When I was at school (and in the 20th century generally) admitting to anything outside traditional masculinity / heterosexuality made you vulnerable to physical / verbal attack. Which remains the case for a lot of people in the 21st century. If they want to be loud and proud then good for them, but I can understand it if they prefer to keep it quiet. Whereas, at least around me, now, I think you can come out as gay without too much concern for your physical safety.

Conversely, at my school you could be as overtly homophobic as you wanted with no consequences, whereas now you should probably be a lot more cautious if you harbour homophobic sentiments.

Talking about partners in particular, I've had partners I felt fairly safe sharing anything (most things anyway) with, and I've also had partners who would mine our conversations for any kind of viable ammunition. Which led to me being a bit more careful what I said. We can perhaps agree the first kind of relationship is better.

Yeah, I think the 2nd type of relationship is much worse than no relationship, I'd say the problem there wouldn't be with someone being vulnerable, it's the problem with the relationship...

Yeah, during school it's difficult since you are forced together with potentially toxic people. As an adult you can choose at least in personal life and to an extent workplace, although sometimes workplace can also be difficult to get right.

I'd 100% rather be alone than around people who might judge or use in someway against me anything about me. It would feel internally disgusting for me to think that someone might be trying to get at my expense and that I'm not around people who are there to try and build each other. What a waste of time.