The Most Important Queer Music Moments of the 21st Century
From controversial awards show performances to community-affirming song releases, the last 25 years saw LGBTQ+ music move from the fringes to the forefront of pop culture.
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In the late ’90s heading into the 2000s, LGBTQ+ representation in popular culture was a matter of novelty rather than one of actualization. Only occasionally could you find a movie (Beautiful Thing), a television show (Will & Grace) or a song (Melissa Ethridge’s “Come to My Window”) that felt like true, affirmative representation for the community.
A quarter of the way through the 21st century, things have changed. Organizations routinely track the rate of queer and trans inclusion in film and television, with some going on to win prestigious awards for their unflinching depictions of LGBTQ life. Music, meanwhile, has bared witness to a queer renaissance, with some of the most popular artists in the world both openly identifying as queer themselves, and paying homage to their respective communities through culturally ubiquitous albums.
It’s an important step that’s come alongside societal progress (and some recent backslides) towards greater acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. In this century alone, the United States has deemed sodomy laws unconstitutional, repealed the military’s regressive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, legalized same-sex marriage and reaffirmed federal protections for queer and transgender people in the workplace. While legislatures around the world have begun to more vociferously attack LGBTQ+ rights in recent years, that doesn’t erase the progress we’ve made in the last 25 years.
In the spirit of that progress, Billboard is taking a look back at the most important moments of LGBTQ+ inclusion in modern music from the 21st century. Between the artists who publicly came out, the performances that challenged societal strictures and the songs that united support, take a look at our picks below:
