Why have LGBT people been hunted throughout history?

All bigotry is a power game

It’s a whole lot of fuss for going in the backdoor?

Many, maybe most, societies never had a real concept of privacy. The community, or authorities, thought that they had an interest in everything everyone did, including whether people were having non-reproductive sex.

If they get rid of the temptation, they won't have to accept their attraction to said tempter.

Someone here said it was because (gay men especially), were the most dangerous transgressors of gender norms throughout history.

In the past young mens access to, and association with women was very limited. The only way they could get sex with a woman was to marry or pay a prostitute both way to expensive for most young men. An apprentice could be years on bed and board as payment sharing rooms and beds with other young men while they trained or were payed a pittance. Too little to set up home with a wife or pay a whore. At the time of Leonardo Da Vinci there was so much male on male sex going on in Florence, the good old Church decided it had to legislate against it. You don’t waste time legislating against something that doesn’t exist. It must have been widespread and highly visible for the Church to feel it necessary to try and stamp it out.

Everyone needs someone or something to hate.

R6, sodomy laws in Florence went back to the thirteenth century, but during the Renaissance there was, indeed, a lot of gay sexual activity. The government tried to get people to rat each other out by installing drop boxes for anonymous accusations. It didn’t stop much of anything, although that was how Leonardo got arrested. (The charges were dropped because an aristocrat was involved).

R7, that’s probably the case. Homophobia has the additional attraction of playing on people’s paranoia: anyone might be gay, or be accused of being gay.