The interest about which celebrity or high-profile person who is or isn’t homosexual may not necessarily be motivated simply by a curiosity about other peoples dirty secrets. In societies like ours, rich with negative prejudices about gay people’s lives and characters, and a very stereotyped media picture of homosexuals, many gays and lesbians feel the lack of good and positive role models in their lives. The search for inspiring people to identify with, has led to a plethorium of sites listing Famous Homosexuals.

WEB RESOURCES

• The site FamousAndGay.com has a comprehensive listing of mostly contemporary homosexual celebrities. A similar listing is found at Rob’s Gay Info

• Wikipedia carries a long list of confirmed or highly probable homosexuals, crossreferenced to biographical articles. The encyclopedia also has a list of homosexuals in myth and fiction.

• A listing of famous gay couples, including how long they stayed together is found at BuddyBuddy.com.

• A comprehensive listing of allegedly homosexuals throughout history is found at the website Queers in History.

• The homepage of Matt and Andrej Koymansky carries a very extensive listing, complete with photos and biographies.

• The site Adherents.com gives a list on what they claim to be the 100 most influential homosexuals through the ages.

• Peter Norton has a thorough listing of homosexuals through the ages, divided into tree parts: Born before 1800, born 1800-1900, and born since 1900.

If you know about other interesting websites about this question, please give me a tip, and I’ll put the resource on this page.

INDICATIONS FROM THE INVESTIGATION

The listings of both contemporary and historic homosexuals are problematic in several ways. Reading the contemporary lists one should keep in mind that homosexuality’s social stigma both make people reluctant to “come out” and so appear on such lists, while other listings actually are due to rumours or back-stabbing. These problems naturally also apply to the historical lists, in addition to a couple of points: Firstly that the defining of historic figures as homosexual or gay is in itself questionable, as the definition of homosexuality was first made in 1869, and gay culture as we now know it is only decades old. Secondly, the speculating about the thoughts and longings of people dead several hundred years naturally also carries the danger of becoming simply wishful thinking, due to lack of information and changes in patterns of thoughts.

Even pursuing the lists with a critical eye does not surprisingly make it quite clear that several famous people - both contemporary and historic - is or has been gay. The listings include painters and composer, kings and movie stars, and should supply a more than adequate supply of positive role models for most homosexuals.

An interesting question under this issue would be whether or not these peoples homosexual inclinations contributed to their greatness in any way, either hindering it or being one of the reasons behind it. However, I have not been able to find any research on this question. If anyone has any information on books, web resources or other publication investigating this issue, I would be very grateful if you could send me a tip.