I've never got this deal, which is surprisingly common among Men Of A Certain Age (never, ever heard it from a female player or DM - the precise contrary in fact). It feels like it's homophobia-adjacent, but the people who are into it aren't usually homophobes though clearly some were, given the a lot of the critical language often used about Bards in the 1990s was distinctly homophobic*. Is it like, being afraid of being the centre of attention? Being afraid of making a fool of yourself? Is like, coulroaphobia (fear of clowns), but like, extended out to anyone even vague harlequin-adjacent? Just wild stuff.
To be abundantly clear, I'm not accusing you or anyone else on this board of possessing the above fears, but I'm very weirded out by the whole thing, because this has just never made sense to me.
* = A good example of this is World of Warcraft, where the original designers very vocally opposed to Bards (something they often got asked about), and indeed created an NPC Bard who you could kill and dropped the following equipment: Piccolo of The Flaming Fire (because's he's FLAMING, see!!!), The Rainbow Girdle (I hope I don't have to explain that one), The Songbird Blouse (ooh double-feminity - songbird and blouse! Because of course we must stereotype gay men as feminine), and the Woolies of the Prancing Minstrel (the only non-homophobic one name-wise, but definitely making fun, because prancing is inherently silly - also they're short-shorts and brightly coloured to just really dig into that homophobia).