The pretty much defunt Jean Grey message board was full of gay male fans. Now of course there were straight guys, bi girls, straight women too and probably every one else in between but we had a lot of gay males. Same with any Jean Grey fan group on Facebook or anywhere else you look.
Syfy wire even did an article called the queer fanbase of Jean Grey:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-qu...e-of-jean-grey
Of course those of us in the fandom already knew about this aspect of the fanbase because we live it. I have been challenged on this generalization before, but it always shocks me. Are people not observant? There was a time the off topic thread on this board was dominated by young gay guys talking about their love/ dating life, school, etc. Most X-men boards are dominated by gay guys but then when we say it we usually get challenged like we make it up. It can be frustrating.
Of course a lot of the X-women characters have a lot of gay fans but when it comes to the online fandom it would be hard to beat Jean Grey. There were some Dazzler fans who always acted like most gay fans loved her, but again the Jean Grey fandom would be tough to beat (its not a competition of course).
Fans love characters for many different reasons. I do have theories about Jean that do involve transformations but there are probably a lot of other reasons we fall for Jean.