Looking back on the early days of LGBTQ2 rock

It's Pride Month, an excellent time to look at the pioneers of LGBTQ2 rock.

Music can be a very powerful thing when it comes to changing the world. Rock has been used to spread political and social messages. It has been used to enlighten, to educate, to motivate, and to protest.

These are the stories of musicians who weren’t afraid of admitting to their sexuality when society wasn’t ready to hear it. Pride Month is the perfect time to recognize the contributions and sacrifices made by various LGBTQ2 musicians during the era when you just didn’t talk about who you loved.

I’ll start by posing this question, although you know the answer, but I’ll ask it anyway. What do the following people have in common? Tchaikovsky, Handel, Schubert, George Gershwin, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Freddie Mercury, B-52’s singer Fred Schneider, Morrissey, punk legend Bob Mould, and Michael Stipe of R.E.M.?

Here are a few more: Pioneering pre-rock guitarist sister Rosetta Tharp, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Mellisa Etheridge, Tegan and Sara, and St. Vincent.

All of the above — and many, many more — identify as gay, non-binary, bisexual, or someone LGBTQ2.

Who was the first rocker to come out of the closet? A good pick would be Little Richard, although he battled with his sexuality throughout his life. His image was always campy and fabulous and the original uncensored lyrics to his hit “Tutti Frutti” leave little doubt. But in 1957, right in the middle of an Australian tour, he had a crisis of faith after claiming to have dreamt of his own damnation, much of which had to do with being gay. He quit the music business and never again reached the rights he achieved in the 1950s.

The next major coming-out was David Bowie. He’s been sporadically attracting attention since 1964 when he appeared on British TV as the spokesperson for a made-up organization known as The International League for the Preservation of Animal Filament. He was just 17 at the time.

But Bowie had just started. In January 1970, he became one of the first pop stars to be interviewed by Jeremy, a gay magazine. The article had nothing to do with his sexuality, but the very fact that he appeared in a gay magazine was very radical. Just three years earlier, you could still be sent to prison for being a homosexual.