Which characters knew DD was Gay?

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 179230

Shaunette:
hahaha I can't picture Scrimgeour nosing around for gossip on such a
petty level. Hasn't he got more important things to worry about than
who a relatively young Dumbledore wants to sleep with?

Ceridwen:
I can.  At one time, at least in the Muggle world if it parallels our 
own, it was considered so bad to be gay or lesbian that it was hushed 
up, not spoken of, and the gay or lesbian person may even have been 
disowned by his or her family.  It was considered "unnatural".  To 
someone in the public eye like Dumbledore, and given Fudge's mistrust 
of him (fostered by Lucius Malfoy) during GoF and OotP, an order to 
Scrimgeour to find something ruinous to Dumbledore's reputation is 
completely possible if the WW mirrors our own world, and it does in a 
lot of ways.

Previous poster:
> - Mrs Kendra Dumbledore (Muggle born in an era when homosexuals were
> not gay)

Shaunette:
Er...what? What were they, then? Straight? Seriously, I don't get it.

Ceridwen:
In the 1890s, "gay" meant happy.  In fact, up until the 1960s at 
least, "gay" had connotations other than sexual orientation - the 
Flintstones' theme song ends with "We'll have a gay old time", for 
instance.  So, gays were "homosexuals", not "gay" back in Kendra 
Dumbledore's era.

Shaunette:
Do you mean "being gay" is unbelievable?
And that Lily and James would care in the slightest?
*(snip)*
LOL why would the ghosts care?
*(snip)*
Again, if they did hear, why would it matter to them or to the story?

Ceridwen:
They may care.  Gryffindors tend to uphold the prevailing attitude 
of "good".  If it was considered "bad" to be gay in the 1970s/1980s 
WW, then James and Lily may have cared a great deal.  All a person 
can do is go with what is known at the time, after all.  Someone 
living in the 1400s would believe and completely uphold that the 
earth is the center of the universe; someone living in the late 1700s 
would see slavery as the natural order and not something to do 
something about (and in 1970s Hogwarts, we don't hear about Lily 
trying to free House Elves); someone living in the mid-twentieth 
century would believe that being gay is an aberration, because those 
were the received wisdoms of those times.  James and Lily Potter died 
in 1981.  The ghosts died at various points before present, The Grey 
Lady about a thousand years ago give or take, Nearly Headless Nick 
five hundred years ago.  None of them can be divorced from the 
context of their times.

Ignoring prejudice doesn't make it go away.  It only demeans the 
struggle people have against prejudice and discrimination.  It seems 
that a lot of things are not being taught in school, and when they 
are, they are not given in context, leaving people to wonder why 
various historical figures were such unenlightened lunkheads about a 
variety of issues.

Through most of Dumbledore's life, in the Muggle world at least, 
being gay was considered bad, evil, mentally aberrant, and even 
criminal.  If the WW mirrors our own society, Scrimgeour may have 
been interested because of an actual violation of law being possible 
given DD's orientation.  Muckrakers like Skeeter would have had a 
field day.  Fudge and Umbridge could have used it, along with DD 
being in charge of a school, as a way to get DD out of the way with 
which very few would have taken umbrage.  Skeeter's insinuation about 
DD and Harry would have been horrific to parents - poor orphan kid 
preyed on by the chickenhawk, what'll happen to your own kids when 
he's got them ten months of the year?  These were real concerns, and 
real prejudices.  If Rowling meant to mirror our own society 
realistically, these would have been issues facing Dumbledore as a 
gay man.

On what Lily wrote to Sirius, though, I think it was unbelievable 
that DD was friends with GG.  Given her age and prevailing attitudes 
in the Muggle world at least, I can't see Bathilda Bagshot outing 
either DD or her nephew.

Ceridwen.