How Women Have Led The Way For LGBTQ Acceptance In Hip-Hop

When Leikeli47 took the stage at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere venue in March of last year, it felt like an early Pride celebration. The NYC rapper, accompanied by Atlanta-bred opener Yung Baby Tate, warmly embraced the LGBTQ community on stage, from shoutouts to rainbow light designs. A diverse audience, including many Black LGBTQ people, took in Leikeli’s music, which draws heavy inspiration from LGBTQ ballroom culture. At one point, she invited several people up to vogue during her performance. The atmosphere was celebratory, accepting, and undeniably hip-hop.

Rap music’s relationship with homophobia has been debated for years, mixing legitimate concerns about toxic machismo and anti-gay lyrics with harmful stereotypes about the Black community’s views on gay people as a whole. While the genre hasn’t historically been a haven for LGBTQ people, female rappers have been making space for years. In honor of Pride Month, Genius took a look at the history of women pushing LGBTQ acceptance forward in rap.

Hip-hop remains a male-dominated industry, and statistics show that male music fans across genres are frequently hesitant to support female artists. Data from Spotify reveals that, on average, men listen to 94 percent male artists and just 3.3 percent female artists, while women spend 55 percent of their time on male artists' music and 30.8 percent on women (the remaining percentage is groups). If the average male hip-hop fan may not listen to many female artists, however, women in rap have often benefited from outsized support from the LGBTQ community, and gay Black men in particular.

In 1999, hip-hop was abuzz over gossip about a gay rapper and overall attitudes towards the LGBTQ community were markedly different than today. A 1999 Gallup poll showed 43 percent of US adults believed gay and lesbian relationships should be illegal, compared to 26 percent in 2019. In December ‘99, Lil’ Kim covered Out Magazine and praised her gay fanbase.

“Gay people see me as Grace Jones, Tina Turner, Prince, or Madonna—all those people that have gone over the top and just don’t give a damn about what anybody says,” said Kim, recognizing that both gay men and lesbians made up a meaningful portion of her fans. “They love people who are stars because, you know, gay people always feel like they’re stars.”

In the ensuing years, the stan communities that have grown around artists like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Azealia Banks, Doja Cat, and Iggy Azalea are frequently home to many LGBTQ rap fans. Even now-openly gay male rapper Lil Nas X recently revealed that he was previously ashamed to admit he was behind a Nicki Minaj stan account as a teenager because of the strong association with the LGBTQ community. “People will assume if you had an entire fan page dedicated to Nicki u are gay,” he wrote on Twitter. “And the rap/music industry ain’t exactly built or accepting of gay men yet.”

Many straight female rappers have tried to embrace this position with a show of support for LGBTQ issues, and some have earned top billing at lucrative Pride festival gigs as a result. Megan Thee Stallion showed up at Los Angeles' All Black Lives Matter LGBTQ Pride Protest earlier this month, donning a multi-colored wig and posing in front of a rainbow BLM sign. Cardi B posted in support of Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union’s trans child Zaya, and drew attention to the Netflix documentary The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez about a young California boy who was the victim of anti-LGBTQ abuse from his family. Nicki Minaj embraced the prospect of an openly gay male rapper, while Iggy Azalea cast multiple RuPaul’s Drag Race stars in her “Sally Walker” video.

Image via Megan Thee Stallion

One of the most vocal proponents is Chicago rapper ​cupcakKe, who has dedicated entire songs to LGBTQ fans despite identifying as straight:

“A lot of people judge the community because whatever’s in their head that they feel like they can’t love the gays,” cupcakKe told Genius back in 2018. “I can’t control other people, but as much awareness as I can bring out of the situation, I want to help.”

At the same time, some of these same women have faced criticism for past remarks that don’t always square with their words. Megan The Stallion and Doja Cat previously had to apologize for resurfaced anti-gay tweets. Cardi B backtracked in 2018 after posting a transphobic meme on Instagram. City Girls' Yung Miami defended herself for saying she would beat her son if he turned out to be gay. And Nicki Minaj faced accusations of homophobic lyrics as recently as 2018 after including a disparaging reference to gay men on “Majesty”:

Uh, yo, who want it with Nicki now?
I smoke ‘em like hippies now
They see me, say, “Yippie,” now
Homes runnin’ like Griffey now
They switchin' like sissies now

She’s also been accused of “queerbaiting” for previously hinting that she identified as bisexual before recently rapping “now I’m just hetero” on Doja Cat’s “Say So” remix.

Although certain male rappers have committed far worse offenses, straight women in hip-hop are held to a higher standard because of the outsized role LGBTQ people play in their popularity. While the optics of allyship are often beneficial to these women’s careers, they also come with increased responsibility.

Some rising female rap stars are finding an audience while being open about their sexuality. Brooklyn’s Young M.A stands as an oft-cited recent example. After first hitting it big with her multi-Platinum hit, “OOOUUU,” the lesbian rapper has remained relevant with a string of successful singles that don’t shy away from the fact that she’s attracted to women. She’s even earned the admiration of Eminem, one of hip-hop’s legends whose own reckoning with his anti-gay lyrics has been rocky.

The aforementioned Yung Baby Tate is still an emerging act, but she’s also found acceptance and a fanbase within the LGBTQ community. “I’m bisexual. I went to a performing arts high school, and I was surrounded by the LGBTQ community throughout my whole upbringing,” she told Genius in 2019. “That support is really some of my most genuine support that I receive. And I think it’s just because f-ck, I love y'all, y'all love me. I appreciate it, and I just understand people.”

Big Freedia—who identifies as a gay man but presents in a gender non-conforming manner and prefers she/her pronouns—earned big looks collaborating with the likes of Drake and Beyoncé. However, the rapper’s conspicuous absence from their videos raised questions about mainstream artists exploiting her voice without her image.

There’s even space for older acts to finally live their truth. ‘90s star Da Brat recently came out, too, following years of speculation about her sexuality. She told Variety that it was label executives as well as fear of rejection from fans that kept her in the closet for so long.

“I was always told you want to be f-ckable to men and women to sell records—you don’t want anybody to discriminate,” she said. “It was absolutely my decision. I mean, you saw what happened to people like Ellen: Remember when she lost her TV show, and all these horrible things were happening? People were totally against it.”

Seeing the reaction, however, she wishes she did it earlier. “Now I know it, and I’m able to say it. I did this on my own terms,” she explained.

Times are changing for men in rap, too, several years after ​iLoveMakonnen became one of the first openly gay rappers to experience mainstream success. Lil Nas X saw a mostly positive reaction to coming out, and Tyler, The Creator experienced the biggest commercial success of his career following the veiled revealing of his sexuality on 2017’s Flower Boy and 2019’s IGOR. Kevin Abstract helped build BROCKHAMPTON while putting his gay identity front and center in the group. And straight male rappers like Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Jaden Smith, and more have made it a point to voice support for LGBTQ people.

As hip-hop’s attitude towards the LGBTQ community evolves alongside society as a whole, however, it’s women who continue to lead the way.