It literally was explicitly that. Gibson and others started writing in this genre, which then took it's name from CYBERPUNK by Bruce Bethke a short story that was named to elicit a feeling of technology and punk attitudes.

The common idiom high tech, low life is another way of describing the genre and also succinctly suggests that the genre is, in fact, cyber + punk.

Happy to provide references, but a quick internet search clearly shows that what you've suggested is factually incorrect.

I know all that. You're just misusing the word "punk" as a free variable.

I'm using it as intended -- that stories in cyberpunk universes focus on anti establishment themes and lowlifes.

Clearly Ghost in The Shell was famously anti-establishment and Kusanagi a definitive low life... Not transhumanism, identity or sexuality.