10 out and proud sapphic celebs you need to know about this Lesbian Visibility Week
Here are a few celebrities who have come out as lesbian. (Getty)
It’s Lesbian Visibility Week from 20-26 April, and what better way to celebrate than by focusing on some amazing lesbian women who are in the public eye and proudly representing the community.
Many queer women have different feelings and opinions about the word lesbian but, nevertheless, the lesbian renaissance is rolling in with increasingly powerful force, in a way that embraces and fully reclaims the term.
Here are just a handful of the lesbian celebrities you need to know about, whose public pride in their sexuality is helping to blow away closet doors for queer women around the world.
Cat Burns
Singer-songwriter Cat Burns won us over with her music, but we truly fell in love with her on The Celebrity Traitors as she schemed alongside Alan Carr and Stephen Fry. The show offered a more personal insight into the singer, who self-identifies as an autistic Black lesbian with ADHD.
The three-time Brit-nominated star released her sophomore album, How to Be Human, last October. Burns is a great star to follow for her lyricism and also for her open visibility as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Reneé Rapp
Singer-songwriter Reneé Rapp has been open about her sexuality, including the moments where things haven’t felt so clear for her.
After identifying as bisexual for a brief stint, Rapp began to embrace the word lesbian and eventually drew a line in the sand in a post on X/Twitter in March.
“If I say I’m a lesbian, I am a lesbian, and if someone says they’re bi, they are bi,” she wrote. “I’ve had enough of you witches.”
Raven-Symoné
Raven’s House star Raven-Symoné knew she was gay at the age of 12. But that was the easy part. Coming out in the public eye was a different story.
The star, now 38, told E! News in 2023 that there were “a lot of challenges” to coming out publicly, adding that she felt “very vulnerable.” She took the step in 2013, and married Miranda Maday in 2020.
Chappell Roan
If you didn’t know Chappell Roan was a lesbian, then you’ve not been listening to Chappell Roan. The new pop sensation is practically drenched in sapphic energy from head to toe.
She opened up about her coming out story in an interview with Rolling Stone, where she said she confirmed it to an Ohio audience on tour last year.
Although she initially thought something was “wrong” with her, she worked out that, “I just wasn’t supposed to be sleeping with men.”
Lena Waithe
Sometimes fact and fiction overlap. And that was true for actor and film producer Lena Waithe.
The Emmy-nominated Master of None episode, “Thanksgiving,” features Waithe’s character, Denise, grappling with telling her friends and conservative family her true sexuality over the course of five holiday periods, spread over 22 years, and features a poster of Friends star Jennifer Aniston on the ceiling of Denise’s bedroom. That poster used to be on Laithe’s bedroom wall.
She told the LA Times, she’d approached the episode and her own coming out from a hero’s perspective, which helped her understand what she went through.
“I had survived that thing I was so afraid of,” said the celeb, who is dating Wicked star Cynthia Erivo.
Jacqueline Wilson
Author Jacqueline Wilson came out publicly in 2020 at the age of 74. She shared that she had been in a relationship with another woman, with whom she lives, for many years.
“I’ve never really been in any kind of closet,” Wilson told The Guardian.
“It would be such old news for anybody that has ever known anything much about me. Even the vaguest acquaintance knows perfectly well that we are a couple.”
Kate McKinnon
Former Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon is a joy to watch not just because of her hilariously captivating energy on screen, but also for how she manages to weave progressive activism and feminism into her work.
The Barbie star said she first realised she was a lesbian after watching The X-Files. “I thought at first my physiological reaction was a product of David Duchovny’s face,” she revealed, “but no, it was Gillian Anderson, who still is the queen of my heart. I knew then.”
Megan Rapinoe
US football star and co-captain Megan Rapinoe has so many sporting achievements, including 203 caps and 63 goals for her country’s team.
With this spotlight, she has repeatedly stood up for trans athletes and used her platform for activism.
Rapinoe has shared that she knew she was gay by her first year in college. In 2020, Rapinoe got engaged to basketball player Sue Bird. The pair have been together since 2016.
Miriam Margolyes
National treasure Miriam Margolyes is a British lesbian icon. With endlessly hilarious stories and anecdotes, she’s someone we could listen to forever. Furthermore, Margolyes has always led with kindness and the sincere endeavour to learn.
Additionally, she has never been someone to worry about raising her voice too loud. For example, she has remarked that JK Rowling was “too harsh” in her views on the transgender community. She has also shot down the Harry Potter remake, labelling it an “endless search for money.”
Wanda Sykes
Wanda Sykes’ coming out story is a little bit different to many, but no less spectacular for that.
The Emmy Award-winning star of The Upshaws came out publicly at an equality rally in 2008, at the age of 44. She had already been out in private and married to French former interior designer Alex Niedbalski.
During the rally, she made an impromptu speech about LGBTQ+ equality, which “was not planned at all.“
The couple are parents to fraternal twins, a girl and a boy, who were born in 2009.
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