A lot of famous artists are rumoured to have been queer as a result of both trauma and privilege
As I’ve grown older, I’ve found out that many famous artists have been rumoured to be queer (a fact that they never tell children) - Shakespeare, Donatello, Tennessee Williams, Van Gogh, etc - and I was wondering why exactly is it that so many authors and artists who have produced so-called “classics” were actually queer? I’ve managed to put it into three points after thinking it over for years:
1. “Tortured artist” - it’s always been the case that people view art as a way to express trauma and many people are convinced that you must be tortured in order to be an artist. Whilst this isn’t always true, a lot of famous artists have struggled with mental health issues. A large part of being a minority is the trauma and struggle that comes along with it, especially at a time where being anything but the norm was so harshly punished. Being queer in a time when it was fatal to be yourself probably provided some pretty heavy subject matter for these guys to deal with, and many of them used art as an outlet.
2. The unique trauma of being queer and their ability to hide it - being queer is a unique experience that no cishet person (whether you’re a minority or not) can understand fully. Queer people are traumatised from repressing who they are. Linking to the previous point, queer men have fulfilled the “tortured artist” stereotype for centuries. However, their ability to hide who they are, whilst traumatising, has allowed queer white men to share their works with the least oppressed groups in the world, thus securing their works as “classics”.
3. White queer privilege - queer people are able (and expected) to hide who they are, whereas other oppressed groups do not get this privilege. POC have never been granted the ability to hide their race, and therefore were never given the opportunities that white men have been granted over the years. Women’s works have never been as highly regarded as men’s works. Because of this, many closeted white male artists were able to make a living out of their work, and have been able to share their art over multiple generations. POC and women have never been able to do this because of their lack of choice to hide who they are. White male privilege provided these men with areas to share their work, even though they were minorities themselves.
This logic still applies. More opportunities are provided to white queer men than to other groups and, for the most part, they can choose to disclose their sexuality to whomever they want. This, of course, creates a very traumatising experience for them, as it does for anyone in the community. In a nutshell, the reason many famous artists were queer (or were rumoured to be queer) is due to their status as oppressed oppressors. If Shakespeare was black or Van Gogh was a woman, we would not even know their names, let alone be consuming their art.
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