the first gay country album pressed 1,000 copies in 1973. we counted the out stars who came after it. yeehaw.
via NPR, Rolling Stone, CNN, CBC and the outlets linked in each entry
In 1973 a band called Lavender Country put out an album of openly gay country songs and pressed one thousand copies. Its frontman later described the choice in front of him: be "openly gay and advocate for gay rights," or "slither off to Nashville and stay in the closet." Fifty-odd years later the closet still has a lot of rhinestones in it, but the list of country singers who have said it out loud is long enough to need subheads. Here are 20 of them.
The rule that built this list: every person on it said it themselves, in their own words, and every entry links to where. Nobody is here because of a rumor, a lyric someone over-read, or another listicle. We use the word each of them uses.
the ones who went first
Patrick Haggerty, Lavender Country
Photo: Missvain via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, taken in 2019.
The Peace Corps discharged Haggerty for being gay in 1966, per Rolling Stone. Seven years later his band released Lavender Country, which CBC notes is believed to be the first explicitly gay record by openly gay artists. The 1973 pressing was limited to a thousand copies and included a song called "Cryin' These Cocksucking Tears," so radio was never really on the table. Haggerty died on October 31, 2022, at 78, after a stroke, per Rolling Stone, CBC and Consequence. He picked being out over being famous, and outlived the decision by half a century.
k.d. lang
Photo: Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2016.
The Canadian started in country and came out on the cover of The Advocate in 1992, per The Advocate and CBC, the same year "Constant Craving" took over the charts. Asked whether her mother knew she was a lesbian, she told the magazine: "Oh, yeah, she does. I came out to her 13 years ago." Nobody has ever made "my mom already knows" sound cooler.
Chely Wright
Photo: MTW65 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, taken in 2010.
In 1999 Wright had a No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs with "Single White Female." In 2010 she came out as a lesbian, per Rolling Stone. She told NPR about the bargain she had made with herself for years before that: "the deal I made was I will go without love and never act on being gay and give God time to take it away." She stopped waiting.
the class of november 2014
Ty Herndon
Photo: Burningkarma via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2009.
His 1995 single "What Mattered Most" went to No. 1 on Billboard's country singles chart, per Yahoo and ABC7. In November 2014 he told People he was "an out, proud and happy gay man," per CNN and Today. This year he put out a memoir named after that hit, and told the Guardian, per PinkNews: "The drugs could be forgiven. Being gay definitely could not."
Billy Gilman
Photo: TenPoundHammer via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2023.
At 11, Gilman became the youngest artist ever to land a Top 40 country hit, with "One Voice" in 2000, per The Advocate and Yahoo. On the same day Herndon came out, Gilman posted a video doing the same, per The Advocate and CNN: "It's difficult for me to make this video, not because I'm ashamed of being a gay male artist or a gay artist or a gay person." Two in one day. Nashville needed a sit-down.
openly gay country singers right now
Shane McAnally, the songwriter behind everyone
Photo: Mbaumatl via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, taken in 2013.
You know his songs even if you do not know his face: Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road," Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart" and Kacey Musgraves' "Follow Your Arrow," per Yahoo, plus three Grammys, per American Songwriter. On working with so many women, he told American Songwriter: "Maybe it's because I'm gay, maybe it's because I just loved female singers growin' up." Why not both.
Brandon Stansell
Stansell's "Hometown" video opens on a mother's angry reaction to her son coming out, and it premiered on CMT in November 2018, per Billboard, which called it a queer storyline for the network's country fans. HuffPost said it set a precedent for a queer-themed narrative in country music. "As a gay man, that relationship with my mother and seeing that break is the thing people relate to with the coming out experience," he told Billboard.
Orville Peck
Photo: Drew de F Fawkes via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2026.
The masked cowboy has never shown his face in public, per Out, and owns about 60 masks, per Variety. The sexuality was never hidden: "I've been out since I was little," he told Variety, and also, "I have definitely received my fair share of reluctance, skepticism and aggression because I'm a gay man in the country world." The man covers his entire face and still somehow is the most out guy in Nashville. He also became Playgirl's first gay cover star, mask on.
Lil Nas X
Photo: Fabebk via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2019.
"Old Town Road" won and then lost a spot on Billboard's country chart, per CBS News, and went on to a record 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, per NBC News. He hinted he was gay on the last day of Pride Month 2019, per CBS, and in 2021 wrote a letter addressed to "14-year-old Montero," his given name, quoted by NBC News: "I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist." Country radio said he was not country. The yeehaw agenda said otherwise.
Trixie Mattel
Photo: dvsross via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2018.
The Drag Race winner, the drag persona of Brian Firkus, made country and folk records, Two Birds in 2017 and One Stone in 2018, per Rolling Stone, which calls her the rare alt-country drag artist. Being out, she told the magazine, was never a big reveal: "Even just having people ask if I was gay and being able to just say yes" meant "there was no coming-out process." One of our most-read stories ever is about her and a rat boy. Do with that what you will.
Paisley Fields
"I loved that music but I never really felt like there was a place for me as a gay person," Fields told Vice for his album Glitter & Sawdust. So he built one: his "Stay Away From My Man" video stars the porn performer Boomer Banks, per Dazed, where he also called Patrick Haggerty "a friend and hero of mine." The lineage on this page is real.
T.J. Osborne, Brothers Osborne
Photo: TenPoundHammer via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2018.
In February 2021 the singer in the duo he formed with his brother John told Time he is "very comfortable being gay," per CBS News and Rolling Stone, which, according to Time, made him the only openly gay artist signed to a major country label. The next year Brothers Osborne won the Grammy for best country duo/group performance for "Younger Me," a song T.J. said onstage was written "in response to me coming out," per Billboard. Came out, wrote about it, won a Grammy for it. The full arc.
Chris Housman
"Growing up as a gay kid immersed in country music, on a Kansas farm near a town of only about 200 people, I certainly always felt different," Housman wrote in an essay for ABC News. By his album Blueneck he had a floor plan, as he told Rolling Stone: leave the living room to the guys singing about beer and trucks, and "add on a little back porch, tiki bar situation for the gays and all the other outcasts." We will see you on the porch.
Fancy Hagood
"I first came out of the closet in 2010, and I started working at Forever 21 the same year," Hagood told Variety. His coworkers started calling him Fancy, after the Drake song, and the name stuck. His albums are Southern Curiosity, per Holler, and American Spirit, per Variety. The best origin story on this page involves a mall.
Sam Williams
Hank Williams' grandson and Hank Williams Jr.'s son came out in 2022 on Apple Music's Proud Radio, per Taste of Country and the Independent via Yahoo: "I identify as gay, and I've never said that to anybody else." The most famous surname in country music now has a gay songwriter in it, and the music is still good.
the women carrying the genre
Brandi Carlile
Photo: Library of Congress Life via Wikimedia Commons, CC0, taken in 2023.
"That's a really big deal to be, like, 14 and out of the closet in a small town. I was the only gay person," Carlile told NPR's Fresh Air. Her song "The Joke" won Grammys in 2019, per NPR and The Advocate, and she is also one quarter of The Highwomen, per NPR. When T.J. Osborne cried through his Grammy speech, she was the one giving him a standing ovation, per Billboard.
Brandy Clark
Photo: Lisa Gansky via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2014.
Clark co-wrote "Follow Your Arrow," per The Advocate and Metro Weekly, which she and McAnally share credit on, and which remains one of the gayest things ever to come out of Nashville. "I'm one-hundred percent a lesbian," she told Metro Weekly. And to The Advocate: "I didn't realize that I was gay until after I had moved to Nashville." Moving to Nashville to discover you are gay is a plot twist with a lot of precedent.
Lily Rose
Her single "Villain" blew up on TikTok and got her a record deal, per Billboard and Rolling Stone. In 2022 she became the first country artist to win GLAAD's outstanding breakthrough music artist award, per Country Standard Time, and said: "I've known I was part of the LGBTQ community for 15 years now."
Brooke Eden
The "No Shade" singer came out publicly in 2021, per Attitude and Grammy.com. Part of the reason, she told Attitude: "I was looking for someone to look up to as a queer person in the country music industry myself, and there wasn't really anyone."
Tanner Adell
The "Buckle Bunny" singer, who is featured on Beyoncé's "BLACKBIIRD," per Grammy.com, was asked by Out about her relationship with the LGBTQ+ community on the Billboard Women in Music red carpet in 2025. Her answer: "Yes. I'm pansexual." PinkNews picked it up days later. Three words, done, back to the party.
who we left off, and why
Singers that fans or other lists call gay but who have not said it themselves are not here. Some brilliant queer artists in Americana and folk are not here either, because they do not call what they make country and we take their word for it. If someone on this page changes the word they use, we will change it too. If a new name comes out, we will add them with a date on it. Spotted an error? Tell us.
