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JK Rowling announced in 2007 to an audience at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbledore was in fact, gay and always had been...

Q: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?

JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how I always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

Was there ever any textual evidence in the Harry Potter novels that would have led a reader, especially the target readers, to believe this was the case?

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Skooba
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In terms of explicit confirmation, the answer is a very solid no. At no point did any character, nor the omniscient narrator, identify Dumbledore's sexuality in simple terms.

Signs and portents.

Various writers have identified incidents and passages that might act as subtle indicators toward his sexuality. Note that all of these were spotted post-facto and some require a very ungenerous interpretation.

  • Dumbledore's love of knitting patterns, a typically feminine pre-occupation.

    ‘No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I do love knitting patterns. Well, Harry, we have trespassed upon Horace’s hospitality quite long enough; I think it is time for us to leave.’

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

  • Dumbledore's lack of a female love interest

  • Dumbledore's extravagant dress-sense

    This younger Albus Dumbledore’s long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing.

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

  • Rita Skeeter's description of his relationship with Grindelwald (who we now learn was his lover). I've highlighted the smutty parts.

    ‘Oh, now, I’m glad you mentioned Grindelwald,’ says Skeeter, with a tantalising smile. ‘I’m afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore’s spectacular victory must brace themselves for a bombshell – or perhaps a Dungbomb. Very dirty business indeed. All I’ll say is, don’t be so sure that there really was the spectacular duel of legend. After they’ve read my book, people may be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and came quietly!’

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  • Rita Skeeter's description of his relationship with Harry Potter. I've highlighted the parts that suggest that he's a sexual deviant

    ‘Oh yes,’ says Skeeter, nodding briskly, ‘I devote an entire chapter to the whole Potter–Dumbledore relationship. It’s been called unhealthy, even sinister. Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Potter from the word go. Whether that was really in the boy’s best interests – well, we’ll see. It’s certainly an open secret that Potter has had a most troubled adolescence.’

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  • Aberforth's description of Dumbledore's relationship with Grindlewald

    ‘But after a few weeks of it, I’d had enough, I had. It was nearly time for me to go back to Hogwarts, so I told ’em, both of ’em, face to face, like I am to you, now,’ and Aberforth looked down at Harry, and it took little imagination to see him as a teenager, wiry and angry, confronting his elder brother. ‘I told him, you’d better give it up, now. You can’t move her, she’s in no fit state, you can’t take her with you, wherever it is you’re planning to go, when you’re making your clever speeches, trying to whip yourselves up a following. He didn’t like that,’ said Aberforth, and his eyes were briefly occluded by the firelight on the lenses of his glasses: they shone white and blind again. ‘Grindelwald didn’t like that at all. He got angry. He told me what a stupid little boy I was, trying to stand in the way of him and my brilliant brother … didn’t I understand, my poor sister wouldn’t have to be hidden once they’d changed the world, and led the wizards out of hiding, and taught the Muggles their place?

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  • Dumbledore's own description of Grindelwald

    ‘Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.

    ‘Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true.

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  • And of course, as the LA Times has stated, his name is a dead giveaway

    "While the anagram to 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' is 'I am Lord Voldemort,' as my good friend pointed out, 'Albus Dumbledore' becomes 'Male bods rule, bud!'"

    Seven clues that 'Potter's' Dumbledore was gay

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    Awesome answer usual. Many of those really stretch for the double meaning though. The last item I think clearly the most telling! – Skooba Mar 03 '17 at 18:12
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    @Skooba - I do agree. The large problem with trying to read any sexual motivation into Dumbledore's character is that I'm reasonably confident that she didn't decide to make him gay until after she'd finished the books, whatever her protestations to the contrary. It's the same as her declaring that Hermione's race was never stated in the books (albeit in that case, she seemed to have forgotten that she did state it, repeatedly). – Valorum Mar 03 '17 at 18:59
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    "She wants credit for being very up-to-date and politically correct -- but she didn't have the guts to put that supposed "fact" into the actual novels, knowing that it might hurt sales. ... When I have a gay character in my fiction, I say so right in the book. I don't wait until after it has had all its initial sales to mention it." - Orson Scott Card – Skooba Mar 03 '17 at 19:14
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    Great answer. I'm having some trouble understanding what Aberforth's quote has to do with anything. He addressed "both of 'em" together because they were planning to conquer the Muggles together, not because they were together, I think. I don't see how this quote furthers your point. – Shokhet Mar 03 '17 at 20:20
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    @Shokhet - I felt that he (Aberforth) was grumpy because Dumbledore was prioritising his relationship (with his gay lover) over taking care of his sister. – Valorum Mar 03 '17 at 20:25
  • @Valorum okay. I guess that works – Shokhet Mar 03 '17 at 20:48
  • @Shokhet - It's tangential, I'll happily admit. – Valorum Mar 03 '17 at 20:51
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    Many phrases are anagrams of many other phrases. "Albus Dumbledore" is also an anagram of "Loud Bramble Sued" - is that a dead giveaway that he likes to bring litigation against inanimate objects? And "Badder Bull Mouse" clearly makes him a rodent. While we're at it, "Tom Marvolo Riddle" <=> "Dammit, Drool Lover" <=> "Tom, A Mild Overlord" – user253751 Mar 03 '17 at 22:43
  • Was the Babylon 5 reference in this answer deliberate? – Rand al'Thor Mar 03 '17 at 23:35
  • @Randal'Thor - It was not. What did I say? – Valorum Mar 03 '17 at 23:37
  • @Valorum "Signs and Portents". Maybe I just have Babylon 5 on the brain of late ... – Rand al'Thor Mar 03 '17 at 23:39
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    @Randal'Thor - It's from the Bible, Isiah 8:18 - Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion – Valorum Mar 03 '17 at 23:42
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    The premise of this answer is good, but most of the evidence is really grasping at straws. – Pharap Mar 04 '17 at 01:41
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    This is a good, and I feel, complete answer. But here in Portland, and from my years in the UK, all of it (with exception of the last, epic one) would describe our run-of-the-mill hipsters. – Mikey Mar 04 '17 at 07:19
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    @Pharap - I've tried to make the straw-clutchingness apparent in the answer. As I said above, the main problem is that in over a million words of text, JKR didn't see fit to mention his sexuality. That strongly suggests to me that he's been "gay retconned" – Valorum Mar 04 '17 at 14:38
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    @Skooba - As I on another question, Card's attitudes on this matter could, in general, charitably be described as cruel. – Obie 2.0 Feb 28 '18 at 00:54
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    My impression has generally been that Rowling really did always imagine him as gay, but that, bowing to the climate of the time, one that continues to exist today especially in regards to children's literature, she kept it limited to hints and subtext - a long practice with LBGT characters in literature. I wish she'd had a little more courage to write an explicitly gay character (which we also see her lacking today with the FB movies), but I do think it was always on her mind, and I think the implication was always there. – Obie 2.0 Feb 28 '18 at 00:59
  • @Obie2.0 - That's certainly the impression that she wants to give now – Valorum Feb 28 '18 at 01:15
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    I was saying that that was my belief. :) It may also be Rowling's too, if I'm lucky. One thing that pushes me in that direction, though, is that she revealed Dumbledore's sexuality something like three months after the publication of Deathly Hallows - soon enough that I doubt it was an effort to revive flagging fame, for example, or a change of heart (though I can believe that she wanted to get some sales before mentioning it, which again is a bit craven). Whether she had that in mind from 1997...who knows? – Obie 2.0 Feb 28 '18 at 01:20
  • It was quite clear (to me, at least) at the time that I read it that Rita Skeeter was implying that Dumbledore was gay. Of course, I didn't believe anything that Rita said. But in retrospect, I think it's clear from that passage that Rowling had decided that Dumbledore was gay, at least by the time she wrote Deathly Hallows. – Peter Shor Jul 06 '18 at 01:12
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    @PeterShor - The sly implication is that he's a paedophile (or that he at least exerts an unnatural and unhealthy influence on Harry Potter). I'm not sure the goal here was to imply that he's gay per se. – Valorum Jul 06 '18 at 05:58
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    @Valorum: The implication—or at least, the one I was left with—is (1) he was Grindelwald's lover and (2) molested Harry Potter. So Rita is saying that he was *both* gay and a paedophile. – Peter Shor Jul 06 '18 at 11:30
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    @Skooba Orson Scott Card is so full of it... Do we know details of Minerva McGonagall personal life? Or 90% of other "supporting cast"? We know that Snape is heterosexual because it influences the plot; some other wizards have families so one may make assumptions. Other than that, JKR may or may not have her own ideas about her characters that she just doesn't see fit to put down in black on white. – IMil Jan 21 '19 at 06:34
  • @IMil We know a lot about McGonagall's personal life. Granted it also came after the fact. – Skooba Jan 21 '19 at 13:07
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    @Skooba - Indeed. And for the record, I don't think there's any indication that she's heterosexual in the novels – Valorum Jan 21 '19 at 13:11
  • I feel like this could do with the addition of the very first description of Dumbledore in the very first book. I mean, if you want to talk about flamboyant dressing - high heeled boots, anyone? – auden Mar 02 '19 at 04:26