The best LGBTQ anthems of all time

This ’70s rock jam has a long history in the resistance. It follows Freddie Mercury’s plea to the powers above and, while it begs to be sung at the top of your lungs, it’s provided deeper meaning to fans for decades. It was resurrected last year as an anthem against the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ stance, and the youth of America also discovered a new passion for the song thanks to the soulful cover on Glee. 

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It’s hard to narrow down Michael’s prolific discography into a single favorite anthem, so let this simply serve as a symbol of his many masterpieces. But also, it’s just plain fun to sing “Freeeeeedoooommmmm!”

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A one-hit wonder no more, the “Call Me Maybe” singer roared back into our hearts and minds with this intoxicating tune. It stems from the soundtrack for the animated movie Leap (she gave it to the movie after it didn’t make the cut for her album), but we won’t hold that against Carly — after all, Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” came from Trolls. Gay Twitter went crazy for “Cut to the Feeling,” deeming it the Song of the Summer in 2017 (sorry, JT). 

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About this synth-centric track Spears famously said, “It’s, like, in respect to the gays as a term of endearment.” It’s not the most eloquent of tributes, but do we love B. any less for it? Absolutely not. We come for the bass-pumping, not the inspirational speeches. 

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The LGBTQ anthem against which all other anthems will be measured, Gaynor’s missive will never not be relevant. 

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Everyone knows that David Bowie was perpetually ahead of his time, but the fact that he wrote a song skewering toxic masculinity in 1979 is even more evidence of his profundity. “Boys Keep Swinging” pokes fun at the absurd expectations that society places on men while simultaneously celebrating the joys of teenage boyhood. 

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The Aussie has long been an LGBTQ icon (and has given back to the community in more ways than one can count), so choosing the best of her anthems is difficult, to put it lightly. This track was the lead single on her 2010 album Aphrodite and EW’s own critic predicted it would reach “near-ubiquity in gyms, gay clubs, and clothing stores” — and that wasn’t wrong. 

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To the mother monster herself, this was her self-described “freedom song,” but it was also written with the goal of empowering the gay community. Musical lore tells that Gaga wrote “Born This Way” in under 10 minutes and she once compared it to the Immaculate Conception — but regardless of its origin story the tune has inspired and lifted up a truly countless number of people. It’s also damn catchy. 

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File this under “Duh.” Calling this a classic LGBTQ anthem doesn’t feel complimentary enough: This song is an institution in and of itself. 

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Many (if not all) of the anthems that are popular in the LGBTQ community are written for or about gay men, so Queen Bey’s unapologetically female masterpiece is something to celebrate for that fact alone. That’s not to say that the tune’s fan base is remotely gendered — no matter your identity, when this song comes on, you celebrate. 

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The late singer has a long and storied connection to the gay community, but she first called to her LGBTQ fans with this 1985 track. Although much of her discography was framed by popular culture as heterosexual, a closer reading reveals that her lyrics are largely ungendered — she wants to dance with somebody (anybody) who loves her. 

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Not every gay anthem needs to speak directly to the LGBTQ community — sometimes all you need is a Hot Jam. EW named New Rules as one of the best songs of 2017: “1. Find a trop-house beat fresher than a piña colada. 2. Inspire Twitter memes with endlessly quotable pop-star commandments. 3. Go viral with a simple, stylish synchronized dance video. That’s how you get a worldwide hit worthy of Lipa’s obvious star power, and it’ll be probably the first of many like it — start counting ’em now.” —Nolan Feeney

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Disco never dies and neither does this song. It may have been a bit of a one-hit wonder for the ’80s band but that doesn’t make it any less important. Plus, it was written by Paul Shaffer, who served as the lead of David Letterman’s house band, so now you have an awesome piece of trivia. 

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This British band is the millennial pinnacle of LGBTQ pride and the track from their debut album Communion speaks to the darker side of the journey to self-acceptance. Soulful lyrics (“Well, nothing’s gonna hurt me with my eyes shut / I can see through them”) prove that not every anthem has to be a club beat. 

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It may sound hyperbolic, but “Thinkin Bout You” single-handedly changed the hip hop industry’s landscape — and its perspective. Long an environment where homophobia was all too pervasive, Ocean’s lyrical dedication to a former male romantic partner humanized same-sex relationships for many rap artists and fans. 

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Listen up, kids — before Mama Ru was judging queens on charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, she was providing a tutorial to aspiring supermodels in this 1993 megahit, which name checks every Vogue all-star including Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Claudia Schiffer. Sidenote: While we’re studying a bit of Ru-story, dig up VH1’s The RuPaul Show, which serves up late ’90s talk show, Michelle Visage realness. 

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The late-’90s track was written by Sleater-Kinney frontwoman Corin Tucker, about her ill-fated relationship with the band’s guitarist Carrie Brownstein. By the time the album was recorded they were broken up, which makes it all the more powerful. 

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The buoyant vocals and Houston’s incredible range make this an easy one to dance to, but listen again (and closely) with the knowledge that this song became a dirge in the 1980s and ’90s, dedicated to those who died in the AIDS epidemic. It works on both levels.

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Long before Hannah Horvath and Marnie Michaels staged an impromptu dance session in their Greenpoint apartment, New Yorkers everywhere were living (and loving and crying) as Robyn’s lyrics washed over them. 

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Summer has been called an accidental gay icon, due to the fact that while she never courted her audience, she resonated with the disco-friendly LGBTQ community. It probably has a little something to do with tunes like “Last Dance” that are, quite literally, the catchiest beats ever.  

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Yes, the Village People wrote it, but it took The Pet Shop Boys — and some synths — to make this clarion call to San Francisco into a gay anthem that dominated the ’90s club scene. Also: If you listen closely, you can hear traces of Pachelbel’s Canon.

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This is the gay anthem that needs no explanation, so we’ll leave you with this clip from Will & Grace and the existential question: Is Cher God?

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This song wasn’t originally conceived as an anthem for the LGBTQ community specifically, but its message of self-expression and acceptance quickly resonated. In 2015 Lauper even opened a shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth and named it after “True Colors.” 

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The metaphors are heavy-handed — in the video, a woman in a sleeveless flannel shirt writhes on the floor singing about her “jungle book” — but hey, this was the early ’90s, when it was pretty much just the Indigo Girls and Sophie B. singing about Sapphic love. Sophie was a bit ahead of her time — if this song were released five years later she would have been headlining Lilith Fair. Damn, wish she had a bigger career.

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Here’s another one where the ethereal harps and vocals mask grief. Janet famously wrote this song to honor a friend who died of AIDS — as well as everyone affected by the pandemic. Somehow she manages to weave a string of hope through an unspeakably painful and destructive tragedy: “Dream about us together again / What I want: us together again, baby / I know we’ll be together again…” At that time, it was the rare song that both directly addressed the LGBTQ community and achieved massive commercial success, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard chart and going Platinum.

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