Absolutely! It wasn’t at all unusual, even for other slurs. But gay slurs were outright common. Ffs, even in 91, my high school had a gym class playing “smear the queer” and that was the gym teacher calling it that. It wasn’t a secret, it was right out in the open. And that really was about the mildest kind of bullshit gay people had to deal with.
My best friend in high school was/is gay (still my best friend, still gay lol). He was mean as a snake, so nobody was dumb enough to directly attack him, but it was a real fear that it could happen, or that it could end up a planned attack by enough people when he was alone that his willingness to fuck people up wasn’t a deterrent.
By about 93, I had been going to the closer gay bars with him, and ended up bouncing at a few when I moved to the city for a while. It could get ugly fast at those places. Here in the south, the acceptance of gay folks still isn’t where it should be, but back then, we would have assholes showing up specifically to beat gay people. I’ve got a few scars from trying to keep our patrons safe and alive. All of us at the big drag club ended up with scars.
The sheer ease with which some of those sociopaths would drive into the city specifically to try and hurt someone they didn’t even know was disgusting. The police response was utter bullshit. A couple of times, people damn near died while we tried to keep things under control because the cops didn’t care. At least the ambulance people were fast, those folks were incredible, and always got there before the cops, despite being located farther away.
It’s one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to hate Axl. I’m amazed I didn’t end up thinking that way too, if I’m being honest. My family were mostly cool with gaydom (that’s an actual thing my aunt said once), but they still looked at it with pity and condescension. “Those poor people”. I have to laugh at it a little or it would make me sad.