I lived a very sheltered life where I grew up - and its very easy to say homophobia for the era was fairly high in society, but in our working class, heavily migrant area it would have been overly represented.
My first shock came at Uni. I went to the basement toilets in the Menzies building at Monash and saw someone climbing over the wall to get into the adjacent toilet. I found out later was a regular hook up location and to expect that if i continued going there.
It wasn't until I took my first job outside of Uni in a call centre when my eyes were prised open. It was just like when I worked in the warehouse as a teenager, and all the guys would talk about the weekend they had on the Monday and who they screwed. Only...these guys were overtly gay and the eye watering level of detail they went into very, very quickly got me into and then out of my state of shock and uncomfortableness. Team dinners on Gertrude st when folks came in chaps, company arranged drag queens for Xmas Parties and social club trips to Mardi gras. You had to get comfortable in your skin very quickly, or find a new job.