Was she going to slap you because you never in any way made him gay in the actual books, taking zero risks/doing absolutely nothing for gay characters in literature, and only announcing your “authorial intent” afterwards for a cheap shot at looking like an ~ally~
^^^
Gay people are just normal people. We are not told about any of the Hogwarts professors love lives, other than Snape, and it would be completely out of character for Dumbledore to walk around telling everyone about his sexuality.
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you? Would that be enough of a stereotype to appease you people? Or what? Please tell me. I’d like to know how you think a gay character is supposed to be portrayed.
And did you miss the Grindelwald chapters in the ‘actual books’? Or was that also not obvious enough for you? Did Dumbledore need to whisper “always” wistfully in order for you to connect that he had romantic feelings for Grindelwald? Maybe you are American and need them to gaze longingly into each others eyes with awkward close ups of their fingers almost grazing each other that Hollywood thinks means ‘true love’.
It didn’t fit into his relationship to Harry to ever say “I’m gay”, and so it was not stated explicitly (you might have noticed the book was told from Harry Potter’s perspective).
The point is though, that he is a homosexual, well respected, powerful, and very loved wizard- and his sexuality doesn’t matter because no one else thinks it matters. a.k.a. no one care that he loves men, and that is wonderful.
OMG can I tell you a story?
I once wrote a story in my grad level writing class back in college. And these two women get together. And someone had a critic about it like, “Wait we weren’t told she was a lesbian,” “This came out of nowhere,” “It didn’t say she was a lesbian before this point.” Even my professor said this.
And I looked at him and my class like, “Why does it have to be said?” Honestly, you don’t start a story like, “This is so and so. They’re straight. They like men.” So why is it when it’s a gay character there has to be this big introduction like, “Hey just so you know this person is gay. Just so you’re aware, o.k.? They’re going to talk about liking people the same gender as them. Because that’s what they like. Actually you know what they don’t even have a love interest at all but they may make a comment about someone’s smile or something but just so you’re not surprised they’re gay o.k.?”
I’ll never forget that moment, because the way my class worked people wrote comments on your story and gave it back to you, and one girl wrote me a long message on the back of my story like, “Thank you for saying what you said. Because I get tired of people thinking that if a person is gay it has to be this huge presentation.” Because honestly, why does it have to be? If a character is gay, maybe… they’re just gay. Do they suddenly have to have a love interest? Or talk or act a certain way? How would Dumbledore act any differently with this tidbit of information? He’s gay. Yeah, that’s great. What would you have done differently in the story? Would he have announced it to all of Hogwarts? Why do you think he has to do anything differently at all?
