The Triangle Ball: The pivotal moment three music icons came out gay together
The first time a US president chose to celebrate the inauguration of his post by throwing a LGBTQ-inclusive inauguration was Bill Clinton with his Triangle Ball in 1993.
The first gay and lesbian inaugural ball broadened the scope of artists taking part and marked the start of a more tolerant climate in which artists from all backgrounds became comfortable with speaking out about their identity.
The brave pioneers of this endeavour were three invitees to Clinton’s $100-per-person party. His support for ethnic diversity and gay rights drew clear support for the 42nd president on the part of the gay community and musicians alike, since Clinton was also known to be a saxophone player.
Among the star-studded crowd was a triangle force of empowerment bearing the names of Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang and Janis Ian. They had never concealed their sexuality, but had neither come out with it until the 21st of January 1993, at the National Press Club in Washington, with the world’s eyes upon them.
When Melissa Etheridge had finally found someone to sign on a very obvious homosexual, she was still warned by her executive at Island Records, “Well, as long as you don’t flag-wave, I guess,” Etheridge told Today. She was forced to keep her song’s subjects gender neutral, although everyone in her life already knew she was a lesbian. The pressures of the industry had constrained the Kansas songwriter, but when the time came for a historically liberating event, the chance came knocking for her to make history.
That night, Etheridge took the chance to tell Clinton’s crowd: “I’m proud to say right now, I’m proud to have been a lesbian all my life,” while Canadian singer KD Lang jumped up and down in the background, excitedly supporting her friend.
What unfolded had seemed so spontaneous, so natural, that Janis Ian was less inclined to follow suit. She hadn’t actively hidden her homosexuality, since her partner at the time was her now wife, but she hadn’t wanted to make such a public spectacle of it either, until a human rights organisation came knocking.
In an interview with The Irish Independent in 2012, Ian recalled the interaction: “She quoted some statistics about teenage suicides to me and how many of the suicides and attempted suicides were because the kid thought they might be gay. Then she said: ‘Did you have any role models?’ And I said no. And she said: ‘Well, don’t you think they could use one?’”
In fact, countless artists and public figures followed in the Triangle’s footsteps, with Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell coming out close behind, and Kristen Ellis-Henderson of Antigone Rising being directly affected by the trio’s courage, telling Songfacts, “Janis, KD and Melissa coming out made me feel like it was OK to be who I was, I’m just grateful to them for being brave enough”.
Then, more artists like Sam Smith broke onto the mainstream, “artists who are gay, and it’s kind of obvious, and they’re just so good, and the music is so good,” Etheridge pondered in 2021 on Today, adding, “For us, it was that you were supposed to be straight. Then, it was either you were straight or you were gay. Now, there’s this beautiful spectrum of people who don’t have to make up their minds. They can be, like, whatever they want.”
