does shakespeare have LGTB characters?

incorrectshakespeare:

melusineloriginale:

Well…yes and no. Which I know is a cheat but there it is.

There are definitely characters in Shakespeare’s plays who we can identify as LGBT to varying extents, and there is of course an enormous amount of queer theory to back up these identifications. However, it’s a bit of a misnomer since during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, these particular terminologies did not exist. Which is not to say that homosexuality did not exist or that it was impossible to be transgendered in that period–both of these have been around pretty much as long as humanity has been around. But they didn’t have the same names, nor were they necessarily placed in their own categories.

If you’re curious to know more about queer readings of Shakespearean plays, I’m going to tag @shredsandpatches in this post since that was partly the topic of her doctoral thesis and she’s got an enormous amount of material on it. However, here’s a shortlist of plays that I would say include significant homoerotic and/or non-binary gender themes (and, anyone who reads this and notices anything missing, please feel free to add on).

– Twelfth Night (Viola dresses as a man and Olivia falls for her; also hints that Orsino is attracted to her while she’s pretending to be a man)

– As You Like It (Rosalind dresses as a man and engages in all sorts of fun gender-bending roleplay with Orlando before eventually marrying him)

– Coriolanus (Aufidius and Martius are gay; well, Martius is more likely bi since he’s also married and has a kid)

– The Merchant of Venice (Antonio loves Bassanio who at least claims to love Portia who has an awesomely sweet relationship with Nerissa…needless to say, things get complicated. Trigger warnings for anti-Semitism.)

– Antony & Cleopatra (All sorts of interesting gender stuff going on here, usually paired with interesting race/culture stuff, plus Cleopatra is a BAMF)

– Richard II (Richard is bi but that is the least of his problems)

– Romeo & Juliet (Mercutio is often coded as queer in productions and there’s a fair bit in the text to back this up)

– Othello (critics have argued that part of Iago’s tangled feelings for Othello include unacknowledged sexual attraction; it’s not the reading I personally follow but it’s popular enough to be worth noting)

– Julius Caesar (I know there’s a pretty substantial fan following for Brutus/Cassius, but it’s honestly been long enough since I read the play that I can’t speak to it in much detail)

“richard is bi but that is the least of his problems” i am laughing so hard