Are there any queer-codes in Ti West's Pearl?

Ti West's X, Pearl, and Maxxxine trilogy aligns beautifully well with contemporary horror tropes with strong female characters who use their sexual autonomy. If you are a horror fan, you have probably seen at least X and Pearl, and you know how the plots are studied. So I'm assuming that there is no need to summarize the movies; Pearl is the prequel to X in which we see the background of the killer in X.

Jumping into our topic today, we will discuss repressed sexuality and queer-coded symbols and scenes in these films.

In X, we have the killer as an old lady and a final girl who breaks traditional final girl tropes by being sexually active yet still surviving. The old lady Pearl longs for intimacy and visibility as she cannot achieve her dreams because of the responsibilities that felt like a burden to her as a young girl with a paralyzed father and a strict mother. She could not become a dancer or a star; therefore the moment she sees the group shooting an adult film, she is triggered brutally.

However, she is specifically drawn to Maxine, the final girl who is portrayed differently than the other members of the group. There are scenes in which Pearl's gaze is directly at Maxine from a distance, always controlling her with her gaze, examining her body parts, and trying to connect with her.

It is obvious that Pearl identifies herself with Maxine, she could have been like her if everything had gone well. Yet, in one of the scenes, she sneaks into her bed while she sleeps. Her approach to Maxine feels like it is more than an identification and envy because she starves for intimacy; and tries to find it in Maxine. All naked, sneaking into her bed and touching her, maybe some of you thought it as gay panic. In another scene, she touches her belly, saying this will all be kept secret. I know, you can interpret it however you would like to. But I do agree with you. As a repressed figure whose sexuality is taught as something shameful and dirty, even if she was lesbian or bisexual, she did not have the opportunities to explore her identity freely; leaving her with suppression and an identity crisis.

Living on a remote farm in war times, of course, it is unthinkable to expect Pearl or anyone else to freely explore their sexual identity and orientation. In addition to this, she is married at a very young age and her husband is serving in the way, therefore there is no one to be intimate with her.

So what do you think? Is there enough evidence to call X and Pearl slightly queer-coded films? Or does it come solely from repressed sexuality, lack of experience, and lack of intimacy?