I wouldn't bet on that. I live in France and found out about X Japan more than 20 years ago, in the early 90s, long before the internet even existed. Heck, I bought all their CDs and videotapes in Parisian shops back then.
Ok so they are a genera of their own and created Visual Kei. That is pretty cool I really never listen to Japanese bands but these dudes rock. They rock harder than Metallica if you ask me and Metallica is one of the hardest bands around. Pretty cool how they started a whole new genera of music around the world.
It's hard to put a label on X Japan but some say they started the "Visual Kei" scene. It's a style influenced by Glam Rock which should be familiar to you. So it's not that strange for a bands dressing up like this and I think they do it to shock people. X Japan often uses the phrase "visual shock". If some are gay or not I don't care and I don't see why people have to defend them if someone asks.