When Ty Herndon wrapped his 10th and final Concert for Love and Acceptance on June 2, he delivered his first hit, the 1995 release “What Mattered Most,” then broke into an a cappella version of the classic hymn “How Great Thou Art.”

A gospel song isn’t necessarily expected at an event celebrating the LGBTQ community, but Herndon grew up singing church music in Alabama, and he had reason to be thankful. When he gave the first Love and Acceptance show in 2015, Billy Gilman was the only other gay artist on the bill. The rest of the lineup consisted of straight artists offering their support as allies. 

For the 2025 edition, the onstage contingent was much larger, and there were even more queer country artists in the audience. Over the 10-year run of Herndon’s annual show, the volume of out-and-proud gay country artists has increased significantly, as has the ability for them to earn a living while telling their authentic story.

“I was a shell of a human,” says queer artist Adam Mac, recalling life before he had publicly come out. He attended the first Love and Acceptance concert as a fan, and he found both the show and Herndon to be inspirational.

“I was masking all of the best parts of me, and it wasn’t until I came out that I really blossomed and really found myself and found my voice,” Mac says. “It wasn’t just (a change in) style, it was the songs I was writing. Everything kind of shifted for me once that happened.”

Herndon understands. He came out in November 2014 after consulting with Chely Wright, who in 2010 became the first country hitmaker to publicly proclaim herself a lesbian.

“I called her one day,” Herndon remembers, “and I said, ‘You know, I’ve been through too much and I’ve worked too hard to get to where I’m at to be quiet anymore.’ I said, ‘But I want to do it through music, and I want to do it through things that matter.’ And she says, ‘Well, that’s the only way to do it.’ ”

As Pride Month continues, country music is one of the areas where coming out may have some of the greatest significance in contemporary America. The genre’s fans skew conservative, but other artists have decided over the last decade that they — like Herndon — don’t want to be quiet anymore. That includes Brooke Eden, Sam Williams, Chris Housman, Lily Rose, Kalie Shorr, Bryan Ruby, Julie Williams, The Kentucky Gentlemen and Brothers Osborne’s TJ Osborne. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Coming out can be a difficult undertaking — gay people dread the potential loss of friends and family, grow anxious over possible job loss, and fear for their safety. Those concerns are heightened for queer artists, particularly because the public reveal is mostly irreversible.

“You can’t go back,” Housman says.

So far, the artists who’ve taken the risk generally feel they made the right move.

“I found a whole new demographic, a whole new audience of people that desperately needed to hear a country artist who was queer,” Eden says. “And it’s not only the queer people, but it’s the parents of the queer people and the family members and the best friends. It’s the allies.”

The process of coming out is often misunderstood. It’s not just a one-time action or something that occurs only within a short window of time. Even after gay people make the initial choice to be honest with others about their sexual orientation, they repeatedly make that decision throughout the rest of their lives. Each time they have a conversation with someone who doesn’t know, they have to evaluate whether it’s appropriate to clue the other person in: “Do I tell them?” “Is it safe?” “Will mentioning it sidetrack the conversation?” “Do I care that much about this person that it’s worth sharing?”

If they decide in that instance to stay hidden, they may later question whether they were dishonest for not sharing that information or feel guilty for not standing up on behalf of their community. It’s a lot to carry.

And those who don’t fit perceived stereotypes have to make those decisions on a regular basis since their outward appearance doesn’t offer many clues.

“It’s more of a coming-out-every-single-day kind of a thing,” Eden says, “because we could be hetero-presenting.”

Gays who are trying to pass as heterosexual have to stay vigilant about their demeanor and their conversation, forced to make quick decisions and adjustments in real time about details that others barely recognize. It’s compounded for closeted gay country artists because anything that might unmask them has consequences that can reverberate not just with one acquaintance, but an entire fan base. Osborne has said that prior to coming out, he was self-conscious about onstage movements that might be perceived as effeminate, and his concerns about that issue made him more reserved as a lead singer. The small words “he” and “she” could be large stumbling blocks in interviews.

“I was always telling very edited versions of my story and making sure that I was saying the correct pronouns, even though they were really the wrong pronouns,” Eden recalls. “I really did get stuck living in this double life.”

Runaway June’s Natalie Stovall, who attended the Concert for Love and Acceptance as an ally, has seen the results when a gay creative co-wrote in a scenario where they were not comfortable to come out to one or more people in the room.

“It felt like a confined space,” she says. “It just felt like they weren’t able to fully be who they were. And even within writing, it’s so weird when you have to write music a certain way and you can’t use the pronouns that you want to use to mean what you’re saying.”

The music business — particularly the country music business — has historically avoided gay artists or instructed them to remain in the closet. Shorr, for example, released “My Type,” a song that embraces her interest in women, on May 30, eight years after she wrote it. Her now-former management team discouraged her from performing it at that time.

“I was told if I wanted to release it, I should change the pronouns,” she remembers. “I was like, ‘That totally changes the meaning of the song.’ So I just sat on it, and now that I have a team that’s fully supportive of me being queer, I was like, ‘You know, it’s time we’re going to release it.’ And it feels great.”

While the volume of openly gay artists has increased in the country ranks, not all of them are officially out. Not everyone is ready to take the risk — some fear a large chunk of the country audience may reject them and prevent them from becoming a mainstream country act, while others may lack support in their professional team.

“If you’re at a place in your life where you have 10 (people seated) at the table and you don’t know (how they may react), you never want any of them to leave,” Herndon says. “I think that for artists that aren’t out, they’re really aware of who’s at their table.”

Alternately, some of the gay artists who are keeping their sexuality hidden from the public are simply drawing a line in their personal lives. It’s not much different from George Strait revealing little about his home life or Chris Stapleton declining to provide his children’s names to reporters.

“Part of it is a power move for them,” Shelly Fairchild says. “They’re like, ‘You don’t get to know this part of me. You don’t get to hurt it. You don’t get to attack it. It is precious. It is something that is not up for discussion.’ Just like if you have children — you don’t really see Shania Twain’s kid, you know? It’s because she’s like, ‘This is protected. You don’t get to be mean to my beautiful love of my life.’ ”

Herndon knows the negativity that comes with going public. During one meet-and-greet in the first year or two after he had come out, an angry fan stabbed the back of his hand with a pencil. Herndon still has a small scar that reminds him occasionally of that incident, though the country audience has proven itself to be far less hostile than country executives might have expected.

“I think (CMT/SiriusXM personality) Cody Alan’s coming out had such a great impact because he had such good existing relationships with artists on the charts like Dierks (Bentley) and Carrie (Underwood)and so many others who stepped forward immediately and supported him,” says Herndon’s manager, ZS Strategies president Zeke Stokes, formerly GLAAD vp of programs. “Every one of these folks who’s come out — it just gives others a little bit of a more of an open door.”

Attitudes among the general population have changed dramatically as well, making the decision to come out less traumatic than it was in previous generations. A CNN poll published June 1, the first day of Pride Month, found that 72% of respondents see diversity “enriching American culture.” Even the historically conservative country audience seems to reflect that viewpoint.

“I’ve seen some of the most conservative people you can imagine just come up to Ty and give him a hug and say, ‘Thank you for being you,’ or ‘I love your music, man. The rest doesn’t matter to me,’ ” Stokes notes. “Country has a conservative reputation, but I think perhaps we don’t give the fans as much credit as they deserve for being, first and foremost, good people.”

In fact, as country has become more popular, its fan base has become more diverse, allowing a number of gay artists to be out and make their living fully from music. It has been tough at radio — no openly gay artist has had a top 10 airplay hit after they have come out — but that hasn’t prevented them from making connections with fans through streaming. The landscape seems to be in an upward transition for queer country acts, even if it’s an uneasy period.

“There’s certainly times that I can’t help but wonder if my career would look a little bit different if I hadn’t come out,” Housman concedes. “But at the same time, I would eventually look back on that and see a lack of integrity and authenticity. And even the songs that I’m writing, if I wasn’t out, I’d be writing the same stuff that everybody else is writing. So I kind of see it as an opportunity.”

Complicating the situation, the current presidential administration has taken a number of steps that harm the LGBTQ community: banning transgender people from the military, erasing gay and transgender content from federal websites and removing protections against discrimination. 

“It’s risky to be yourself,” Sam Williams says, “but, you know, it’s worthwhile.”

Thus, many of the country artists who have come out are able to make a living while also making a statement to a segment of the population that needs to hear it the most.

“World Pride was in Washington, D.C., this year, in front of the Capitol Building where the insurrection was,” says Eden, who notes that she performed there for 70,000 people. “To be in a place where so many things are happening right now, where so much backward progress is happening in a world where they’re trying to silence us again, trying to put us back in the closet again, in a world where trans youth and trans people in general are not safe, I think that it’s really important to be visible and to let people know that they’re not alone.”

Herndon’s Concert for Love and Acceptance is history for now, as he shifts some of his focus to other unannounced projects. But he also hopes that the next generation of gay country artists will carry the torch forward. In the meantime, that concert, and the decisions made by every country artist who has come out, have indeed made a difference over the last decade.

“We feel the impact of it every time Ty walks out the door,” Stokes says. “Invariably, someone will come up to him at a show and say, ‘You gave me the courage to come out,’ or ‘Your music gave me the courage to come out.’ Or a mother or father will say, ‘You know, seeing you come out helped me accept my son or daughter.’ The butterfly effect of it all is just immeasurable.”