Ancient Greeks

The gallery of famous gay figures goes back to B. C times. Historic figures such as Hadrian, Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar are world renowned historic leaders that engaged in homosexual sex. Socially accepted in ancient societies, homosexual relations were actually seen as a typical expression of human sensual desires. Ancient Greeks are well known for the Greek homosexual military practices, especially in the war driven city states like Athens. The superior bond between people in the military was seen as part of the mythical legacy they were following.

Unlike today’s approaches to social acceptance and equal rights ancient Greece treated this as an elitist relationship among the only citizens able to influence politics. Regarding women as inferior human beings, the famous philosopher Plato believed real love can only occur between two men.

Reinassance

The most influential renaissance artist and the most inventive physicist of the renaissance period were both gay. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are ranked at the highest level among influential historic figures that are well known to have had a homosexual identity.

Modern times

In the modern times, music artists, fashion designers, politicians, activists, the fields in which public figures have openly admitted about their sexual identity are countless.

The 2009 Oscar winning movie, “Milk” brought to the story of the first elected politician to have openly admitted his sexual identity to the Hollywood spotlight. Harvey Milk was an elected official for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and upon his assassination by an ex supervisor he became a gay legend, a symbol for the fight for neighborhood rivals and gay rights.

Starring Sean Penn, the story of Harvey Milk’s life became the award winning movie of the year winning 2 Oscars and 30 other prestigious awards. The movie was released at a time when the contentious issues around same sex marriage bans and activism fights were at the spotlight. This movie brought about more attention to an even more important social issue, showing the power of the media to shape social issues.