Queer women have been the backbone of some of the best films of the past century. In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8th and the 2026 Academy Awards on March 15th, we take a look back at 14 ceremonies where gay women made history.
The Oscars have a checkered history when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation, which reflects the film industry as a whole and its historical rejection of LGBTQ+ artists.
Throughout the 20th century and well into the 21st century, actors who are open about their sexuality have been blacklisted, categorized, and discriminated against.
Things are changing, but not fast enough. Some actors still believe that queer movie stars are disadvantaged. No LGBTQ+ actor or actress has won Best Actor or Best Actress this century. What about the fact that LGBTQ+ history continued to be made at the last Oscar ceremony? It’s a reason to celebrate, but it also raises questions. Why did it take so long?
Queer women should be recognized for the way they have shaped the film industry over the past few decades. Not only in the acting category, but also in the writing, producing, animation, and composing categories that are all involved in the magic of great movies. Here are 14 times LGBTQ+ women made Academy Awards history.
Marlene Dietrich (1931)
One of Hollywood’s original LGBTQ+ icons, German actress Marellen Dietrich was the first woman to come out and be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1931. Morocco. She made history twice with her role in this film. In it, she played Mademoiselle Amy Jolie, a queer character who performed one of the first recorded sapphic kisses in a major motion picture. Not only was Dietrich the first LGBTQ+ woman to be nominated for an Oscar (she was bisexual), Mademoiselle Amy Jolie was the first LGBTQ+ character to be recognized as such by the Academy.
Ethel Waters (1949)
Blues singer and actress Ethel Waters did not speak publicly about her sexuality during her lifetime, but she is believed to have had an affair with another Ethel, Ethel Williams, in the 1920s (she later married three men, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture notes that she was bisexual).
She played Dicey Johnson in the 1949 drama pinkyShe was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She became the first LGBTQ+ woman nominated in this category and the second African-American performer to be nominated for an Oscar.
She died in 1977 at the age of 80 from complications related to uterine cancer and kidney failure.
Angela Morley (1975/1978)
Angela Morley was the first transgender person to be nominated for an Oscar in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for Gene Wilder’s film musical. little prince. She then repeated the feat in the musical in 1978. slippers and roses. She may have missed out on both awards, but she cemented her name in LGBTQ+ history. Additionally, she is the only out-transgender person to have been nominated for an Oscar multiple times.
Jodie Foster (1989/1992)
Jodie Foster received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at just 14 years old. taxi driver. We were still talking about the 1989 courtroom drama. accusedher first award was this time in the Best Actress category. Although she did not come out as LGBTQ+ until the 2000s, this win makes Foster the first LGBTQ+ actress to win Best Actress. Her second award came in 1992 for the controversial horror film. silence of the lambsshe became the first, and currently only, queer woman to win the Best Actress gong twice at the Oscars.
Melissa Ethridge (2007)
Fourteen years after rock singer Melissa Etheridge came out as a lesbian, she won Best Original Song at the 2007 Academy Awards for her song “I Need to Wake Up,” which became the soundtrack for a global warming documentary. inconvenient truth. In doing so, she became the first lesbian woman to win in the prestigious category. Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish will follow in her footsteps as the first queer women to receive the award.
Darla K. Anderson (2011/2018)
Animated film producer and Pixar legend Darla K. Anderson is the first LGBTQ+ woman to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Anderson won the category in 2011, working with bisexual film editor Lee Unkrich. toy story 3and 2017 here. She is the only queer woman to win in this category and one of two queer women nominated, the other being Anderson’s wife Cori Rae.
Anderson parted ways with Pixar in 2018 after working there for 25 years.
Anoni (2016)
Musician Anohni became the first transgender person to be nominated in the Best Original Song category for her 2015 song “Manta Ray.” Songs featured in the 2015 climate crisis documentary racing extinctionHowever, it lost out at the 2016 Academy Awards to Writings on the Wall, directed by Sam Smith, who was not openly non-binary at the time.
Despite making history, Anohni publicly boycotted the 88th Academy Awards ceremony, stating that he had not been invited to perform the song by the event’s organizers. A statement on her website at the time said: rolling stoneThe singer said she considered attending a nomination event before or after the awards ceremony, but “feelings of embarrassment and anger came over me.” [her] Go back,” and she didn’t attend.
“So I felt a stinging sense of shame that reminded me of America’s early affirmation of my inadequacy as a trans person. I turned around at the airport and went home.”
Dee Reese (2018)
It’s sad that it took 2018 for a queer black woman to receive an Oscar nomination in the screenplay category, but it’s even sadder that no queer black woman has yet won in such a category. Writer/director Dee Rees has come closest to directing this feat since the 2017 historical drama. mud bound ‘ was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Lost to queer film adaptation call me by your namewritten by gay screenwriter James Ivory.
Rachel Morrison (2018)
Dee Reese’s mud bound It may have missed out on all four Oscars it was nominated for, but it at least made history several times. In addition to Reese becoming the first queer black woman to be nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, Rachel Morrison also became not only the first queer woman, but also the first woman overall to be nominated in the Best Cinematography category.
Cynthia Erivo (2019/2025)
There’s a reason Cynthia Erivo is one award away from EGOT status. She’s one of Hollywood’s most impressive multihyphenates, as her Oscar-winning track record shows. But ironically, that’s just the Oscar the 39-year-old needs to complete her EGOT efforts.
She approached me several times. In 2019, she became the first queer black woman to be nominated in the Best Original Song category for her song “Stand Up.” harriet (She lost to Elton John). That same year, she was nominated for Best Actress for her lead role in the Harriet Tubman biopic, becoming the first black performer to be nominated for both acting and songwriting in the same film. She is also the first Black queer actress to be nominated for multiple acting Oscars.
Billie Eilish (2021/2024)
“The Lunch” singer Billie Eilish holds the record for multiple Oscar wins, which is no mean feat for any performer. On top of that, two of her records are age-related. In 2021, she won her first Oscar in the Best Original Song category for “No Time to Die,” the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name. She was only 19 years old at the time and became the first person born in the 21st century to win an Oscar. After “What Was I Made For?” won in the same category, barbie He starred in this film at the age of 22, making him the youngest person to win two Oscars. She is also the only queer woman to win Best Original Song twice.
Ariana DeBose (2022)
In 2022, Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the 1957 stage musical. She played Anita, the strong-willed mentor to Rachel Zegler’s Maria, and was widely praised as one of the film’s highlights. With this award, she became the first queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar.
“To anyone who has ever questioned their identity or found themselves living in a gray space, I promise you this: We do have a place,” she said in an enthusiastic acceptance speech.
Lily Gladstone (2024)
Lily Gladstone became the first Native American and gender diverse actress to be nominated for an acting Oscar in 2024 for her role in the 10-time Oscar-nominated crime drama. Murderers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone, who describes herself as queer and “androgynous” and uses both she and they pronouns, lost the next election. poor thing Although Emma Stone is the star, the nomination itself was significant enough.
“I say this all the time, but it’s not entirely mine. It belongs to so many people: the Osage Nation, the Blackfeet Nation, the Nez Perce Nation, and all the Indigenous actors that I stand behind,” they said. entertainment weekly.
“It’s a matter of circumstance that I’ll be first, and I’m very grateful, but I just know that I’m never far from being last.
Carla Sofia Gascón (2025)
Did the most historic Oscar feat for the trans community turn into a complete and utter shit show due to the resurfacing of numerous bigoted social media posts by actress Carla Sofia Gascón? Yes, that’s exactly right. But there’s no denying that Gascón’s nomination for Best Actress, despite the controversial Emilia Perez, is an important moment in the history of LGBTQ+ representation at the Academy Awards. Gascón missed out on an Oscar for various reasons, but her nomination is expected to pave the way for other trans actresses to achieve similar success.
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Source: PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news – www.thepinknews.com
