Your distinction really has no meaning when there are places in China where people can be openly LGBTQ same as America with the US being more actively hostile to people in most places.

I'm fine with the use of the term authoritarian if it has actual meaning, but the way it's used here it's totally context less unless you just assume whoever is saying it is saying it as a stand in for "not a Western liberal democracy".

A thing which actually cheapens a term which was meant primarily to refer to fascist dictatorships and feudal dictatorships.