Do you have any ancestors who were gay?

Gosh, OP.

Methuselah was gay?

No, but mine were particularly violent Scottish men going back to the 900's.

My mother insisted my father's brother—who died young 20 years before I was born—was gay. My father would get annoyed and said he was just erudite.

I had a gay great uncle too. He had the best gifts because he was the only one with money in the family. Unfortunately he died when I was 8.

All of this comes from my maternal grandmother's side of the family.

My great grandfather may have been gay. He was so effeminate that his only son was embarrassed of him. Some people claimed to have spotted him a few times in a gay bar. (He was an alcoholic.) And apparently he got in trouble at work; he was a teacher and apparently had an inappropriate relationship with a much younger male teacher.

My great grandmother's sister had one child, a son who was gay.

My great grandmother's brother committed suicide. He was married with teen kids; no one saw it coming. (Makes me wonder what could have made him depressed.)

My two uncles were gay.

A cousin is gay, and a second cousin (now deceased) was gay.

Every single human on the planet has at least one ancestor who was gay...

Gay, yes (many). Out, no.

My ancestors have a descendant who is gay-

Me

R3- I chuckled. And I will be using that for self-description. Thank you.

my father was gay, so was one of his brothers and he had a sister who was a lesbian (big family). My mother is bi (supposedly, but I think she's more just an oportunist)

My grandfather had an uncle who was gay. He was a scholar and lived on Mallorca with his Spanish partner.

I seem to be the first in my family. Go figure.

My grand uncle was likely gay—never married, was a great with kids

My plantation-owing great-great-uncle Beauregard

My mom had a brother who died way before I was born. I know very little about him, because neither my mom nor my aunts will ever talk about him much. He was the oldest and died when my mom and her sisters were young. This was in the 1940s, I think. All I know is that his death (drowning) was officially “accidental” but I caught some snippets of conversations over the years that they suspected there had been something fishy about his death. If they ever talked about him at all, they got teary and mentioned how “artistic” and nice he was.

After my mother died, my dad told me that one of my mom’s cousins had told him the uncle was definitely gay. I’ve always hated that they kept it hidden like a dirty secret, but I guess it was a different time.

Statistically, male children born later in birth order after other males are more likely to be gay.

Also, women who have a close male relation who is gay have a higher likelihood of having a gay son.

It's more than likely most DLers have a gay male maternal relation in their family trees.

My father’s youngest brother was gay. He was an actor (and teacher) who moved to Italy right after college. He lived in Rome with a partner and had gay friends there. When he came back to the US to visit, he would visit family members in New York and he would usually also visit male friends in Fort Lauderdale. Once he brought his long time Italian lover home with him to meet the family. His sexuality was understood but never talked about. He was much loved by everyone in the family.

[quote]His sexuality was understood but never talked about.

Which is the way it should be, rather than the incessant attention whoring that happens today.

So I guess you don’t go for the theory that younger kids struggling with their sexuality may find it helpful that someone they look up to is gay?

Grandpa: put your mouth on it and go up and down.

Me: Ok!

I have one great-aunt who was obviously a lesbian - just looking at her picture and the fact she never married and had a bunch of other single women she went on trips with. But my dad is one of ten and of all my gazillion cousins (on both sides), I'm unaware of any gay or lesbian individuals.

I come from a large Catholic family on my mother's side. My great-grandparents had 14 children, so there are many, many relatives. I would guesstimate that 10% - 15% are/were gay. So I am thoroughly convinced that there is a gay gene.

My mom was very social and knew many of these relatives, even though they were scattered across the US, Canada, and Europe. When she returned from a trip visiting relatives, she often used a phrase that I've come to know as a code for a gay alert. "Oh, you must meet your cousin XXX. You and he have... SO MUCH IN COMMON".

One family in California included seven grown siblings: five men and two women. When I finally met one of those cousins (nicknamed Butch ironically) on my mom's recommendation, he confirmed that not only was he gay, but so were all his brothers! Five gay men in just that one family.

R18 wants to put people back in the closet. It's straight people, not gays, who won't shut up about their personal lives

Yes! But I didn’t know him. My father’s first cousin was estranged from his family over his sexuality. He was a respected biographer of Mozart and Wagner. I would have loved to know him, but it was not to be.

I had a great aunt who taught at a prestigious all girl boarding school in the DC area in the 30s 40s, she was for years in line to be the next headmistress..... but something went down and she was denied the position. I'm pretty certain it was over lesbian relationship between my aunt, the head of the school and then a 3rd party who upset the applecart.

[quote]in line to be the next headmistress

I was up for that in the senate.

I doubt there is anyone on the planet that does not have ancestors who were gay if you just go back far enough...

[quote]So I guess you don’t go for the theory that younger kids struggling with their sexuality may find it helpful that someone they look up to is gay?

[quote][R18] wants to put people back in the closet. It's straight people, not gays, who won't shut up about their personal lives

How exhausting and tedious you both are. There is an enormous difference between people willingly raising topics in their lives and discussing them and OTHER people, including family members, talking about and discussing someone else's personal business.

People are not obligated to be "role models" for other people. You don't get to DEMAND that someone publicize his life for your benefit. Whether you're gay or straight, an addict or teetotaler, bipolar or sane, you are not obligated to disclose your personal business for discussion.

Hey, R28, people with bipolar are NOT insane.

My great aunt ida was a man. We didn’t find out until the autopsy.

great uncle was a navy vet and pretty much a hermit that acquired over a million dollars in farms (70s) by his death. he also lived in run down houses with chickens and goats in the house!

gg uncle on the other side of the family was a bachelor and "odd bird." maybe a hoarder.

A great uncle went away to become a priest in the 1950's. Something happened and he left the seminary, and it was never talked about. I met him in the 1980's when I was in my early 20's when I moved to the same town he was living with his elder sister (neither were ever married). I figured it out immediately. He occasionally had a "friend" he met at the seminary come visit him from Alaska on occasion. It was obvious they were close, but again, everyone looked the other way. They were definitely of another era. They're long gone now.

R28, no one is "demanding" anything. But gays should be treated like straights. If straights don't pretend to be asexual, gays shouldn't have to either

All people have gay relatives, whether they want to admit it or not. When I started looking into my ancestry, I found several gay men who lived in the 19th century, mostly artistic types.

One of them was a well-known local painter of portraits who went on travel expeditions with his best male friend, every year for 55 years. They looked especially intimate in pictures they took. The family whispered about him. Then when he died leaving millions of dollars, they all suddenly had a newfound interest in what he accomplished. Good ol' Uncle John!

Uncle John gave everything to his longtime companion and the family went to court to contest the will. In the end, they got nothing. Collectors buy his paintings for thousands of dollars now.

Another great-uncle was an opera singer who toured Europe. The Kaiser of Germany was a patron before World War 1. He lived in a castle owned by the Kaiser when war was declared. The American government wrote him and told him to return to our country immediately, otherwise he would be held prisoner if American troops found him. He returned.

I'm sure we all have such stories. We need to invest the time to explore them.

Mom's brother was gay and pretty open about it. Grandma became a widow in her 30s, so my uncle became the patriarchal figure. We adored him. He would get all of us kids together and we'd sing, play games. And do all sorts of things. We once all marched across my aunt's dinner table singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic ". During dinner. My aunt was furious but couldn't say anything because he led the way. We still talk about him and all the fun. He was always the first with a gift when a new baby was born, usually a stroller, or carriage, or baptismal dress. He's been gone 8 years now and we miss him very much.

This cousin of mine, Walter Loomis (1888-1968) lived in Nebraska with his two sisters and never married (middle in the pic). I think he was really cute - and his brothers weren't bad, either. I like to think that he was gay.

R36, he was a cutie

As my Boston grandmother loosened up into early stage dementia, she shocked my mother by saying, “I never had a problem with homosexuality. One whole summer I had a relationship with another girls camp counselor, and it was nice.”

There’s a crumpled picture of a young woman at a summer camp among the photos she left behind.

My dad's only sister was a lesbian. I kind of figured things out for myself as a 20'something. But the clues were there before laid out like bread crumbs far before then.

I wish I'd been closer geographically to her and also paid attention to her via letter-writing which was a still a thing when she died in the 1990's.

My aunt led a very interesting life and worked for the government in D.C. during the war and eventually got her Phd and taught at a university in SoCal.

I tracked down an old address of a house she had owned that I'd heard a lot about as a kid. It was designed by Richard Neutra and when I was in Long Beach last year, I drove to it with my partner and stopped to take photos of her former house. I wish she'd still been alive and living there then as in my older years I have come to understand that we shared many cultural interests & I'd enjoy talking with her again.

my cousins had a maiden aunt who certainly looked the role. she was j edgar era fbi something in the fbi. she could not talk about her work. georgetown townhouse bought in the 60s and god knows how much that was worth when she died.

r36 who was the total hottie on the extreme right ??..........depressing to think that these beauties are long, long dead

My grandfather’s sister had a PhD in biology, taught in a women’s college, never married, and traveled around the world with a female friend. Pretty sure…..

My father once said, “We always knew there were people like that, but nobody talked about it.”

My dad

#MeToo

R41 - that was Walter's elder half-brother, Charles Condron (1881-1947) who married and had ten kids.

R16 is that why Kelly Ripa's son, Michael, is gay?

My aunt, Ruth, who lived with roommate, Ida, for 40 years. Met while working at Fanny Farmer. When I was 13, my father said something that clued me in.

My mom thought her uncle was gay. I only met him a few times. He died in the 1970s; he was only 53. He was very soft spoken and shy. He was married to a very nice woman. I think he suffered from severe depression and anxiety.

I think all three of them ping, R36. I imagine they would have been terrified to act on their feelings in the conservative Central Plains.