Just not that into ewes

By Sarah Belcher

Michael Stücke is the farmer behind Rainbow Wool, a nonprofit in Germany that saves homosexual rams from being slaughtered.

• Michael Stücke, a farmer from Germany, founded Rainbow Wool in 2023 to save homosexual rams from being sent to slaughter
• In 2025, the nonprofit collaborated with Grindr to produce a fashion show of knitwear items made from the yarn spun from Stücke’s sheep
• Proceeds from Rainbow Wool support LGBTQ+ advocacy and have helped nearly 2,000 people escape anti-gay persecution worldwide

One man in Löhne, Germany, is making a difference with his flock of gay sheep.

The nonprofit Rainbow Wool was founded in 2023 by Michael Stücke, a farmer who has been tending to sheep since 1995. Coming from a background in agriculture, Stücke, 52, was approached by his friend, Nadia Leytes, who works in advertising, and translated Stücke’s conversation for PEOPLE. 

Leytes says after learning of the prevalence of homosexuality in sheep, she asked what happened to those male sheep who refused to mate with females. As a ram that won’t mate with a ewe isn’t “profitable,” as Stücke puts it, he explains to PEOPLE that “they’re getting sent to slaughter.”

It’s estimated that around 8% of rams exhibit exclusively homosexual behavior. As someone who’s from Russia, where it’s still illegal to be gay, Leytes, 39, says she was outraged by this and eventually proposed to Stücke the idea that would become Rainbow Wool. From there, he says it became a “passion project,” heralded by him, Leytes and his husband, Johan, whom he met almost two decades prior in 2005.

To build the flock of gay sheep, Stücke put out a call to other farmers and “hobby breeders,” stating he would take in any rams that were being sent to slaughter for not mating with ewes.

“When we first started, there was a lot of polarizing feedback,” he admits. “Some people were saying we’re crazy. What’s going on? But gradually people understood that we are honest about this and we’re not faking anything, because every animal that comes to [my] farm needs to do a test.”

To ensure that the sheep that are being taken in are actually homosexual, they’ll place the rams that are assumed to be gay in an enclosure with ewes during the breed’s “horny season.” If the ram refuses to mate, he says, “there is a clear indication that he’s not interested.” 

“So then we put him into our herd, and then a lot of action happens, if you know what I mean,” he says. “It’s happening really within minutes.”

From there, Stücke and Johan continued to build their flock bit by bit. In 2025, the organization quickly catapulted to international recognition when they were approached by Grindr about a possible collaboration.

As a married man living on a farm in Germany, Stücke admits he was unfamiliar with the popular gay dating app. So, to learn more before proceeding further, he made a profile and began chatting with others in his “friend zone” on the app.

“[I] started to understand what is the power of the platform that it holds — how it connects the gay people all over the world and how it also connects the gay people all over the world, in the countries where it’s illegal to be gay,” he explains, saying this helped him understand its reach “and how much awareness we can do together.”

Through Rainbow Wool’s collaboration with Grindr, the pair heralded a fashion show in New York City in November 2025 with a collection of 37 unique knitwear pieces made of yarn spun from the wool of the sheep on Stücke’s farm. The entire collection was designed by Michael Schmidt, a wardrobe, jewelry and interior designer who has styled icons like Madonna, Cher and Hailey Bieber.

“And I don’t know anybody that I’ve told the story to who hasn’t immediately become invested and immediately want to know what is happening with these sheep — how are they being cared for and are they all right?” Schmidt tells PEOPLE. “And so I was on board immediately. I mean, it just was too good a project to say no to, really.”

An “avid knitter” himself, Schmidt explains that the project was presented to him at a time when he was already considering ideas for a knitwear collection.

“There are so few opportunities in this world to really feel good about a project or connect with people on an emotional level when you’re creating a work,” he says. “It immediately resonates certainly with me as a gay man, but it’s just indicative of a lot of things that are happening in the world and how we do or don’t care for those who need to be tended to. It immediately seemed to me a metaphor for the way homosexuality is treated around the world in many countries, many places, still to this day.”

In preparation to create the collection, Schmidt visited Stücke on his farm, where he says he was introduced to the sheep that make up his flock.

“It’s really an idyllic setting out in this sort of pastoral countryside of Germany, and it’s so beautiful and lush and green, and they’re just living this marvelous life. And so it really, really was touching,” he adds.

Schmidt says he wanted the collection to “not be forgotten the next day,” emphasizing that the imagery behind the pieces “spoke to the larger issues of the gay community,” while being “sexy,” “practical” and “unusual and arresting to the viewer.”

“I don’t think anyone knew what to expect,” says Grindr CEO George Arison of the New York fashion show. “It makes sense to me that there’s gays everywhere, like that’s just normal. But I have never thought about gay sheep as a topic until maybe a week before the fashion show itself.”

Arison continues, “You can raise topics of people’s rights in many different ways, and this is a very good way to do it… Like, look at these guys. They’re so sexy. But then, like, hey, it forces me to confront with the fact that in [64] countries around the world, it’s still illegal to be gay.”

Unfortunately, Stücke was unable to see the New York fashion show in person. Before starting Rainbow Wool together, Johan was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. On January 4, 2026, he died.

“Johan was also the heart of this project,” Leytes says. ”It was [our] passion project together, like all three of us, you know? Before Johan also died, he said the project needs to go on, we need to go on, the farm needs to go on, because it’s so important. It brings so, so much good messaging in the world full of hostility and anti-gay narratives also rising around the world.”

As a nonprofit organization, all of the profits from Rainbow Wool go to LSVD+, the largest nongovernmental organization in Germany advocating for LGBTQ+ people. As a result of the collaboration, Stücke and Leytes emphasize just how much more they were able to accomplish.

“We were able also to save almost 2,000 people now also together with Grindr, with their contribution, from the countries where it’s forbidden to be gay, where people end up in prison or sentenced to death penalties,” Stücke says. “We were able, with the money that we raised with this project so far, to get almost 2,000 people in the safety of Europe.”

Schmidt is currently holding on to the collection, though certain items are expected to be auctioned off to further support Stücke and LSVD+. He adds that he is also planning to put some of the pieces from the collection into production, and a portion of the proceeds from those sales will support Rainbow Wool and its mission.

“It’s remarkable too that all of this is because of one man — one man’s actions around the world halfway across the globe and you see how it has touched so many people,” Schmidt says. “It just shows you that we may not realize it, but oftentimes we have the ability to make a difference if we just stand up and stand out and shine a light on a practice or whatever it may be that needs to be thought through, and people need to be aware of.”

“At the end of the day, the only thing I was really concerned with was arguing this ridiculous notion that homosexuality is a choice,” he continues. “That’s what this whole thing speaks to because if it exists in the animal kingdom in tangible, viewable, documentable, scientific ways, then the argument that homosexuality is a choice is no longer valid. Sheep don’t choose to be gay or straight. They simply are.”

Source: https://people.com/farmer-behind-rainbow-wool-tends-only-to-gay-sheep-saving-queer-lives-exclusive-12000672