This comment is NOT AT ALL intended to excuse anything that Axl has said, sung, or thought. But in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn’t just the cultural norm to saw insanely offensive things about gay people, but they were actively demonized in huge swaths of daily life. I can not imagine how it felt being gay, bi, or otherwise queer but I have to imagine it was petrifying. If something happened to you, the cops were unlikely to investigate. Songs, TV, even news papers made fun of and offensive comments about gay people.
The cultural shift that’s happened over the past 40 years is pretty incredible. Not saying we don’t have further to go, not saying things are good now, just noting where we’ve come from just in my own lifetime. Axl might still be a POS, and he’s absolutely out of his mind. But shit like that was so pervasive.