i appreciate the fact that you're still trying to sort stuff out - despite that, i find it hard to pat you (or anyone) on the back too hard for the effort

You need to. Everybody needs to.

Privileged and unempathetic, I know. But let's work from the assumption that in a free society that values diversity, you're 100% entitled to recognition and acceptance. I am obligated by the bounds of common courtesy to use your pronouns of choice without comment or complaint. If you sneeze, the polite thing is to say "bless you" or "gesundheit" or something similar. And in response, the polite thing is to say "thank you."

The LGBT community is in no mood to say "thank you."

I totally understand why and I empathize with the viewpoint. It's a pain in the ass to be gender-nonconforming and there's a whole bunch of gender-conforming people actively making it worse. But without social acknowledgement of the efforts made at acceptance, cis people will avoid situations where they're required to be uncomfortable.

"Thanks for putting in the effort" is manners. Integrating GSM members into the broader community requires effort - by both sides, for sure. But it ain't a GSM society and things will go better if us assholes in the majority are allowed a few warm fuzzies every now and then rather than knowing our every interaction is subject to a secret eyeroll and venting somewhere on the internet.