you're not entirely wrong, but you are looking at things through a very narrow, outmoded perspective. since the 90s (at least, that's when the topic of discussion was getting press) the idea of having a normalized representation of homosexuality in mainstream media has absolutely been a topic of concern.

let's talk about manga, specifically, for a moment. even setting aside the debates about yaoi that went on at that time, there was also generally the issue that manga featuring gay characters and their stories (outside of geicomi, i mean, so the less sexual stuff) would only be run in gay magazines and any gay characters being published in mainstream publications were either looked at as fetishization (see the yaoi arguments, linked above) or as insulting jokes designed to further characterize queer men and women and trans folk as freakish perverts and weirdos.

a younger generation of LGBT activists in japan (younger than the one that started all of the original geicomi magazines like barazoku or g-men or adonis) was having a much louder call to be seen as normal, not as private or shameful. you're basically talking about a difference in generational queer sociopolitics in japan, and thinking only the older mindset is still valid or present. things have changed, and have been changing since the 90s.