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Song has long been part of many Christian traditions, but the religion has historically not been as welcoming to Christian LGBTQ+ artists. Today, a new generation is forging a more accepting church by refusing to compromise either part of their identity.

In 2021, queer musician Grace Baldridge (who peforms as Semler) rocked Christian music on her debut release, Preacher’s Kid . The EP centered on Baldrige’s experiences growing up in the Episcopal Church, a religion that often didn’t accept her identity, and the ways in which she wrestled with religion. "And these days I believe in Bigfoot more than God, 'cause who's he hurting?" Semler questions on the track "Jesus From Texas."

The album topped the iTunes Christan music chart.

In a genre that has doubled down on commercial hits that praise an unwavering dedication to Christianity, Preacher’s Kid was revolutionary for expressing a more nuanced connection with God — and was made even more so by Baldridge's genderqueer identity. While the Christian music industry has embraced modern musical stylings like indie rock, metal and rap, lyrical content has been slower to encompass a broader diversity of voices.

"For a genre that’s meant to harness artistic expression, there are a lot of boundaries, and I think that's very strange, especially when, thematically, we're looking at all of creation and divinity," says Baldrige, adding, "Artists like myself and others, we're presenting a challenge, and a question, to Christian music, which is, what do you want to be known for?"

In the past, LGBTQ+ artists were forced out of the genre after coming out. But a new generation of queer Christian musicians is refusing to compromise either part of their identity. They’re using art to not only express their faith, but also to forge a more accepting Christian church.

The Origins Of The Christian Music Industry

Singing has long been part of many Christian traditions, but contemporary Christian music (CCM) has its roots in the Jesus movement of the 1960s and 1970s. With acoustic guitars and long hair, "Jesus freaks" brought their own sort of counterculture to Christian denominations.

Marsha Stevens-Pino found her own way to Christianity at a Southern California church with "barefoot hippies." She described the atmosphere as being so egalitarian that anyone in the congregation could share an original song.

In 1969, when she was a high schooler still learning the Gospel, Stevens-Pino wrote " For Those Tears I Died " to help lead her sister to the Lord. Her high school choir director encouraged her to copyright the song, which would prove to be wise advice. "For Those Tears I Died" became one of the earliest CCM hits, something Stevens-Pino and her bandmates in Children of the Day could’ve never predicted. They even questioned whether it was ethical to profit from religious music.

"There was no sense of who's gonna record this, who's gonna play it on the radio," says Stevens-Pino, adding, "It was just about what’s going on in your heart and sharing what’s going on."

By the late ‘70s, CCM had become a business, with radio stations, publications and the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards highlighting industry achievements. But Stevens-Pino’s success within CCM came to a halt when she came out as a lesbian in 1981. After a long period of grappling with her identity, she was shunned by the industry — her songs were torn out of hymn books and she received hate mail.

She joined the queer-affirming Metropolitan Community Church in 1984, and wrote and toured with them and other churches for the next 20 years. Looking back, Stevens-Pino most regrets not being more open in her self-searching, though she realized there was no one she could’ve turned to. She never stopped writing music, including songs like "Can't We Find a Way," which is aimed at helping her parents come to terms with her sexuality.

During the height of HIV/AIDS, almost every song Stevens-Pino wrote had a connection to the epidemic. She recorded her first post-coming out album with money a friend who died of AIDS had left her. For his memorial, she wrote the song "Falling Star." The chorus goes, "Our farewell for a moment knows the promise true/When Jesus comes in glory, He will come with you."

She also found herself helping other Chrsitian musicians coming to terms with their sexuality, including singer/songwriter Ray Boltz, who came out in 2008 after a decades-long career.

Some of the artists she spoke with either went back into the closet or never ended up coming out, fearing the same sort of industry retaliation as Stevens-Pino faced. After moving to Nashville, she learned that the night before the Dove Awards, there’s a secret event for queer nominees called the Pink Party; it’s invite-only and phones and cameras aren’t allowed: "[CCM] became such a big business that you can't even be yourself when you're winning an award. It just seemed like it turned such a far right corner."

But Stevens-Pino never compromised her identity. She formed Born Again Lesbian Music (BALM Ministries) for queer communities and married her wife in 2003. Together, they ran a music ministry training school for LGBTQ+ Christians.

A New Sound, But The Same " Christian Values "

In the late '90s, a more rocking image emerged with a new generation of artists. Jennifer Knapp, who also turned to Christianity as a teenager, made a splash on the CCM scene with her singles "Undo Me" and the GRAMMY-nominated " A Little More ." But in 2004, she announced she was taking a hiatus.

Knapp released her first non-Christian album, Letting Go , in 2010 and came out as a lesbian in the media. Nowadays, she describes herself as in "career 2.0," a mainstream singer/songwriter touring, recording and advocating for LGBTQ+ issues. "They watched me navigate being a gay person… and code shift in the middle of a religion that doesn't really give a lot of people an opportunity to challenge it back and still respect it."

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While her new music isn’t religious, she says a keen listener could track her theology through her albums, with an exploration of love being a central theme on her last record, Love Comes Back Around . She says her fans are now about one third long-term listeners, a third who’ve discovered her through secular music and a third who are interested in her work as an advocate.

"I've had to learn to be comfortable with the legacy of having been valued as a CCM artist," she says. "And then if that audience is mixed, I've had to learn how to get people to look around them and share that space."

Creating A "State of Grace"

Now, more than ever, digital platforms are expanding opportunities for artists outside the Christian mainstream. Knapp, who found early success on MySpace, had her CCM heyday when it was gaining such cultural cache that it expanded beyond folk to a range of popular genres. Perhaps more influential than social media is the rise of so-called hipster megachurches like Hillsong Church, Mosaic and the now defunct Mars Hill Church. These churches made CCM music cool to a new generation, including with their own record labels and in-house artists.

But while their worship practice more resembles a rock or rap concert than a Sunday service, many megachurches promote the same traditional values around sexual identity, gender roles and reproductive healthcare as the larger Evangelical movement. These megachurches, along with all-important Christian radio stations like K-LOVE, continue to gatekeep CCM. This is despite myriad controversies, including Hillsong’s founder resigning after an internal investigation into accusations of inappropriate behavior toward women .

In some ways, it was this hypocrisy that drew Grace Baldridge to start writing her own Christian music. Baldrige hosted a Refinery29 series on faith called "State of Grace," including an episode on the dark reality of the CCM industry . The child of an Episcopal priest, she grew up listening to Christian punk and metal bands like Relient K, Underoath and Demon Hunter (as well as songs from Michael Jackson, Prince and Duran Duran that her brother illegally downloaded). Her entry into CCM started as a sort of joke, when she shared the first verse of a song called "Youth Group" on TikTok:

"Youth group lock-ins are a really strange concept that

Youth group leaders seem to really like

It's like ‘Let's take some repressed, hormonal teenagers

And put 'em in a church and hope they find Jesus overnight"

From the enthusiastic response, she realized there were many others who were questioning institutionalized religion. While many of her lyrics are tongue and cheek — "a loser in a button-up can't send you to hell" — they’re often connected to real trauma. Baldrige explains that singing about something takes the bite out of it.

Unlike much "holier-than-thou" Christian worship music, she’s interested in exploring the ways her faith isn’t perfect. Her latest project is Stages of a Breakdown , a mixtape to a born-again friend as their relationship was falling apart. She wrote most of the EP in just 48 hours and each track represents a different stage in the breakdown, with Baldrige exploring new genres like indie dance pop. She even wrote a song from the friend’s perspective, embodying a certain Christian who says they love everyone, but doesn’t accept queer identity. She says this lightly veiled homophobia is just as insidious as open hostility.

This also relates to CCM: She sees how the industry has changed compared to the era of Knapp or Trey Pearson (the founder of Christian rock band Everyday Sunday, who came out in 2016), with artists no longer being openly ostracized. Instead, she described it as more of a "don’t ask, don’t tell, where queer artists will just disappear."

Developing her career both in and outside of CCM is important to Baldrige, who also wants to promote  a more inclusive and justice-oriented understanding of Christianity. She sees her work as part of larger progressive changes within Christian music.

Black Christian musicians, most notably the rapper Lacrae , have increasingly used their music to talk about racism and advocate for Black Lives Matter. But Lacrae has also faced pushback for politicizing his art. Baldrige struggles with understanding why "there's a genre of music that is informed by faith and how we dignify the humanity of others, that has been typically pretty vague on how specifically they want to engage with that."

Still, she sees a shift occurring where people are seeking more thoughtful Christian music.

"I think if someone is wanting to listen to music about faith, then probably they have an immense curiosity and intelligence for what’s out there and mystery and divine and creation," she says, adding, "This should be a genre that’s maybe the best at creating discomfort, both with their lyrics and sonically."

Using Music To Connect With Spirituality

Jay Mercado, who performs as iiwaa , also grew up while "faith and politics all started to merge in our country." Iiwaa is Piipaash and Quechan and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community. From a young age, he participated in his Pentecostal church’s choir and rose to become a national worship leader. He always dreamed about using music to help people connect to their spirituality.

But at the end of 2019, he began to understand his queerness and left the church he had been involved with for almost 20 years: “I was heartbroken at first because my view of God had been so small. My view of God had been one where I believed I would be outside of that kind of love and that acceptance that the faith affords you, as a believer, because of my queerness."

But after being confined at home during the pandemic, iiwaa emerged from that place of grief, and also the freedom of no longer being under the public eye. The name iiwaa is derived from the Piipaash word for heart and represents his desire to put his whole self into what he’s creating. He used his Covid-19 stimulus check to record his debut EP, Dysphoria , and realized he could still use music "to share my experience to connect with others and to help them connect with their spirituality."

He also draws on his Indigenous heritage: “Looking beyond just our pain, I know Indigenous people have experienced joy and experience flourishing on this land,” he says. “With my music, I'm hoping to draw strength from that ancestral wisdom of joy and flourishing."

He considers a track like "Boys Don’t Cry" to be a worship song. Over a stripped back melody, he sings, "They say boys don’t cry. Guess I’m not a boy, am I?" Similar to much contemporary Christian music, he wanted to build on a repeated refrain, allowing the listener to meditate on its meaning. He thought the song might be too niche, but was humbled by the response he received: "People close to me who aren't queer identifying or who’re part of the LGBTQ+ community came to me and said, ‘the song is really healing for my masculinity.’ Men say it helps them realize all the ways society says they don’t measure up."

Last year, iiwaa also participated in Serenade , a multi-genre collection of songs by queer musicians and allies of many faiths released during Pride month. Through living in Flagstaff, Arizona, Mercado was connected with the band Tow’rs, known for Christian-related music. With couple Kyle and Gretta Miller at the band’s core, Tow’rs wanted to be an ally in an industry often not accepting of LGBTQ+ rights. So when Kyle Miller was contacted by the organization Beloved Arise — which is dedicated to celebrating and empowering LGBTQ+ youth of faith — the musician and producer immediately said yes.

Miller and his wife pulled from within and outside their artistic community to garner a diverse roster of participating musicians; many took inspiration from letters written by queer youth of faith. Tow’rs wanted to contribute a song that encompassed the album’s many themes. Miller was inspired by a poem by Hafiz about God being in drag and an experience of stumbling upon a drag show: "There were people cheering for their friends, and people being exactly who they wanted to be... it felt like what I wished church was." The result was “Love Who You Love,” a rousing number that Miller sings in tandem with his wife.

Writing The New Worship Music Canon

These collective efforts, often between queer Christians and allies, are also expanding. The Many is a Chicago-based worship group whose music encompasses folk, pop, indie, gospel and other genres, with original lyrics by Lenora Rand and music by her husband Gary and daughter Hannah. They have performed at liturgies, conventions and other events.

Lenora Rand grew up singing about the blood of the lamb and wanted to develop an alternative, less depressive church tradition. One connecting thread are simple refrains that stick with you, like "You gave us these bodies and call them good" from the song " These Bodies ."

During lockdown, they released lyric videos and performed at online events, where the chat was filled with comments about what people were going through. Lenora Rand says connecting so personally with audiences is the outcome of their collective creative process: getting together and discussing issues they care about: "We often say that we write the songs we need to hear."

On "All Belong Here," the Many distinguishes between welcoming (when someone brings you into their space) and belonging (owning the space because you’re supposed to be there), explains Darren Calhoun, who sings in the Many and also leads worship at Urban Village Church. Calhoun is a survivor of conversion therapy and says he’s proud to be at the forefront of transitions happening in the church.

"The music, lyrics, timing, context, lighting and all these things create experiences that churches sometimes shy away from," he says. "But it's something that we create, this very kind of theatrical, artful, intentional space. I think that helps people engage in a harder core kind of way than just 'Oh that was really pretty.'"

Kristina Sinks, a United Methodist clergy candidate and a seminary student, recently joined the Many. Sinks grew up in a church affirming queer identities and felt no conflict when she fell in love with a woman. "Through music, we continue to build this world that we say we believe in as Christian," she says. "I think the church can only ever be as good as the best theology that we have and the best vision we have for the world."

Q Worship Collective also brings more inclusive music into Christian spaces through the creation of community-based worship music that helps people heal from trauma.

"So many of us just wanted to jump right in to doing worship again, but then realized, 'Oh, that hurts. Why does that hurt so much?'" says Q Worship co-founder Jess Grace Garcia, a worship pastor and music director in Los Angeles. One of Q Worship Collective’s members, Stefie Dominguez, not only plays percussion, but is also a mental health clinician. While she doesn’t provide former care to the group, she helps deal with the emotions that come up in reclaiming faith traditions.

This work is personal for co-founder Gabriel Mudd, who went through conversion therapy as an adult so he could keep his position as a worship pastor. He left when he "got tired of hating myself" and found a new community (including meeting his Q Worship Collective co-founders) through the Q Christian Fellowship, which has provided a space for LGBTQ+ Christians and allies since 2001. Mudd, who serves as a vocal arranger, says that in contrast to the hierarchical nature of churches, Q Worship Collective embraces a more equitable model: "We wanted to provide that community for people who weren't just singers, and weren't just musicians, but everyone in the arts who have felt like they've been marginalized from the church community.

One example was Garcia and her co-pastor rewriting the lyrics of the well-known song "Mighty to Save." They changed it so much that they took out the title lyric and referred to Jesus as a "risen King" and "risen Queen." Garcia described it as a healing opportunity: "We sang it loud and proud. And it was this beautiful moment to break the ideas of gender around God and also relate it back to our queerness."

Anna Dawahare, Q Worship Collective social media manager, says there’s a clear market for this type of worship music, given the overwhelming response whenever the collective has a new release: "I feel like Q Worship Collective should be representative of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ isn't a white guy in a V-neck with a guitar. There are people like that, but the body of Christ is so much more diverse."

For the future of Q Worship Collective, Garcia imagines harnessing the power of local organizing to be a resource for churches around the world. She says that music is so powerful, particularly in a faith context, that it’s been used to manipulate people to feel shame for their identity; she instead wants to preserve it as a sacred tool.

"For me, this isn't about showing any sort of personal agenda of music, but it's about providing more opportunity for people to feel the feeling I did when I walked into Q Christian Fellowship for the first time," Garcia says. "I was surrounded by a ton of people who all looked and felt like me worshiping, and I realized that this was heaven."

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Source Photos (L-R): Cindy Ord/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Mauricio Santana/Getty Images; Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Coachella

For LGBTQIA+ Pride Month 2022, GRAMMY.com presents a genre-spanning playlist of emerging and established artists you should know, including RuPaul, Janelle Monáe, Kim Petras & many more.

Now more than ever in the music industry, artists are out, proud and loud about being open members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Across all genres and music of different languages around the world, musicians are joyfully embracing their queer identities while creating much-needed visibility for their queer-identifying fans. As calls for LGBTQIA+ fairness and equality continue, artists throughout the world are amplifying the voices of the global LGBTQIA+ community.

In honor of LGBTQIA+ Pride Month 2022, GRAMMY.com has put together a playlist celebrating 50 artists across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum from throughout the decades and across all genres.

Listen to GRAMMY.com's official LGBTQIA+ Pride Month 2022 playlist below and follow the Recording Academy/GRAMMYs on Spotify , Apple Music , Amazon Music , and Pandora .  Playlist powered by GRAMMY U.

Among the queer icons who paved the way for representation in pop music and culture are Elton John , Queen 's Freddie Mercury , and George Michael of Wham! In the '90s, drag queen superstar RuPaul took the world by storm and would soon lead a drag revolution of her own. Into the 2010s, Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin kicked down the proverbial closet door and led the way for more Latin and queer Latin acts to follow in his footsteps. Lady Gaga took queer culture into the stratosphere with her global Pride anthem, " Born This Way ." Frank Ocean created waves through R&B and pop as a Black queer innovator with the release of his breakthrough single, "Thinkin Bout You."

The last decade has welcomed more openly LGBTQIA+ artists than ever. South Korean singer Holland has led the way for queer voices in K-pop, Kim Petras has become a pop beacon for trans representation, and Lil Nas X remains one of the biggest rappers and singers in the world today. Also, legendary musicians like Lesley Gore and Chavela Vargas opened up about their queer identities later in their lives.

As LGBTQIA+ representation continues to grow across the music industry, may more artists and music fans keep living their truths and expressing themselves openly and safely.

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Attendees at 2019 Pride Parade in New York City

Photo: Erin Lefevre/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Taking place June 27, the inaugural 24-hour online LGBTQ+ pride event will also feature speakers like former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others

Global Pride, a newly launched worldwide 24-hour online LGBTQ+ pride event, has announced additional speakers, performers and guests for its forthcoming inaugural celebration, which takes place June 27. 

Newly added artists include Adam Lambert, Kesha, Natasha Bedingfield, Leann Rimes, Pussy Riot, Village People, Mel C of Spice Girls, Calum Scott and Mary Lambert. They join previously announced artists like Pabllo Vittar, Ava Max, Olivia Newton-John, Deborah Cox and several others. 

The event will also include newly announced speakers like former U.S. Vice President and current Presidential Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Pussycat Dolls, Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha and others from the worlds of music, entertainment, advocacy and politics.

Singer, songwriter, actor and director Todrick Hall will host. 

According to a press release announcing the news, the event will "amplify black voices" and will center on the Black Lives Matters movement; Global Pride organizers are working in conjunction with the organization's founders for the event.

"As a Black woman in the LGBTQIA+ community, I feel we must confront the systemic racism and violence facing my Black brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings, in the larger culture and within the LGBTQIA+ community. I could not think of a larger platform than Global Pride to do this," Natalie Thompson, co-chair of the Global Pride organizing committee, said in a statement. 

“I am proud to work beside so many diverse colleagues from around the world," she continued. "Our community knows well that we must confront hate and prejudice head-on. We have been watching an epidemic of violence against trans people of color – mostly women – in the past decade and this larger discussion must be inclusive and all encompassing. All Black Lives Matter.”

Billed as the "world’s biggest ever LGBTI+ Pride event," per the event's website, Global Pride is a 24-hour livestreamed event comprising music, performances, speeches and messages of support. The event will be available to watch on host Todrick Hall's YouTube channel, iHeartRadio’s YouTube channel and on the Global Pride website.

Produced by Pride organizations from around the world, including InterPride and the European Pride Organisers Association, two of the world’s biggest international Pride networks, Global Pride 2020 was launched in response to the more than 500 Pride events that were cancelled or postponed worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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L to R: Jonah Xiao, Niña Dioz, Mabiland, Georgel, Villano Antillano

Illustration by Lauryn Alvarez

Ricky Martin, Kany García and Joy from Jessie & Joy aren't the only LGBTQ+ artists bringing visibility to the community, here are five more artists on the rise you should know about

Artists in the LGBTQ+ community aren’t just continuing to break ground in pop music’s heavily heteronormative landscape, they are making moves towards the forefront. A turning point in the past decade was Lady Gaga, who is openly bisexual, taking her queer anthem "Born This Way" to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 2011. Lil Nas X is the latest artist to bring queerness to the masses through his performance on Saturday Night Live last month. The openly gay singer and rapper brought the unapologetically queer music video for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" to life onstage at Studio 8H with a stripper pole and a team of all-male dancers. Artists like Lil Nas X are helping queer representation reverberate through the music industry and it's something we're seeing within the Latin music world, too.  

More Latin artists in the LGBTQ+ community are embracing the ways their identities intersect with their culture, despite the machismo embedded in its roots. A major cultural touchstone for the community was when Ricky Martin, a massive global pop star who began his career singing in Spanish with Menudo as a child, came out as a gay man in 2010. The GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY winner has continued to crank out hits, including the Billboard Latin Top 5 smash "Vente Pa’ Ca" with Maluma, after that personal revelation, showing that Latinx communities may be becoming more open to the LGBTQ+ community. While more space is being created for LGBTQ+ folks within Latinx communities, there's still a ways to go for the culture and Latin music industry as a whole—more needs to be done to dismantle the machismo that has historically put down women and queer people and continues to inhabit the industry. Since Ricky Martin’s coming out, many more artists like Puerto Rico's Kany García, Jesse y Joy's Joy Huerta and Spanish pop star Pablo Alborán, have become public about their sexualities, and there seems to be much hope for a more inclusive future in the industry.

Case in point: it was incredible to see the big three categories, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year, at last November's Latin GRAMMY Awards filled with entries from Martin, Huerta, García, and Alborán. The LGBTQ+ Latinx representation was strong and we're continuing to see more of it this year with younger artists like Demi Lovato, who intersects both the pop and Latin music worlds and recently came out as non-binary. In honor of Pride month, here are five more Latin music artists in the LGBTQ+ community to look out for.

Mabely Largacha, who professionally goes by Mabiland, is an emerging singer/songwriter and rapper from Colombia. She hails from Quibdó, the capital of Chocó region that has a predominantly Afro-Colombian population. Her breakthrough came in 2018 with the release of her debut album 1995 in which the lead single, "Cuánto Más," blends hip-hop, R&B and reggae, and tells the story of an intense romance that leads to heartbreak. There's no limit to the music that Mabiland makes as she gives reggaeton a soul music twist with the help of Colombian acts like Crudo Means Raw, Piso 21, and CIAN. In the highly male-dominated Latin hip-hop genre, Mabiland is representing intersecting identities in the industry as a Black, queer woman. And as a star in the MTV Latin America series Latin Flow, this month she will bring that intersectionality to the world.

In Puerto Rico's Latin trap scene, Villano Antillano is an emerging queer voice. The rapper from Bayamón identifies as non-binary, meaning that they don't subscribe to the gender binary of male or female. In the music video for "Pájara," Antillano can be seen presenting both masculine and feminine gender expressions and they look fierce doing it. In the queer trap anthem, Antillano reclaims derogatory Spanish terms like "Pájara" which are used to put down the LGBTQ+ community, turning those words into an empowering moment in rap. Making music in a genre that has a history of machismo, Antillano's breakthrough came in 2018 when they released the response song "Pato Hasta La Muerte" to a rapper that used a queer slur in their diss track. Expect Antillano to bring more color to Puerto Rican rap with their next single "Muñeca" that's due out later this month.

With artists like Gera MX and Alemán, Mexican rap is making more noise around the world this year. Niña Dioz is a queer pioneer in Mexican rap who hails from Monterrey. Her career spans over a decade since making her live debut at South by Southwest in 2009. Dioz expanded her reach in 2018 when she teamed up with Nacional Records for her breakthrough album Reyna. In honor of Women's History Month in March, she released her latest LP Amor, Locura y Otros Vicios. With hip-hop's history of excluding women and queer people, Dioz more than makes up for that. With Mexican pride, she teamed up with Mexican rapper Hispana in "Mezcal" that gave the rap a ranchera music twist. In the music video for "Último Perreo," Dioz spotlights people in the LGBTQ+ community who are living their best lives in the club.

Along with Mabiland, Georgel is another queer artist who is pioneering the Latin R&B movement. The two collaborated on his song "Demasiado Bueno 2.0" for this year's Claro EP. He dropped his debut EP on Valentine's Day after a year of releasing R&B bops en español like the sensual "Adrenalina" with Colombian rapper Nanpa Básico and the serene "Casa" with indie artist Katzù Oso. In 2019, Georgel teamed up with Mexican act Raymix and Colombian singer Esteman and became a part of a queer summit of Latin artists. The trio of openly gay artists covered Mexican flamboyant icon Juan Gabriel’s classic track "El Noa Noa" with the late Celso Piña and the Mexican Institute Of Sound. Georgel recently teased his next EP Oscuro with his recent single "Desilusionándome" featuring Immasoul and Ferraz.

Jonah Xiao is one of the newest artists in the LGBTQ+ community who is making a splash in Latin music. The singer/songwriter hails from Chile and on his father's side and also represents the Chinese community that's prominent in the northern part of the country. In his debut single "Inhala Inhala," Xiao blended '80s-inspired synth-pop with elements of Latin trap. In a major moment for queer representation in Latin pop, Xiao teams up with fellow queer Chilean singer Dani Ride for his latest single "California Santiago." The dreamy duet is accompanied with a music video that features Xiao and Ride sharing romantic moments along the coast of Chile’s capital. There’s no doubt sky's the limit for this recent Warner Music Chile signee.

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Watch GRAMMY.com's TRANScendent Sounds Festival 2021 in full now. Hosted by "POSE" star Angelica Ross, the virtual event features performances from Nomi Ruiz, Shea Diamond, KC Ortiz, Brody Ray, and Mal Blum, as well as appearances by Billy Porter and more

Today, Saturday, June 26, the second annual TRANScendent Sounds Festival, GRAMMY.com's online music festival putting the spotlight on a diverse roster of transgender music artists, returns for another year of stellar performances from visionary trans artists. Hosted by "POSE" star Angelica Ross, the uplifting virtual event features performances from Nomi Ruiz, Shea Diamond, KC Ortiz, Brody Ray, and Mal Blum, as well as appearances by Billy Porter, Jazz Jennings and Raquel Willis.

Watch the legendary show in full below:

Watch TRANScendent Sounds Fest 2020 In Full: MJ Rodriguez, Bob The Drag Queen, Monét X Change & More

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