I recently returned to Gary C. Thomas’s classic essay ‘Was George Frederic Handel Gay?’ in the context of preparing to conduct an LGBT+ choir in the Hallelujah Chorus. For those who haven’t read it, the answer to the title’s question is: it is significantly more likely that he was gay than that he was straight. There’s a nice summary the reasons for that conclusion, including reference to research done by others since the original publication here.
Thomas writes not just about Handel’s homosocial social circle and activities, but also about how those have been discursively closeted off from his role as celebrated composer. Both in his own lifetime and since, there has been a general attempt to ‘normalise’ him as a properly manly (heterosexual) man, based largely on assertion, along with some invented evidence of ostensible female love interest.