While some believe that modern media or a larger world agenda has created an idea of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, you can trace homosexuality back millennia after millennia. Just because something is more accepted by society today doesn’t mean it never existed in the past.
Throughout history, some historians have described several figures as having “really close friendships” with members of the same sex – with really close being an understatement here. Whether it was just inconceivable to past historians that gay figures could be famous and exist or there simply wasn’t enough evidence at the time is up for debate.
Today, we know that many historical figures were openly members of the LGBT community, and some were more secretive about their sexuality. Here are seven famous people from history that were more than likely, and some definitely, part of the LGBT community.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous polymaths of all time, if not the most famous. This is a man who is singlehandedly credited as the founder of the High Renaissance period. Despite most of his life’s work disappearing over time, he is still associated with the most influential paintings ever created in the world of Western art. You have undoubtedly seen at least one of his most famous paintings, such as The Last Supper, Salvator Mundi, and perhaps the most renowned painting in the world, the Mona Lisa.
While we know much about his works in the fields of art and science, we know little about Leonardo’s personal life. He kept his private life a closely guarded secret, but we can infer that he may have been gay thanks to some information about his pupils and a court case.
While a few erotic drawings of men isn’t certain evidence he was gay, a court case in 1476 might shed more light on his sexuality. The court case accused Da Vinci and a few other men of sodomizing a well-known gay prostitute. While he was eventually acquitted, it’s speculated that the acquittal was caused by politics related to another man involved in the accusation.
With no documented relationships with a woman, purported relationships with his male pupils, and a court case where he was accused of sodomizing another man, it is possible that Leonardo da Vinci was, in fact, a gay man. This is something that historians to this day still discuss and will continue to discuss in the future.
Rose Cleveland
Believe it or not, we have already had a first lady of the United States that probably identified as a lesbian thanks to Rose Elizabeth Cleveland and no, she wasn’t the husband of President Grover Cleveland. Since Grover Cleveland wasn’t married when he took office, his sister Rose became the first lady and held that position for a little over a year, from 1885-1886, until Grover finally married Francis Cleveland.
We have no historical evidence she was in a relationship with another woman while she was the first lady. However, we do have evidence that she sent romantic and explicitly sexual letters to a wealthy widow, Evangeline Marrs Simpson, just a few years after she left the office of First Lady. Unfortunately for Rose, Evangeline married again in 1896 to a man whom she met while on vacation in Florida.
Eventually, the husband passed away in 1901 and Rose would again begin her relationship with Evangeline. They moved to Italy in 1910, living together until Rose’s death from the Spanish Flu in 1918. Eventually, Evangeline would also pass away and be buried next to her lover and former first lady of the United States of America, Rose Cleveland.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing may have singlehandedly helped the Allies win World War II. Okay, maybe not singlehandedly, but his work in cracking the Enigma Code is perhaps the most famous example of codebreaking in history.
In WWII, the Germans used a machine that looked like a typewriter called Enigma. The machine was the most complex cipher device ever seen at the time and was the secret to winning the war against Nazi Germany. Turing led a group that would eventually crack Enigma at the British Code and Cypher School. His work in mathematics and computing created foundations that we have continued to build upon today, which makes it so sad what happens next in his life.
In 1952, he was convicted of homosexual acts and faced prison or chemical castration despite his heroic acts and contributions to humanity. Turing opted to be chemically castrated and lost his security clearance and consulting job with British Intelligence. Just over two years later, Turing committed suicide with cyanide on June 8th, 1954. It took 55 more years for the British government to apologize for its actions against Turing, but it was already 55 years too late.
Alexander the Great
The most incredible military mind from Ancient Greece may have had a romantic relationship with his close friend and bodyguard, Hephaestion. Alexander the Great was married three times and even fathered several children, but no connection with a woman seemed to be as strong as his relationship with Hephaestion.
The relationship was so strong that Hephaestion’s death is often considered to have caused Alexander’s failing mental state and eventual death. The two were often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, a gay couple from Homer’s Illiad.
Some historians believe that Alexander and Hephaestion had a sexual relationship in their youth, which wasn’t exceptionally uncommon in Ancient Greece. Its supposed continuation into adulthood, however, did go against societal norms at the time and would have been something to keep hidden from others.
There’s no concrete evidence of Alexander being part of the LGBT community, but it certainly seems like this is one of those times where close friends may have been more than close friends.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Another First Lady of the United States that was part of the LGBT community, Eleanor Roosevelt had several close relationships with other women. While Rose Cleveland was the first lesbian first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt was, perhaps, the first bisexual first Lady of the United States.
Her love for FDR is unquestioned by historians but her relationship with several other women is often debated to this day. If she wasn’t a lesbian herself, she was undoubtedly an ally of women and the LGBT community.
Eleanor had a close relationship with Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok, an open lesbian. Roosevelt and Hickok wrote long letters to each other where they often mentioned how things they would like to do such as “kiss you at the corner of your mouth” or “I can’t kiss you, so I kiss your picture good night and good morning.”
The renowned Roosevelt biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook has stated that she believes that the relationship was based on romantic, erotic love and isn’t some sort of ‘womanly friendship that other historians have claimed it to be.
The FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was infamous for collecting files on politicians, actors, and anyone he deemed essential, and even Mrs. Roosevelt managed to make the list. Hoover purportedly kept a large file on Eleanor and her possible lesbian relationship to blackmail her.
Eleanor was considered very liberal for the time and against many of Hoover’s policies. Hoover may have believed that by blackmailing her, she would ease off and maybe even change her beliefs on civil rights, women’s rights, and the FBI’s widespread surveillance.
Emily Dickinson
Perhaps one of the most straight-washed people in recent history, Emily Dickinson was in love with her longtime friend and sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert. The two met in their 20s, and Susan eventually married Emily’s brother Austin. From the moment they met until the moment Emily passed away, she was enamored with Susan.
Unfortunately, history wrote Emily off as an eccentric recluse who sought no romantic relationship, but that was only because her letters of love were mostly destroyed or censored after her death.
Some poems addressed to Susan survived, and in them, it’s evident that this is more than some girly friendship. In one letter, she asks if Susan will come to her and “kiss me as you used to?” While in another poem, she wishes to “own a Susan of my own.”
Dickinson’s surviving poetry is famous and used throughout American literature and poetry classes in the United States. She is often considered to have inspired feminist-orientated artists in modern America, and it’s a shame her love for Susan Gilbert and the fact that she was part of the LGBT community has been swept away into the cracks of history.
Anne Frank
The Diary of Anne Frank has been read by millions worldwide and is perhaps the most famous account of a Jewish person living under Nazi control. Some may be surprised to know that sections of her actual diary were omitted from the initial publication and the version you may have read in school left out key pieces of information about Anne Frank’s life.
Anne Frank poured her soul into the diary and filled it with many things a girl would write about in her teenage years. To protect her person, they omitted several parts where she discussed sensitive topics about her body or sexuality. Today, sexuality is a more approachable topic and it may benefit the memory of Anne Frank to recognize her own thoughts about her sexual orientation rather than wash it away from her memory.
One of the less sensitive omitted parts contained a passage where she describes how the naked form of a woman brings tears to her eyes and that she was very curious about the body of her friend, Jacque. Frank also mentioned her terrible desire to kiss her, which she did at some point. Finally, she laments, “If only I had a girlfriend!”.
While this doesn’t outright mean she was a lesbian or bisexual, and we’d like to avoid labeling someone at such a young age who may not have felt the need to label themselves, it does suggest that Anne Frank had some thoughts of her own about the beauty of a woman and was possibly part of the LGBT community.
Wrap Up
Whether past historians attempted to straightwash historical figures or there simply wasn’t enough evidence available at the time, there are a number of people throughout history that were probably, or definitely, part of the LGBT community. It’s important to remember these people for who they were; otherwise, it will seem like all of history until recently was a heteronormative society, and that simply isn’t true. The act of straightwashing historical figures is so common, there’s a whole community on the social media site Reddit dedicated to pointing out these inaccuracies.