A brief history of queerness

In 1476, a young Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was investigated by the Florentine moral authorities. Someone had anonymously accused him of fornicating with a 17-year-old sex worker. But the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Literary historian Dino Heicker, author of the 2025 German-language book "World History of Queerness", says there are contemporary sources proving that Leonardo loved men. He was particularly taken with an apprentice 28 years younger than him named Gian Giacomo Caprotti, also known as as "Salaj" (or "little devil"). And they lived together for many years. 

Did da Vinci paint his lover Salaj as 'Monna Vanna'?Image: picture-alliance/akg-images/A. Held

A few years ago, Italian art historians thought they had found proof that the world-famous Mona Lisa was not Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant — but Caprotti instead. He modeled for da Vinci several times and researchers say that the resemblance is unmistakable. Additionally, the letters L and S (for Leonardo and Salaj) can even be seen in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, as well as the endearing words, "mon salaj" (or "My Salaj"), which may also be a rough anagram of "Mona Lisa." 

But the Louvre Museum, where the world-famous painting hangs, isn't convinced of the theory. Is it true? Da Vinci and his companion took this secret to their graves.

In 1550, Leonardo's first biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote that the painter took "peculiar pleasure" in the beautiful boy — where the word "peculiar" functioned as a euphemism for da Vinci's queerness.

The biblical city of Sodom as a den of iniquity 

"When a majority defines what is normal and abnormal and declares a binary gender model to be the norm, this creates a difficult environment for minorities who feel differently," says Dino Heicker.

In his book, he states the draconian punishments were sometimes inflicted upon queer, non-binary or transgender people who indulged in what was referred to at the time as "unnatural" lifestyles. They were put in chains, stoned, castrated or ended up burned at the stake. Those meting the punishment used the Bible to legitimize their persecution of queer people, especially the story of Sodom and Gomorrah — the cities destroyed by God because of what the book classifies as "sinful" behavior. The term "sodomy" has also been used as a synonym for homosexuality.

This story "provided the blueprint for centuries of stigmatization toward other kinds of people." In 1512, the Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa ordered his dogs to maul Indigenous people in America, accusing them of having committed "the horrible sin of sodomy." 

Dino Heicker spent two years writing his bookImage: Dino Heicker

Varieties of love in antiquity

On the other hand, there were also societies in which many forms of queerness were generally accepted. For example, during antiquity, it was common for men to have a male lover in addition to their wives. The Roman emperor Hadrian was so heartbroken by the death of his beloved Antinous that he had him posthumously declared as a god, and erected numerous statues and places of worship to honor the beautiful youth.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) once said that lawmakers on the island of Crete came up with something very special to celebrate new births: pederasty, or "boy love," when an older man took a young man into his home to train him sexually. "Sexual favors were expected from the younger man, but this was not viewed disparagingly by society," explains Dino Heicker.

At the same time, love between women was also commonplace. On the island of Lesbos, the poet Sappho paid homage to the beauty of the female form in her verses. And models for a variety of different kinds of love were found in the world of the gods — especially Zeus, the father of the gods, and the epitome of queerness. This term did not exist at the time, but he transformed himself into women, animals, and even a cloud in order to have sex with the object of his desire. 

Wall painting from Pompeii: Zeus, father of the gods, approached the king's daughter Europa in the form of a bull and abducted herImage: Tristan Lafranchis/akg-images(picture-alliance

In ancient times, there was nothing wrong with men having sex with other men or boys, "as long as they played the active role," explains Dino Heicker. "The penetrated man, i.e. the inferior man, was considered effeminate and was considered socially inferior." In the Roman Empire, people liked to accuse their political opponents of being sexually passive, because "it was a way of tarnishing their honor."

A 'crime against nature'

The spread of Christianity brought an end to the leniency towards same-sex love. The bishop and Benedictine monk, Petrus Damiani (1006-1072) was one of the most influential clergymen of the 11th century. He railed against fornication, which he saw spreading even in monasteries: "The befouling cancer of sodomy," he wrote, "is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ." Sodomy, he was convinced, was the result of diabolical whispers.

Dino Heicker's book is a journey through queer life storiesImage: BeBra Verlag

Among the samurai warriors in Japan and at the Chinese imperial court, there was a more relaxed attitude towards queerness; same-sex love was common among men. In 1549, the Jesuit priest Francisco de Xavier noted: "The Buddhist priests constantly commit crimes against nature and do not even deny it. They openly admit it."

The LGBTQ+ who's who 

In later centuries and modern times, there were various LGBTQ+ figures — including among royalty.

Heicker's book lists among others the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), African-American playwright James Baldwin (1924-1987) and also Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the women who retreated to a remote valley in Wales around 1780 and who were eyed suspiciously as the "Ladies of Llangollen." They were all just trying to find happiness. 

The diaries of Anne Lister aka "Gentleman Jack”

The English landowner Anne Lister (1791-1840) left behind a set of diaries that was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011. "In these 26 volumes, she writes in detail about lesbian sex and her relationship with women," explains Heicker. Lister had developed a secret code so that no uninitiated person could read her confessions, which were not deciphered until 1930. In her village, she was often referred to as "Gentleman Jack" but was largely left undisturbed. Lister's writing had a significant influence on the direction of British gender studies and women's history.

Anne Lister is considered the first modern lesbianImage: Gemeinfrei

The third gender

From the Mahus on Tahiti to the Muxes of the Zapotec people in Mexico, the Hijras in India and the North American Lhamanas of the Zuñi: for thousands of years, across cultures, people have felt they belonged to the third gender, identifying neither as men nor as women. "There was much greater diversity than the narrow, binary gender model would have us think today," says Heicker. "The Zuñi, for example, do not assume that gender is innate, rather they see it as a social construct."

We'wha traveled to the US in 1885 and was received by the president as a Zuñi princess; no one suspected We'wha was biologically male.Image: Gemeinfrei

In Germany today, the third gender is referred to as "diverse." "Queer people, especially in Germany, have had to fight for freedoms previous generations could only dream of," says Heicker. "In 1994, Paragraph 175(which criminalized sexual acts between men, Editor's note) was finally removed from the penal code. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and sexual discrimination is now an offence. On the other hand, and here comes the big but: these achievements must continuously also be protected, especially in the face of attempts to turn back the clock." 

This article was originally written in German.