Fear (of shame itself, and/or of the concrete social consequences for yourself or others of shame that you might be subject to) is the entirety of the mechanism bt which shame acts as an influence on behavior.

> being in the closet is/was mostly about fear for yourself of hard repercussions - disownment by parents (if young), getting physically attacked, that kind of thing.

Yes, that's how shame as a social constraint works. There has never been a society in which shame worked as a social constraint without there existing hard social consequences, from ostracism (including exclusion from the material support mechanisms available to others in society) to outright honor killings, for having shame attach to you.

Not sure why people in this thread are romanticizing societies that center shame more than the modern West.