I'm glad the retort brings up people's support for the LGBTQ+ community, but it's important to recognize that people may not have been passionate about the issue until it affected them or their community. Furthermore, even if they were passionate about it and wanted to support it, they had to limit their conversations to topics they were knowledgeable and experienced in to be heard.
Having conversations about issues that don't affect you can be tricky; if you're not experienced then you're likely to be talked over or misinformed. That's why so many people fall back on the opinions of their community, if those opinions are on the same side as their own. That's why most people will gladly go along with majority opinions, even if they don't necessarily believe them.
It's also important to remember that people don't just fall into one camp. People's views can change as their life experiences change and new information is brought to light. People can still form and hold opinions that are neither in line with their region's nor with their peers' beliefs.
To agree with the retort's point, I'd just like to add that people don't have to have direct experience of something to care about it and have an opinion on it. However, this doesn't negate the main idea of Nikhil's original essay: people often form opinions based on their environment rather than because of a deep-rooted passion for a particular issue. UrRong if you think otherwise!