Why queer music matters
It literally saves lives.
What is queer music anyway? If you’re a well-intentioned straight and/or cisgendered person, you may think that putting a label on the sexual orientation or gender identity of a musician shouldn’t be relevant to the music they create.
That’s not 100% wrong, and it’s also definitely not right. I could list a bunch of reasons why these identities matter in myriad ways to different individuals. After all, nearly every great song is intensely personal to the musicians who wrote it, often because the story it tells revolves around their unique identity.
But there’s one very simple fact that should make queer music matter to everyone: coming out as a musician literally saves lives. And it’s no small number of lives, either. The data on this is very clear, as reported in 2022 by The Trevor Project:
- Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14
- LGBTQ+ young people are more than 4x as likely to attempt suicide than their peers
- 79% of LGBTQ youth report feeling better about their own queer identity when a musician they know about comes out as LGBTQ
What else is there to say?
Support queer music, also please donate to The Trevor Project.
