Throughout history, members of royal and noble houses have engaged in same-sex relationships. However, even in jurisdictions where homosexuality was not prohibited or proscribed by law or religious edicts, titles of aristocracy were almost always directly transferred through married spouses of the opposite sex and their offspring (except when certain titles could be inherited by relatives upon a childless death). Nevertheless, queer relationships occurred before, during, and outside such arrangements, as romance and marriage have widely historically been seen as two very different things.[1]
It is important to note that the terms 'homosexuality' and 'heterosexuality' did not exist until the late 19th century.[2] For much of human history, most societies around the world did not view sexuality in modern binary terms. Indeed, many of these cultures had variously tolerated, acknowledged, accepted, or celebrated diverse sexualities and genders at different moments in their history.[3][4]
The scope of this list is limited to sovereign rulers and aristocracy who have titles that were recognized during their lives. This list excludes baronets from the United Kingdom, the landed gentry, imposters, and pretenders, and the equivalent in other countries.
Several Chinese emperors had openly homosexual relationships. A famous example is that of Emperor Ai of Han and his lover, Dong Xian, whom Ai promoted quickly through government ranks and ennobled as a marquess (this despite the fact that both men were legally married to women).
Throughout written Chinese history, the role of women is given little positive emphasis, with relationships between women being especially rare. One mention by Ying Shao, who lived about 140 to 206, does relate palace women attaching themselves as husband and wife, a relationship called dui shi. He noted, "They are intensely jealous of each other."[5]: 174
In many European countries, same-sex relations have historically been stigmatized, illegal, or considered sinful by Christians. Sometimes charges of homosexual relations were propagated by enemies, often rumors of such activities were denied, and sometimes same-sex lovers were acknowledged openly.
In the United Kingdom, despite the legalization of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in 2004 and marriage for same-sex couples in 2013, spouses of ennobled civil partners have not been allowed the extension of title and privilege from their spouses' ennoblements as those accorded to married opposite-sex spouses of ennobled persons. In July 2012, Conservative MP Oliver Colvile announced a private member's bill, titled "Honours (Equality of Titles for Partners) Bill 2012-13", to amend the honours system to both allow husbands of those made dames and for civil partners of recipients to receive honours by their relationship statuses.[6] Another bill, the Equality (Titles) Bill, which would allow for both female first-born descendants to inherit hereditary titles as well as for "husbands and civil partners" of honours recipients "to use equivalent honorary titles to those available to wives", was introduced by Lord Lucas in the House of Lords on 13 May 2013, but did not progress past Committee stage.[7]
In 2016, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a cousin of the then-reigning Queen Elizabeth II, became the first member of the British aristocracy to come out as gay. He married his partner in 2018.[11]
A significant event in LGBT aristocracy occurred in 2006, when Manvendra Singh Gohil, a prince of the former princely state of Rajpipla in Gujarat, India, came out as gay to Indian media; the event caused controversy both in India and abroad, and his family unsuccessfully attempted to disinherit him.
Out of the twelve recognized emperors in the Western Han dynasty (the first half of the Han dynasty), ten were recorded as having had at least one male partner.[71][72] These include:
^From Tiempo: Spanish: Le pese a quien le pese, Liliana Dahlmann es la duquesa viuda de Medina Sidonia, English: Liliana Dahlmann is the Dowager Duchess of Medina Sidona no matter who likes it.
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^Snyder, Timoty (2008). The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of A Habsburg Archduke. Basic Books. p. 156.
^Perry, Curtis (2000). "The Politics of Access and Representations of the Sodomite King in Early Modern England". Renaissance Quarterly. 53 (4): 1054–1083. doi:10.2307/2901456. ISSN0034-4338. JSTOR2901456.
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^Orr, Clarissa Campbell, ed. (2004). Queenship in Europe, 1660–1815: the role of the consort. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 281. ISBN978-0-521-81422-5.
^Margaret Reynolds: The Sappic Companion. Palgrave Macmillan, 30 Jun 2002 p. 126
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^Bloch, Michael; Parris, Matthew (2015). Closet queens: some 20th century British politicians. London: Little, Brown. p. 57. ISBN978-1-4087-0412-7.
^Rowse, Alfred L. (1995). Homosexuals in history: a study of ambivalence in society, literature and the arts. New York: Barnes & Noble. pp. 222–223. ISBN978-0-88029-011-1.
^Bazan, Osvaldo. History of Homosexuality in Argentinia. p. 88.
^Farman, Chris; Rose, Valery; Woolley, Liz (2015). No Other Way: Oxfordshire and the Spanish Civil War 1936–39. London: Oxford International Brigade Memorial Committee. p. 79.
^He never declared a sexual identity for himself, but several men claimed to have had sexual relationships with him and he did not deny insinuations that he was bisexual.
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^Geller, Pamela L.; Stockett, Miranda K., eds. (2006). Feminist anthropology: past, present, and future. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 89–102. ISBN978-0-8122-3940-9.
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^Didier Godard, Le Goût de Monsieur. L'homosexualité masculine au XVIIe siècle, editions H & O, Montblanc, 2002, page 171
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^Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne: The Life (John Murray, 2009), p. 210
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^Paul Derks: Die Schande der heiligen Päderastie. Homosexualität und Öffentlichkeit in der deutschen Literatur 1750–1850, Verlag Rosa Winkel, Berlin 1990, S. 34f
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^Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Argonauticus. Serb, Leipzig 1869, p. 100
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^McIntosh, Christopher (1982). The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria. I. B. Tauris. pp. 153–159. ISBN1-86064-892-4.
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^Helga Neumann: Maximilian Harden (1861–1927), Königshausen & Neumann, 2003, S. 109
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^Scott, Andrew G. (2018). Emperors and Usurpers: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 129–130, 135–137. ISBN978-01-90-87960-0.
^Zanghellini, Aleardo (2015). The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. p. 59. ISBN978-1-134-06706-0.
^Aldrich, Robert; Wotherspoon, Garry (2002). Who's Who In Gay And Lesbian History: From Antiquity to the Mid-Twentieth Century. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. p. 257. ISBN978-0-415-15983-8.
^Lansing, Richard H., ed. (2010). The Dante encyclopedia. Garland reference library of the humanities. New York: Routledge. ISBN978-0-203-83447-3.
^Watanabe, Tsuneo and Jun'ichi Iwata. The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality. p.51
^Leupp, Gary P. (1995). Male colors: the construction of homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN978-0-520-08627-2.
^Crompton, Louis (2006). Homosexuality & civilization. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 425, 439. ISBN978-0-674-02233-1.
^Troost, Wout (2005). William III, The Stadholder-king: A Political Biography. Translated by J. C. Grayson. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 25–26. ISBN0-7546-5071-5.
^Hermans, Dorine and Hooghiemstra, Daniela: Voor de troon wordt men niet ongestrafd geboren, ooggetuigen van de koningen van Nederland 1830–1890, ISBN978-90-351-3114-9, 2007.
^Bouloy, M.; Hannoun, C. (1976). "Studies on lumbo virus replication. I. RNA-dependent RNA polymerase associated with virions". Virology. 69 (1): 258–264. doi:10.1016/0042-6822(76)90212-9. ISSN0042-6822. PMID1896.
^Vidal Sales, José-Antonio (1994). Crónica íntima de los reyes de España: la vida privada de los monarcas españolas en el curso de los tres últimos siglos. Memoria de la historia Personajes (2 ed.). Barcelona: Planeta. p. 65. ISBN978-84-08-01139-2.
^Hellsing, My (2013). Hovpolitik: Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte som politisk aktör vid det gustavianska hovet. Örebro: Örebro universitet. p. 427. ISBN978-91-7668-964-6.
^Gianoulis, Tina (November 16, 2006). "Gustav V, King of Sweden (1858-1950)". GLBTQ – An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Archived from the original on August 3, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
^Arne Norlin i Familjen Bernadotte, makten, myten, människorna, ISBN 978-91-86597-96-2, p168
^Anderson, Benedict R. O'G (1991). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. p. 21. ISBN978-0-86091-329-0.
^"Post multa turpia adulteria et homicidia manibus suis perpetrata, postremo, etc." Dümmler, Ernst Ludwig (1891). "Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Libelli de lite". I (Bonizonis episcopi Sutriensis: Liber ad amicum ed.). Hannover: Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des Mittelalters: 584. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007. Retrieved 3 January 2008. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^The Book of Saints, by Ramsgate Benedictine Monks of St. Augustine's Abbey, A. C. Black, 1989. ISBN978-0-7136-5300-7
^"Cuius vita quam turpis, quam freda, quamque execranda extiterit, horresco referre." Victor III, Pope (1934). "Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Libelli de lite" (Dialogi de miraculis Sancti Benedicti Liber Tertius auctore Desiderio abbate Casinensis ed.). Hannover: Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des Mittelalters: 141. Archived from the original on 15 July 2007. Retrieved 3 January 2008. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Dr. Angelo S. Rappaport, The Love Affairs of the Vatican, 1912, pp. 81–82.
^Damian, Peter (c. 1051). Liber Gomorrhianus [Book of Gomorrah] (in Latin).
^Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power, and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, 1427–1527, chapter 3 (HarperCollins, 2013) ISBN978-0-06-156308-9
^Karlheinz Deschner, Storia criminale del cristianesimo (tomo VIII), Ariele, Milano, 2007, pag. 216. Nigel Cawthorne, Das Sexleben der Päpste. Die Skandalchronik des Vatikans, Benedikt Taschen Verlag, Köln, 1999, pag. 171.
^Claudio Rendina, I Papi, Storia e Segreti, Newton Compton, Roma, 1983, p. 589
^Peyrefitte, Roger Mea culpa? Ma fatemi il santo piacere, Tempo, 4 April 1976.
^Bellegrandi, Franco Nichitaroncalli: Controvita Di Un Papa, Edizioni Internazionale Di Letterature E Scienze (EILES), Rome 2009. English edition: Nikitaroncalli: Counterlife of a Pope
^Posner, Gerald (2015). God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican. Simon and Schuster. p. 173.
^Posner, Gerald God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican, Simon and Schuster, 2015 p174
^Hoffman, Paul "Oh Vatican! A Slightly Wicked View Of The Holy See", Congdon & Weed, New York 1984 p151
^Torress, Jose (5 April 1976). "Paul VI Denies He Is Homosexual". Observer Reporter. Associated Press. p. 27. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2025.