Oh, yeah. We all knew what the episode was about just like we did when we say the TOS episode with the aliens who were black on one side, black on the other side, and couldn't get along with one another because they were black on opposite sides. Plausible deniability isn't necessarily credulous deniability.
I don't know either. Especially since a lot of times censors are censoring because they're worried about angering the audience.
At least in the United States, Star Trek did not feature the first female/female romantic kiss on television. LA Law did it two years before Deep Space 9 was on the air and Picket Fences did it in 1993 during DS9s first season. These were both primetime network shows. When it came to LGBTQ+ representation, Star Trek wasn't exactly on the leading edge back in the 1990s.