Freedia is carrying on a tradition of distinct queer truth in music, a cathartic sonic release that has been intertwined with the LGBTQ+ community long before the very acronym came into vogue. They’re queer anthems; announcements on a personal, yet relatable level, meant to encapsulate either the hopes, fears, love, loss, complications, or joys of a long-marginalized community. They’re dance bangers or ballads, songs that make you think or cry. It’s music where a microphone can lead the way to raw expression, but it can also be a life preserver for someone who might not otherwise see themselves represented.

When it comes to the latter effect, the veteran songwriter Justin Tranter remembers exactly what track affected him when he was coming into his own sexuality. “‘Swan Dive’ by Ani DiFranco has impacted me the most,” they explain of the 1998 song about which features raw, personal lyrics that Tranter first heard while growing up in suburban Chicago. “I was still a teenager. The lyrics, ‘I built my own empire out of car tires and chicken wire, I’m the queen of my own compost heap and I’m getting used to the smell,’ kind of set me off on my journey of being queer and femme as fuck but having the strength to take shit over.” Having written pop smashes for everyone from Lady Gaga to Halsey, Tranter has learned a few key tricks to crafting a solid Pride anthem along the way. “Speak your truth, embrace the power of the magical underdog, and sing your face off.”

Music written by and for LGBTQ+ people has always existed, even if allusions to queerness had to be slyly snuck in. In the 1930s, Cole Porter, a gay writer from the Great American Songbook era of standards, concocted peppy tunes that covertly referenced his sexuality. Deeply closeted, his hit song “You’re the Top,” a proclamation of utter love from the musical Anything Goes, has a chorus that literally croons, “Because baby if I’m the bottom, you’re the top.” Meanwhile, his song “Just One of Those Things,” recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1953, is a nod to the then-clandestine nature of gay hookups. Perhaps it was no coincidence that following the Stonewall uprisings of 1969, a series of clashes between police and patrons of a Manhattan bar that lit the spark of gay liberation, a more overt Pride anthem emerged. The 1978 dance hit “Y.M.C.A.” with its hokey choreography, alludes to the men’s center’s penchant for being a cruising spot.

Simultaneously, the LGBTQ+ community began rallying around otherwise straight stars who subsequently became heroes of the marginalized. In the ’60s, a passion for Judy Garland emerged, no doubt thanks to her struggles, passion, and camp. By the ’70s, artists like Donna Summer, Cher, and Barbra Streisand became treasured icons of queer listeners, while the ’80s brought artists like Madonna and Whitney Houston. While many of these were adopted by LGBTQ+ fans organically, some anthems have been written with this audience in mind: By 1982, the Weather Girls’s novelty hit “It’s Raining Men,” co-written by the straight writer Paul Shaffer, catered specifically to the gay community.

Speak your truth, embrace the power of the magical underdog, and sing your face off.

Today, overt Pride anthems touching on specifically queer experiences have successfully become mainstream, from Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” in 2011 to the bulk of the Australian pop star Troye Sivan’s catalog. Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” a uniquely Gen Z take on queerness in which the artist faces his sexuality and critics head on, having a blast on a trip to hell itself along the way. The song rocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. “It’s a beautiful thing to see,” explains Tayla Parx. A songwriting force who has co-written ubiquitous hits for the likes of Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa, Parx, who is bisexual, points out that an artist like Lil Nas X writing blatantly about queer Black love, could have never gone to No. 1 even 10 years ago. “It just wasn’t something that was mainstream, quote-unquote, or that people were willing to talk about. People were marginalized. Looking back, we’re going to realize a shift in culture happened around this time. The fact is, my generation is very fluid with both genre and gender.”

It’s that fluidity that also defines the musicality of what a queer anthem sounds like. While the ’70s and ’80s eras of the music queer people gravitated to ranged from dance smashes or ballads, today the music that reaches out to the LGBTQ+ community range from the subtle indie-pop of the Troye Sivan album Blue Neighbourhood, to the modern country twang of Kacey Musgraves and a song like “Follow Your Arrow.”

As a powerful creative force behind the scenes, Parx has done her own part to impact change. “About six or seven years ago, I decided to say, “I’m not going to say ‘him’ or ‘her’ on a record. I just wanted to throw that idea out,” she explains, first applying the concept to her solo work. “I applied to other mainstream artists if using ‘him’ or ‘her’ is not necessary or adds to the song.”  It was a radical idea at the time and one that has only presciently aged. “A lot of times, people forget that a song is one of the most scary places they can be vulnerable,” she explains, pointing to her own same-gender love song, “Act Right.” “You might hear it over and over again for the rest of your life. Now we’re seeing so many more artists just be open and as real as they can be. They’re taking us on their journeys with them, and that’s what makes great music.”