Are there any clues in the Harry Potter series to support Dumbledore's Sexuality?

Question

Today (or Yesterday eastern time) JK Rowling revealed Dumbledore's sexuality and that he is gay. However i was wondering whether anyone can see any references in the books to this. Some people are complaining that JK didnt make it explicit enough in the books. What do you think?

*By EXPLICIT I meant the proof was more obvious and am not necessarily refering to how adult the book is...would be an interesting question though i am sure :P

Answer 1

J K Rowling said in her speech that Dumbledore was gay and that he fell for Gilbert Grindelwald. When Grindelwald turned bad that was one of Dumbledore's great tragedies. I would never have thought that he was gay, I always took their friendship as a close one because he was stuck at home looking after his family instead of travelling the world as he intended. There is nothing to suggest that there relationship was anymore than that in the book.
I think she's made it up just to include the gay community in her books.
Referring to the explicit bit, no it shouldn't have been. This was a children's book as well as an adults book. I read Harry Potter to my daughter when she was five and I certainly wouldn't read any books to her that any serious sexual reference of any kind in!

Answer 2

Well there was that childhood friend that he had an obsessive relationship with in book 7 (however they said THAT friendship formed because both Dumbledore and his friend were each other's magical match and were always finding ways to out do each other)...but even that in and of itself is too vague...if someone, apart from the author, we're to look at this series and say "Hmmmm...Albus is gay!" and the following passages prove it...I'd be worried...that's just looking at the story line too closely. Anyway, even if there were clues about Dumbledore's sexual preference..they were well masked by J.K.. Something, like Dumbledore's extreme interest in Harry...can be displaced by the fact that Dumbledore had to figure out how to rid the world of Tom Riddle once and for all...Honestly, anything you could use to say Albus was gay, can be easily disputed by other details in the book...and perhaps J.K.R. did that on purpose. It doesn't matter anyway...J.K. could say anything about any character and we'd all have to take it for what it is...afterall...it's HER series...so SHE gets the final say.

Answer 3

Nothing exact that makes you certain of Dumbledore's sexuality except for that he never mentions anything about any women. Many people, like me, assumed that there was a little something something going on between him and McGonagall--but alas! She was probably his hag.

Reading through DH now, you could take some of the things into to context that might make you think Dumbledore and Grindelwald were into each other on a different level to BFF. Bathida Bagshot says how "they took to each other at once.." how they would send all day in discussion, and "they got on like a cauldron on fire..." (her words, swear it) they sent letters to each other in the dead of the night.

The end of the letter Dumbledore sends Grindelwald he mentions how if he can't complain that Grindelwald was expelled from Drumstrang, because if not they would have never met.


...this can all be taken any context you want, plus several other excerpts from the book. But you could also take Ron and Harry's relationship into that context too.

I wish she would have given a bigger hint to it all....*sigh...*

Answer 4

No there weren't any hints.

The only "hint" was that he was a "lonely" man, but so was Minerva and that doesn't mean she's lesbian, and for that matter so was Sirius (a forced loneliness, but still a loneliness. I don't think we ever saw him in any kind of relationship with a woman).

There are hardly any dialogues that portrait Grindewald's relationship with Dumbledore, the most significant is the letter (or at least that's the one I remember more clearly) and you couldn't figured out from that DD had feelings for Grindewald.

I agree she should've been a bit more explicit about it, because somehow this feels overdue and not quite in place (at least for me). Feeling I wouldn't have if there had been hints at least in the last book.

Answer 5

This is reading like an essay and i apologize but passionate should be my middle name. Wow, i'm suprised and actually a little insulted by mojo risin's response although from my own experiences it seems to accurately reflect a stereotype believed by many others, that if an individual is old and gay then they must be a pedophile. JK Rowling is a world-renowned author with outstanding critical aclaim and one of the largest fanbases of our time so no John, her books aren't trashy (though it is cute that you capitalize gays like most people capitalize God) and no Pax C, she doesn't need the front page coverage anymore than she needs more money (oh and btw, she's second to oprah in that respect).

The original question posed to Rowling was whether Dumbledore had ever loved. ""Dumbledore is gay, actually," replied Rowling as the audience erupted in surprise. She added that, in her mind, Dumbledore had an unrequited love affair with Gellert Grindelwald, Voldemort's predecessor who appears in the seventh book." If you're looking for hints in the books, they are admittedly scarce and as Dom-O points out, easy to disprove in favour of other motives but there are certain lines that will stick out should you choose to look. One example is the line "'You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me".

Another is the example that Dirty mentions is the passage about dumbledore's feelings towards his expulsion, "If you had not been expelled we would never have met." And Dumbledore's emotional turmoil regarding fighting Gridelwald, "Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this brief boyhood friendship in later life...However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate?". People were being attacked, losing loved ones and dying themselves because of Grindelwald, and Dumbledore, one of the most empathetic and selfless of Rowling's characters, hesitates for five years? It definitely suggests that Dumbledore has strong feelings for Grindelwald.

I think to have more bluntly mentioned Dumbledore's sexuality in the book would have been more complex than most people realize. Firstly, any sexual content would have turned many concerned parents against allowing their children to read the books and many schools might have banned the books thinking them inappropriate. Probably, the situation would have been similar to or likely worse than the book "And Tango Makes Three," a story of two male penguins raising a baby penguin, which topped the American Library Association's latest list of books attracting the most complaints from parents and educators.

Secondly, since Rowling protrays the wizarding and muggle worlds in a similar, modern, 'you feel like you could have lived there' way, she would have had to decide to what degree to incorporate all of the issues surronding homosexual relationships in today's society. How would her audience have reacted if she mentioned homophobic tendencies and violence or if, in the opposite case, she didn't, would some readers have then wondered at the realism of such a potentially 'utopian' protrayal. Also, to have stated it when she did, meant that she could use her existing credibility as a renowned author to back the statement and also critics would have a harder time knocking such a fact seeing as the books had already been adored and praised.

Was this perhaps a blow aimed at coservative thinkers, yes it definitely is but I, for one, believe beyond a doubt that Rowling, or any quality writer for that matter, would not make a statement like that if it were false, no matter what political/social or other gains could be accomplished. Having written a few stories of my own and having read much on authors (in biographies and such), I must say that authors are usually quite dedicated and loyal to the characters they create (their children if you will), having a greater knowledge of the inner most workings of those characters than perhaps they have room to or choose to put down in writing.

Her choice indicates further the brilliance of JK Rowling and makes me respect her even more as an author for it.

Answer 6

NO! there was no clues. She could tell us that Harry was a girl and Hermione was a man in disguise and we would have to beleive her. It's her book and I guess she could say anything she wanted. I think the idea that Dumbledore was gay just came up with out her really prearranging it. She probably thought it would be cool twist to her books.

Answer 7

i would never of guessed to be honest, personally i think JK is doing this for attention and publicity, but as it's her book i guess she can do whatever she wants.
i never found anything to suspect Dumbledore's sexuality.

Answer 8

I don't think the books hint at all to Dumbledore's sexuality.

Answer 9

i think it's ridiculous that people are complaining she wasn't explicit enough about it in the book! maybe she wasn't explicit about it b/c it wasn't that big of a deal to her. not everything can be one big gay parade!

Answer 10

As far as I know, there aren't any blatant clues. If he is gay, then kudos to JKR for telling it like it is: there's nothing wrong about being gay. The most important thing in life is love, both philos and eros.