It used to be coded in the novels that he and Watson were more but friends.
They lived together for long, were basically semi-dating frequently and found themselves every once and again in embarassing situations full of homoerotic subtext, at the great spite of Watson who was the most conventional of the duo.
Apparently, semi-platonic same-sex friendship - or what they call "Victorian romantic friendship" - was quite recurrent in Victorian society.
Then the film and television adaptations simply omitted this detail, until Bryan Singer made one or two offhand jokes about it in 'House M.D.' (which was loosely inspired from Holmes) and that both Guy Ritchie and the Steven Moffatt/Mark Gatiss co-team did separately re-accentuate the detective's bisexuality in their separate works, the Sherlock Holmes film franchise (starring Robert Downey Jr) and the BBC TV series Sherlock (starring Benedict Cumberbatch) respectively. Their two respective iterations of Holmes are so gay it is even astonishing that they are actually bi.
I don't know about Henry Cavill's Holmes (and I doubt so. Although, even the manliest actors in Hollywood can surprize us while impersonating any character. Remember Hugh Jackman?) , though. I didn't watched 'Enola Holmes' yet, but I already did know by advance that the series want to cater on young queer Millenials and Gen-Zs by promoting Enola (played by Millie Bobby Brown, a well-known figure amid teenage LGBTs) as a lesbian. So even there, we can talk as much about typical Netflix-fashioned demographic pandering (with oft bland results, scenaristically wise) as a nod to the Sherlock Holmes from the novels.
Yea, I am not a fan of commercial tokenism too. I prefer pretty original black characters rather than genderswapping/raceswapping/orientation-swapping popular white characters as if we're just but meek pets awaiting for the wastes and the bait. ?
