Holy nerdy holiday, Batman! As the third Saturday of September, this Saturday, September 21, is Batman Day—a day to pay tribute to a caped crusader who has protected Gotham since his introduction in the 1939 comic book Detective Comics #27.
You see, later comic-book adventures of Batman and sidekick Robin suggested the two characters weren’t just partners but partners—as you’ll see below—and it wasn’t long before people came to the understandable conclusion that Bruce Wayne is a hero in the streets and a queero in the sheets.
In the 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, a book frequently criticized for homophobia, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham called out “a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures of the mature ‘Batman’ and his friend ‘Robin’” and warned that the “Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious.”
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Wertham even quotes a “young homosexual” who saw that homoeroticism and imagined a gay future for himself. “I found my liking, my sexual desires, in comic books,” that young man said. “I think I put myself in the position of Robin. I did want to have relations with Batman. … I remember the first time I came across the page mentioning the ‘secret bat cave.’ The thought of Batman and Robin living together and possibly having sexual relations came to my mind. … I felt I’d like to be loved by someone like Batman or Superman.”
Forty years later, subtlety went out the window with the 1995 film Batman Forever and its 1997 follow-up, Batman & Robin, both directed by gay filmmaker Joel Schumacher. With superhero suits outfitted with nipples and codpieces, the films were practically made for the queer male gaze.
Since then, gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters have worked their way into Batman media on the page and on screens. In Telltale’s series of Batman video games, Bruce even admits that the Joker character “broke his heart.”
On social media, meanwhile, fans have made subtext about Bruce’s sexuality much more explicit.
In posts—many of which tagged with #GayBatman—fans cite media evidence of Batman’s queerness, share artwork depicting the hero as out and proud, and even cosplay as gay Batman (like the one smooching a Robin in the above photo from 2023’s São Paulo pride parade).
Here’s hoping the canonical Batman follows their example and comes out of the bat cave soon!
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