On my first watch I didn't catch it, the movie felt 200% about a friendship and discovering the world to me.
I gave it another chance and, well, I can see it how it can be queer-coded but the movie is broad enough in its themes that you can pretty much put any repressed community there and you can relate to it. LGBQT+ members are so starved for representation that I feel they want to claim the movie as theirs, and I guess that is fine, but there is enough plausible denyability there to go either way.
Movies are up for interpretation, as everything is, so more power for those who do.