Gay Awakenings & the Media That Made Us Discover Our True Selves

Santana from Glee

“From the time I had crushes, I found myself drawn to boys and girls. I didn’t have any LGBTQ+ representation around me, especially not any that were culturally relevant. Santana Lopez on Glee changed everything for me. To see a Latina character date a woman onscreen who was close to me in age helped me feel more normal about my sexuality and understand it better.

I started to question my sexuality more after seeing women-loving-women relationships played out on TV and having an emotional reaction to it. It still took me another decade to finally come out, but watching Santana’s queer femme love story gave me hope and encouraged me to live my truth.” —Lola Méndez, freelance writer

“Somewhere Only We Know” cover on Glee

“I knew I was gay in kindergarten, which to some might sound crazy, but watching Glee as a teenager helped me come to terms with it and helped inspire me to come out to my best friend in high school.

There’s a specific scene where a gay character sings ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ by Keane to their partner in front of the whole school that made it my number one favorite song ever and forever changed my interpretation of the song.” —MarkJoseph, musician

Up! by Shania Twain

“Long before Taylor Swift was dropping surprise double albums, I was a Midwestern baby gay hyperfixated on a different pop/country double-disc situation. Shania Twain’s Up! album came with two sets of the same songs: The red disc was pop-tinged, while the green gave country vibes. Importantly, this meant my sister and I could each have our own CD—I took pop, of course— a welcome reprieve from fighting over the rest of our collection. (Britney Spears was a hot commodity.)

Shania’s album ran the gamut from girl power anthems to moody ballads, unlocking a sense of fearlessness, confidence, and joy in me that I’ve never forgotten.” —Dylan Hafer, Director of Entertainment Content at Betches Media

“Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga

“I was with my neighbor who was a little older than me, and she was teaching me how to draw. She was this really cool artist, and I was just watching her do what she loved, and then the radio came on and she was singing “Paparazzi.” (But I didn’t know what it was until I looked it up later.)

I looked at her and just thought, ‘Man, she’s really beautiful. How did I not notice this until now?’ I was totally in love with her since, but then she moved away. I still draw in her art style to this day! Now, the art and the song have a really special memory for me.” —L, TikTok

“I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry

“I remember when I was in eighth grade, and Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’ came on the radio, and my mom was driving me to school. And that song came on, and I remember my mom gasping at the lyrics. And then cut to me, having an internal panic of thinking, ‘I like these lyrics.'” —Fletcher, musician and StyleCaster cover star

Twilight

“I was obsessed with Twilight when I was 10 years old— obsessed to the point where I would watch it every day, read the books, and would write fan fiction in the span of my school vacation. I was interested in other projects that the cast was in, and one day, I stumbled upon The Runaways, a biopic about the famous band in the 70s featuring Twilight stars Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

There was a scene where the two kissed, and I realized girls can like girls too. I still liked boys because I had the biggest crush on Robert Pattinson, who played Edward Cullen in the Twilight series. It took some time to realize that sexuality is fluid, and not binary at all. And boom, I knew that I was bisexual.” —Lea Veloso, Entertainment Writer for StyleCaster

The Mummy

“As a child, I went through a phase in which I was watching The Mummy every single day after school. It was a ritual! I was attracted to every single actor in that movie—Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Patricia Velasquez, and Oded Fehr, just to name a few. That movie comforted a part of me that I didn’t even understand yet—the part of me that wasn’t completely straight.” —Roya Backlund, Senior Lifestyle & Astrology Editor for StyleCaster