Gays and Gods

Mythology always had a vast ground for beliefs and disbeliefs, for the right and wrong — for the devils and the angels. Being over-the-top is the defining feature of mythology. Gods transforming into swans, mortals lusting after the moon, humans being born from the sea — it’s essentially ancient fan fiction with divine special effects.

But beneath all that thunder and glory lies something more intriguing: the gods were never straight.

A long, long time ago, when nobody had yet invented the terms in LGBTQ+ or gender norms, there were ancient storytellers out there breezily narrating love between warriors, shape-shifting gods, and gender-blurring deities who would be both mother and father at the same time. From India’s androgynous Ardhanarishvara to Greece’s weeping Achilles, from Egypt’s self-generative Atum to Japan’s gender-flexible Inari — myths across the board were ahead of their time.

So, let’s pick up our fictional time machines and go on a world tour through tales that describe queer love as not unusual or something deserving of contempt, but as a pure, joy-inducing act of adoration between two beings, irrespective of their gender.

First, let’s look at some Indian queer love stories. Shocking, yet true — India today is known for its repulsive attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, but ancient India had a completely different ideology. It valued love between people of the same gender and respected the transgender community — something we are still fighting for in today’s era.

In Hindu faith, the divine usually goes beyond gender altogether. The god Ardhanarishvara — half Shiva, half Parvati — is the personification of balance, demonstrating that masculinity and femininity coexist in harmony within the same form. At the same time, tales of Shikhandi, a soldier who switches gender in order to achieve their fate in the Mahabharata, emphasize ancient India’s highly fluid conception of identity.

Even Krishna, the mischievous god of love, becomes the female form Mohini in a few stories — captivating gods and demons alike. They remind us that divinity itself may be magnificently, unapologetically fluid.

All these popular legends illustrate how gender identity was not strict and one could be anything they wished to be, even in India.

The Greeks, who were never shy about love between same-sex beings, provided us with some of mythology’s most unapologetically queer characters. The Sun God Apollo, deity of music and poetry, was reputed to have loved women and men alike — among them, the lovely mortal Hyacinthus, whose demise gave rise to the flower that would come to bear his name. Zeus, the king of the gods, famously disguised himself as an eagle to abduct the beautiful Trojan prince Ganymede, who would serve as his divine cupbearer — and, according to some stories, his lover. In these myths, love was not limited to gender; it was beyond that — something fit for the gods themselves.

In Norse mythology, the mischievous Loki defies all rules. They shapeshift into a mare, give birth to Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir, and slip between genders and species as easily as breathing. Loki’s queerness is part of their power.

Across the sea, among Native American cultures, the Two-Spirit individuals represent both masculine and feminine forces — a sacred dichotomy valued for its spiritual richness. In Lakota lore, for instance, the Winkte deity exemplifies this sacred gender variation and is revered for wisdom and spirituality.

In Japanese mythology, the androgynous, playful dance of the god Ame-no-Uzume revives light in the world, erasing gender divisions in the spirit of joy and creation. In China, the tale of the Rabbit God Tu’er Shen tells of a mortal man who was beheaded for loving another man — then reincarnated as a deity who sanctions same-sex love. Even in strict imperial cultures, these legends had the courage to celebrate love that transgressed.

For centuries, rules and strict codes of morality attempted to erase the queerness that once flourished freely in ancient myth. But these gods’ tales endure — a reminder of a period when love was just love. They remind us that queerness is not new, not unnatural, and by no means shameful. It has always been there — in temples and palaces, in poems and prayers, in the hearts of mortals and gods alike.

The world’s myths inform us about what human beings treasure most — and among those things is queer love beyond boundaries, gender, and mortality. To recall these queer gods is to recall that godliness has never been straight