6. Melissa Etheridge

Etheridge came out at The Triangle Ball, a gay celebration of Bill Clinton's first inauguration, in 1993. Though she'd come up performing in lesbian bars in the '80s, her orientation wasn't common knowledge into the '90s. To have her come out at such a massive event was the auspicious beginning for a very visible career in LGBT activism, and Etheridge hasn't looked back since.

In her own words: "It was a slow evolution. It was three albums of being vague, of using non-gender specific words — my partner, my lover — and skipping around it, not feeling safe with it. And that night, there were a thousand queers all dressed up, and everyone was all very happy that we have this new president, and I said to the crowd, 'Gee, I'm very happy to be here and I've been a lesbian all my life!' I didn't know in advance that I was going to say that. Didn't even think about it." — to MetroWeekly