It’s the second weekend of Pride Month — my favorite time of the year — so we got a whole lotta shaking and celebrating to do before the end of June. So let’s get this party started with my Pride Realness Playlist: You know, we gay men, we love our fabulous divas, so we gotta kick this off with the O.G.
pop diva Diana Ross — The Boss — and her classic queer anthem “I’m Coming Out.” Miss Ross was my first crush long before I realized what “coming out” meant in the LGBTQ community. And neither did she when she recorded this back in the post-disco days.
Which makes it even more magical what it has meant to generations of gay men since 1980. Speaking of my great diva loves, Janet Jackson is my No. 1.
And her 1997 No. 1 hit “Together Again” somehow turns tragedy into twirling — under that great disco ball in the sky — as we reunite with those lost to the AIDS epidemic. And when I saw Miss Jackson perform this at the New York Pride Pier Dance 20 years ago in 2004 .
.. it was, quite simply, gay heaven.
Let’s take it from one fierce Lady to another — Lady Gaga, that is — with her 2011 smash “Born This Way.” Hammering it home with the most euphoric beats and empowering message that it’s not a choice y’all, this is — and always be — a natural-born Pride anthem. Now we gotta make room on the dance floor for a different kind of diva — my girl Billie Eilish — who opens up about her sexual attraction to women on “Lunch,” a bit of a nau.
