10 legendary gay icons and how they earned their titles

Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue is one of those pop stars who gained a gay fanbase for really no reason at all except for the fact that she was fabulous and gay fans adored her instantly. But over the years, she has nurtured her gay following into full-blown gay icon status.

Kylie’s impact is wildly underappreciated in North America. Most music fans in the U.S. and Canada may only know her for her version of “Locomotion” and her aptly titled single “Can’t Get You Head Of My Head” but she is so much more than those songs.

She started out on the Australian soap Neighbours before becoming a pop star with a huge following in Australia and across Europe. It wasn’t until the ’90s when her style started getting a little sexier that the gays took notice of Kylie. She was embracing her sexuality and breaking free from what people expected her to look and act like, and that struck a chord with the LGBTQ community.

The new millennium ushered in a new era of Kylie, and this time she re-appeared as a campy disco queen, and the gays loved her even more. Her videos lovingly included gay imagery, plenty of male eye candy, and she even fought to keep a same-sex kiss in the music video for “All The Lovers.”

She knew she had a loving, dedicated gay following, and she acknowledged that and catered to the fans who were with her from the beginning. In return, she also fought for equality for the LGBTQ community in her home country of Australia. In 2016, Kylie and her then-fiancé Joshua Sasse also vowed not to get married until everybody could get married.

It’s one thing for a pop star to embrace her gay following, and it’s another for them to fight for their rights. That’s what makes a true gay icon.