Music and the Queer Community: How Music Has Helped Us Love Ourselves

Music and the Queer Community: How Music Has Helped Us Love Ourselves

written by Austin Mendoza illustration by Nieves Winslow, layout by Shay Suban

What does a queer person turn to when struggling to love themself in a heteronormative society? For me, the answer is music: songs by Lady Gaga, Sia, and Troye Sivan defined my journey to self-love and acceptance. Indeed, music has inspired queer people and defined queer culture for decades.

Many queer artists have used their platforms to defy societal gender expectations. Marlene Dietrich, who became a widely acclaimed cabaret performer after her extensive film career, was openly bisexual for the duration of her musical career that spanned the 1950s and 60s. In addition, she openly defied gender norms in her cabaret, dressing in both masculine and feminine clothes during every performance. Sylvester was an openly queer disco artist whose androgynous appearance and drag performances were singularly unique in the 1970s. His 1978 hit “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” became one of the best-selling disco tracks of all time, earning him the moniker “Queen of Disco.” In 1993, RuPaul emerged from the New York drag scene into the national consciousness with “Supermodel (You Better Work).” His later albums, eponymous 90s talk show, and RuPaul’s Drag Race have all helped to bring drag into the mainstream and start a societal discussion on gender norms. Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014 with “Rise Like a Phoenix,” a song about being queer despite being beaten down by society. She immediately dedicated her win to the queer community, and she used her newfound continental platform to campaign for queer rights across Europe.

Music has also been extensively used by the queer community to overcome hardship. Homosexual sex, and by extension homosexuality, was outlawed in all fifty states until 1962, and remained illegal in fourteen states until Lawrence v. Texas in 2004. Following World War II, the term “Friend of Dorothy” came to be used as a secret phrase for gay men to identify one another in places where homosexuality was illegal. Dorothy’s longing for a peaceful place where dreams could come true in The Wizard of Oz’s “Over the Rainbow” had resonated with the gay community. For decades, the phrase was used so extensively that a 1980s criminal investigation of homosexuality in Chicago uncovered the phrase and actually searched for the elusive “Dorothy” who was acquainted with so many gay men. The 2012 song “Same Love,” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert, discussed the issue of queer rights in America and was released during a statewide campaign by various queer groups to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington state. The song was adopted by the queer community as a rallying call for nationwide marriage equality after its performance at the 2014 Grammys, during which Queen Latifah officiated thirty-three weddings featuring sameand opposite-sex couples. It was also performed at a major sporting event during the 2017 Australian same-sex marriage plebiscite campaign, despite significant public backlash against the performance.

Perhaps the most striking example of a song being a rallying cry for the queer community was “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Released in 1978, the song initially appealed to the queer community as an anthem for surviving through the storms of life, but it quickly took on a much deeper meaning as the AIDS crisis erupted in the early 1980s. The queer community fought through this mysterious and deadly new disease without so much as an acknowledgment of its existence by the Reagan administration for years, and opposed the vitriolic public prejudice that HIV/AIDS was a “gay disease” that was doing society a favor. As hundreds of thousands of queer people were dying around them, “I Will Survive” became the ultimate rallying cry for the queer community. Today, the song is widely considered the most important queer anthem of all time.

Most of all, music has served as a respite for queer people to forget the prejudicial world they face and lose themselves in a song. Sometimes, these anthems are coming out songs, like Melissa Etheridge’s “Yes I Am” and Ani DiFranco’s “In Or Out.” Sometimes, they are club anthems like “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls and Kylie Minogue’s “Your Disco Needs You.” These songs can be powerful forms of self-expression by prominent out artists, like “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen and “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, or subtle winks to the queer community, à la “YMCA” by The Village People. There are even examples of straight music megastars penning songs specifically for their queer fans, most prominently “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross, “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna’s “Vogue,” all of which served as powerful reminders that there was some level of support for the queer community from the heterosexual public. While these songs had different purposes and origins, they all became immense hits within the queer community and served as a positive outlet for queer people to love themselves.

Music has been around to inspire queer people to love themselves and be proud for decades. Whether it’s Marlene Dietrich or Sylvester brazenly flaunting gender norms, Gloria Gaynor inspiring us to fight oppression and suppression, or Madonna taking a page from our subculture, music has been a queer person’s best friend. We dance to Gaga and Ariana, spit with Nicki, and brood with Lana today because of the uplifting music of decades past. Looking into the future, young queer artists like Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko, who both proudly embrace their sexuality in their work, will continue to forge a path of compassion and be shining inspirations for the queer community. Music has always been there for us and will continue to be until the day when society stops caring about sexuality and queer youth will not need to depend on music to find themselves as I had to. Instead, music will help us celebrate a world where we can all fearlessly love whomsoever our heart desires.