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You do realize I said the rulers themselves not the societies they lived in.No you wouldn't. In Imperial Russia or China, you would have been ostracized and despised. In feudal Japan who knows about trans people but bucking the rigid caste and patriarchal hierarchy would have cost you your head.
Plus with Catherine though she played the game to win power from the Church there is good evidence that she honestly didn't believe in Christianity. She questioned it from a young age and once remaked that "She would rather read Voltaire then the Bible." Plus one of her good friends was a closeted gay ruler of Prussia and Catherine like him lived a hedonistic sex life.
Likewise in China while they had their periods of more homophobic times they also had cross dressers, eunuchs and besides that in many eras homosexual love wasn't seen as evil or stigmatized. It was again more about marrying to bring honor to your family to quote the movie Mulan but you could have gay affairs on the side. China even had a God of Homosexuality and even gay marriage Tuer Shen who's cult the Communists along with the Muslims and Christians have long tried to stamp out.
Likewise in many eras Japan was less hung up about the gay stuff then China. Of the three unifiers of Japan Nobunaga Oda, Hideyoshi Toytomi and Ieyasu Tokugawa ALL had gay lovers on the side and again there has always been a cross dresser and eunuch tradition.









