I’m sure there are songs I don’t know about that deserve to be included in the list. There is only one song per artist and I’ve tried to include a wide variety of music genres. After all, being empowered by a song or feeling closely connected to its sensibilities are not exclusively LGBT. What you also won’t find on the list are songs by straight, cisgender performers that have been adopted as gay anthems (like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” or ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”) or have a large lesbian following (like Sade’s “By Your Side”). I’ve come across a few cases where a song has been interpreted as having a LGBT theme, or where a music video has generated LGBT-related discussions (like Hozier’s Take Me to Church) but the lyrics are too ambiguous to support that interpretation, and these song ended up not being included. Songs with a LGBT-related theme that are performed by straight, cisgender people are of course included as well. Give them a go - they might surprise you.Ī few things to note about the songs that have been included: All the songs have a LGBT-related theme, with a few exceptions where the theme of the song is not specifically LGBT-related but is performed by a LGBT artist. If you've stumbled across this thread and don't recognize many of these songs, don't judge them too soon. Yet I can’t help but feel that I’m part of a larger LGBT community, mostly because of sharing a memory with many in that community about having to rise above prejudice and quash feelings of distress when I first realised that I had no control over which sex I was attracted to.īut before this turns into an essay about the value of a thread like this, I’ll just say that the main reason for doing this was that it was fun to do! (And who knows, maybe other LGBT people – and supporters – will think it's a useful source.) This is a fairly frank post about LGBT-related expressions of love, gender and getting laid in songs, and at times the lyrics, comments and videos below are a tad explicit. For me, the fact that I’m gay is only a small part of my overall identity – just like straight folk, it’s not something I consciously think of when I live my life from day to day, and my family, friends and work colleagues couldn’t give a damn what my sexual orientation is. So, why a thread about LGBT songs? Isn’t it a bit silly to differentiate between straight songs and queer songs? Besides, there are many people who don’t like to be put into boxes and be labelled by their sexual orientation or gender identity. If you're not too familiar with the concept of transgender (or with gender identities and sexual orientations in general), please go to this post below - it might help, as it sheds some light on the spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities that exist.
The first three terms have to do with sexual orientation while transgender is about gender identity (transgender people can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc.). arge_2.jpgįor those who don’t know what LGBT stands for, it’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.