53 Powerful LGBTQ+ Quotes & Coming Out Quotes For Pride

Celebrations like Pride Month in June and National Coming Out Day in October each year are important days for our society to reflect on how far we've come in terms of LGBTQ+ issues, and they help bring new light on changes we are still fighting for.

There's no better way to help spread the word than by sharing some of the best LGBTQ+ quotes and coming out quotes with your friends and family.

"Coming out" means telling your friends, family, co-workers, or the Internet that you proudly identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

It's not just for gay, lesbian, or bisexual people. You can come out no matter what label you choose to define your sexuality and/or gender. Transgender, nonbinary, asexual, and pansexual people can all come out.

Coming out isn't always a one-and-done deal. Many people have to come out over and over again as they enter new jobs, social circles, and relationships.

Times like Pride month and National Coming Out Day are meant to stand in solidarity with those who may not be ready to come out.

They are markers of how far we have come as a society, and our ability as humans to love under any circumstance. They are also times to remember that there is still a long way to go when it comes to human rights, gay rights, and LGBT rights.

Inspirational LGBTQ Quotes & Coming Out Quotes

1. “Gender preference does not define you. Your spirit defines you.” —PC Cast

RELATED: Why Linking BMI To Sexual Orientation Ignores A Bigger Health Threat — Homophobia

2. "Don’t come out unless you want to. Don’t come out for anyone else’s sake. Don’t come out because you think society expects you to. Come out for yourself. Come out to yourself. Shout, sing it. Softly stutter. Correct those who say they knew before you did. That’s not how sexuality works, it’s yours to define.”― Dean Atta

3. “People are complicated. And messy. Seems too convenient that we’d all fit inside some multiple-choice question.”― Riley Cavanaugh

4. "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." —Harvey Fierstein

5. "That nothing here is promised, not one day. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. Now fill the world with music, love and pride."— Lin Manuel Miranda

6. “Love yourself, whatever makes you different, and use it to make you stand out. Mine is my voice and the fact that I'm gay.” —Ross Matthews

7. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. “Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

9. “Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl.” — Julie Anne Peters

10. "I’m proud to be not only a member, but an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community and I’m proud to say I will live my life based on loving people, not for their gender, but their soul."—Tana Mongeau

11. “Love has no gender, compassion has no religion, character has no race.” — Abhijit Naskar

12. "If I could have chosen to be gay or straight, I think I would have simply chosen to be happy." —Kevin Kidwell

RELATED: 10 Things I Need My Ex-Wife To Know After Coming Out As A Gay Man

LGBTQ Quotes Celebrating Pride Month

13. “Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.”― David Levithan

14. "Being born gay, black, and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, black female is."—Lena Waithe

15. “It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you’re gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly.” —Jason Bateman

16. “The Lord is my Shepherd and he knows I’m gay.” — Troy Perry

17. “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights." —Hillary Clinton

18. "I want to make sure that any young person or anyone really who is looking up to me—who sees a glimpse of who I am as a person—that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I'm truly unabashed about the person that I am."—Samira Wiley

19. "There's just some magic in truth and honesty and openness."—Frank Ocean

20. “There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.” — Tammy Baldwin

21. “Only by speaking out can we create lasting change. And that change begins with coming out.” — DaShanne Stokes

22. “You had to be willing to fight in order for a love story to last a lifetime.” —Cristina Marrero

23. “If you think being straight means you’re being discriminated against, you’re probably misreading your privilege.” — DaShanne Stokes

24. "I want to be visible to queer folx who don’t see people like them on their feed. I know it saved my life years ago. I want to challenge cis folks (if you don’t know what cis means, that’s probably you!!!) to be better allies."—Rebecca Quinn

25. “You don’t have to be gay to be a supporter you just have to be human.” — Daniel Radcliffe

26. “Either you are homophobic, or you are human — you cannot be both.” —Abhijit Naskar

27. "It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain." —Francis Maude

RELATED: 9 Challenges To Expect When Coming Out Later In Life

Coming Out Quotes & LGBTQIA Quotes from Queer Icons

28. “Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I’ve ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.” —Sir Ian McKellen

29. “You are born naked, the rest is drag.” — RuPaul

30. "It’s like love is so incredibly healing. I’m just so happy. When you’re happy… love is life-saving."—Laverne Cox

31. “The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you’ve just told them.” —Rachel Maddow

32. "Being gay is like glitter, it never goes away." —Lady Gaga

33. “Having to hide something like that just ruined me. It really, really killed me. I really honestly think that anybody who is openly gay and visible is powerful. It doesn’t matter what you do, you are impacting people.” —Portia De Rossi

34. "I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive. To all the trans people who deal with harassment, self-loathing, abuse, and the threat of violence every day: I see you, I love you, and I will do everything I can to change this world for the better." —Elliot Page

35. “Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?” — James Baldwin

36.“Gays and lesbians have been stereotyped by society. By sharing our experiences — both good and bad, enriching and unhappy — we humanize who we are. The lives and experiences of all of us are different and specific to each individual and by sharing those experiences we cease to be seen as the cartoons that were imposed on us.”—George Takei

37. “All young people, regardless of orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.” —Harvey Milk

38. "What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains." — Tennessee Williams

39. “I think being gay is a blessing, and it’s something I am thankful for every single day and have been my entire adult life. I couldn’t be more proud of being gay.” —Anderson Cooper

40. "My sexuality is not a phase. I am who I am." —Cara Delevingne

41. “Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that’s it. We’re all people. We’re all equal.” —Connor Franta

42. “It’s never wrong to love, but it’s always wrong to hate.” — Lady Gaga

RELATED: 14 Inspiring Quotes To Celebrate LGBT Pride Month — Because Love Is Love

LGBTQ Quotes About Pride's History

43. “The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’” — Brenda Howard

44.“Some say that Stonewall was the first time LGBTQ people fought back, which is also not true. Stonewall was preceded by earlier queer revolts such as the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in Los Angeles in 1959, the Dewey’s restaurant sit-in in Philadelphia in 1965, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco in 1966, and the protests against the raid of the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles in 1967, among many others. Scholars, participants, and the interested public also debate how many days the uprising lasted and who threw the first brick, the first bottle, or the first punch. And more, beyond any of these questions we wonder what these events that transpired fifty years ago mean to us today.”—The Stonewall Reader

45. “I had never realized before how much you can take from someone by not allowing them the words they need to describe themselves.”― Cassandra Clare

46. "All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more - and no less - heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil-rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to 'fix what ain't right' in our society."—Senator Tammy Baldwin

47. "The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well."— Cassandra Duffy

48. "This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble."—Lucian Truscott

49. “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” ― Barack Obama

50. “The spirit that emerged outside a Mafia-run bar in 1969 became the pulse of the gay community and inspired not just an annual parade but ways to express gay pride in individual lives. Stonewall happens every day.”― Ann Bausum

51. “When people are feeling fabulous, they don’t want to take any crap from anybody, particularly the cops.” —The Stonewall Reader

52. "The Stonewall riots were a key moment for gay people. Throughout modern history, gays had thought of themselves as something like a mental illness or maybe a sin or a crime. Gay liberation allowed us to make the leap to being a 'minority group,' which made life much easier."—Edmund White

53. “Love should never mean having to live in fear” —DaShanne Stokes

RELATED: How The Rainbow Became The Symbol Of LGBT Pride

Kaitlin Kaiser is a writer who covers astrology, pop culture and relationship topics.