouble cause they can't get teh cawk cause they're UGLEEEEEEEEE!!!11eleventy" Not to mention, not only is it giving power to that ever invasive assumption of feminists and that other stupid, sexist assumption of women in general (you know, the invasive thought that you fucking OWE it to the goddamned world to be some preconceived, restrictive concept of "beautiful" and not cause too much trouble if you happen to have a vagina) it INSULT'S a HUGE group of people at the same time by re-enforcing the ideal that there is something wrong and awful and NOT normal about being transgendered or homosexual or bisexual or any combination of a crapload of other things that are perfectly fine to be that are not considered to be an acceptable part of some bogus preconceived notion of "normal".

And to top it all off, then you're saying, "but it's ok, cause it's a JOKE har har!" I am really just so fucking SICK to my teeth of hearing "It's a JOKE, lighten up!" So is it a joke to the eleven year old boy who recently died because he killed himself thanks to taunts at school over his supposed gayness? Is it just a joke to the numerous members of the LBGT community who endure violence just for being themselves? Is it a FUCKING joke to women when you joke about rape? Here's the thing, it may be funny to your privileged self, but it is NOT funny to millions of others and then issuing a faux-pology that basically says "I'm sorry... that you can't lighten up" basically just further seems to invalidate their right to be offended.

I'm not saying offensive shit can't be damn funny. Certain comedians wouldn't be funny to me if that weren't the case. But shit like this is just offensive and oppressive not to mention it's really annoying to be told "you're such a PC-er-than-thou, uppity asshole" when you're ruffled about something that's offensive and NOT ALL THAT FUNNY OR CREATIVE TO BEGIN WITH. SHEESH. Grow the fuck up and try to actually look critically at something. It sucks being told that you made a mistake. Criticism is never fun to take. Trust me, I KNOW, this is coming from the music and lit major who used to fucking cry her eyes out every other night because she was repeatedly told she was either flat or unintelligent. But criticism, even sometimes the biting kind (if you can take it with the giant chunk of sea salt that THAT particular breed of criticism often requires), makes you a better person if you can apply it. I'm not saying it's great to be told "YOU SUCK!" at every turn, especially not for a variety of reasons (being fat, unfeminine, unmasculine, etc, etc, etc.) but I am saying that taking a second look at something you said when someone tells you "hey, that was just low/below-the-belt/stupid/offensive/whatever" won't fucking kill you.

Not to mention saying beforehand, "I know people might think this is offensive but I think it's funny" is just actively looking for trouble, in my opinion. To me it says, "I might hurt people by saying this, but IMA GONNA SAY IT ANYWAY WOOHOO!" which just makes me headdesk. I also say this as someone who used to untill fairly recently, continually used the word "retarded" as a euphemism for "dumb, weird, annoying, stupid, combination of all the above". And as someone who's only fairly recently realized that calling her sister who doesn't have my 20/20 vision and supar crazay hearing "Helen Keller" is probably not the best thing in the world to do. Nobody's perfect, and I'm certainly not pretending I am. But using that as an excuse to continually be offensive because it just "takes too much work" and infringes on the awesomeness that you think is your "supar kewl unique self" is at best lazy, at worst, juvenile and a passive form of oppression. You can be yourself, you're funny, edgy, kewl, unique, awesome self without hurting feelings. It might take more work, but that's part of being a fucking civilized ADULT. If that seems like too much for you, go sit at the kiddie table, I'm sure they've still got another Big Bird chair they can pull up.

Also, saying "I realize I said this in front of the wrong audience" as the author did in their faux-pology is yet another REALLY bad way to "apologize". It's
basically like saying "I'm only sorry for stealing cause I got caught".

Also also, when comedians joke about offensive shit, often the reason why they're funny and successful is because a lot of people laugh at how absurd it would be if they actually thought said comedian truly believed the offensive shit he/she was saying. At least that's my opinion. It's akin to the "oh, but they know me" argument or the "oh, but you don't know him" argument. Sorry, but you slap this shit out there for the interwebz and it's likely that for at least one soul this will be their first encounter with you and after this, you seriously would blame someone for NOT wanting to stick around to get to know you better? Sorry, I'm just not impressed.