I seemed to pass as straight to cis gendered people, but like you said they are looking for that macho man vibe and despite my trying they could always see through it. Only gay and bi people ever showed signs of or did question it. I think much of what makes people uncomfortable about LGBTQ+ is because they see things that they see in themselves they don’t like. Society forces people to conform when things are far from black and white.

For example, despite saying that I am bi I have a strong preference towards women. I only crushed hard on a guy once, but never mentioned a word of it and was just best friends with him until we went our separate ways, due to the aforementioned homophobia around us. I wonder now, at this point, how different my life would have been if society was more open. I strongly suspect he wasn’t strictly het either as his wife is pan as well among other things.