September 27 2025, 08:15 
After decades without much onscreen representation, out LGBTQ+ Hispanic entertainers have begun appearing more frequently on the stage, TV, and movie screens. But while queer Hispanic entertainers like Ricky Martin and Rosario Dawson have now become widely known, their personal coming out stories remain less so.
That’s why we’ve collected the coming out tales of 10 big-name LGBTQ+ Hispanic entertainers — to relive the fear, the freedom, the ecstasy, and the importance of coming out — in the entertainers’ own words.
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Omar Apollo
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Omar Apollo is a Mexican-American singer-songwriter and Grammy nominee known for blending R&B, soul, and Latin sounds with English and Spanish lyrics. He publicly came out in 2022.
In a Billboard interview that same year, Apollo said he “wasn’t super open” about his sexuality, something he said “had a lot to do” with growing up the “very conservative” state of Indiana. “I stopped putting pronouns in my music for a couple of years then I just realized, I can’t let other people’s opinions influence and dictate my life,” he said.
“My parents came from Mexico with the intention of having a better life here,” he added. “Some things my parents would always tell me were to not forget where I came from, so the family and our traditions and the culture has always been super important. It’s its own culture, because it’s mixed with this American culture…. It’s great because that’s something I wanted growing up. An artist who represented my people, who looked like me and could actually have my story of how my parents came here and their kids could be successful. There are so many different ways success can be.”
Rosario Dawson
Rosario Dawson is of Puerto Rican and Cuban ancestry and attained fame as an actress, comic book writer, and activist, starring in films like Rent, Sin City, Men in Black II, and TV series associated with Star Wars and Marvel superhero comics.
Dawson came out as LGBTQ+ in a February 2020 Bustle interview, stating she hadn’t felt comfortable publicly claiming the identity because “I’ve never had a relationship in that space, so it’s never felt like an authentic calling to me.”
She co-founded the voting organization Voto Latino, supports the V-Day movement opposing violence against women, and supports the Lower East Side Girls Club, which connects poor and female-identified youth with empowerment and enrichment programs.
Emily Estefan
Emily Estefan, daughter of Cuban musician Gloria Estefan, is a Cuban-American artist celebrated for her genre-blending debut album Take Whatever You Want and her tribute to her mother at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Emily Estefan told Entertainment Weekly that she first came out to her parents in 2017 and in an Instagram post with her girlfriend that same year. Despite being an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, Gloria Estefan responded to her daughter’s coming out by saying, “If you tell your grandma and she dies, her blood is on your hands.” Gloria Estefan later explained that Emily Estefan’s grandmother was conservative, and that she didn’t realize how much her reaction hurt her daughter — Emily Estefan’s grandmother died before her granddaughter ever shared her sexual orientation with her.
“People don’t realize that me and my mom are two generations apart. Generationally, we’re split more than some parents and their kids are. I know there will be people who will resonate with her side of it… the same way that there are little gay kids that need to hear my side, there are parents who love their kids to death and they just don’t understand what they need at that moment,” she said. “I think mom is going to be a beacon for people in this situation. Parents sometimes think they’re protecting their kids, and they’re hurting them.”
Demi Lovato
Demi Lovato — who is of Nuevomexicano, Spanish, Native American, Portuguese, Jewish, and Irish descent — is a two-time Grammy nominee and former Disney star who hinted at her queerness in her 2015 pop hit “Cool for the Summer,” a song about a same-sex seasonal fling.
Lovato publicly came out as nonbinary and pansexual in May 2021, stating that she used they/them pronouns and felt proud belonging to the “alphabet mafia.” She said she experienced a sexual awakening while watching a same-sex kiss in the 1990 romantic thriller Cruel Intentions, but “felt a lot of shame” about it, having grown up in a Christian part of Texas. She later began to use she/her pronouns due to feeling more feminine, though she says she still embraces gender fluidity.
She advocates for mental health, openly discussing her struggles with bipolar disorder, substance abuse, and eating disorders. She has also launched the Lovato Treatment Scholarship Program, a fund for people who can’t afford substance abuse services.
Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin, born in Puerto Rico to a family of Basque, Spanish, Catalan, and Corsican descent, is an icon of Latin pop known for global hits like “Livin’ la Vida Loca” and his impact as a member of the Mexican boy group Menudo. He deflected a question about his sexuality during a 2000 interview with Barbara Walters.
Martin came out publicly as “a fortunate homosexual man” in March 2010 in a post on his website, explaining, “Many people told me: ‘Ricky it’s not important,’ ‘It’s not worth it’, ‘All the years you’ve worked and everything you’ve built will collapse’, ‘Many people in the world are not ready to accept your truth, your reality, your nature’. Because all this advice came from people who I love dearly, I decided to move on with my life not sharing with the world my entire truth. Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions.”
He said he was eventually encouraged to come out by his father, a psychologist, who asked whether he would also lie to his children about his sexuality. Martin established the Ricky Martin Foundation to fight child sex trafficking and has received numerous humanitarian awards for his advocacy for children’s welfare and LGBTQ+ equality.
Indya Moore
Indya Moore is a Bronx-born actor and model of Haitian, Puerto Rican, and Dominican heritage, best known for playing vogue model Angel Evangelista on FX’s Pose, a pain-resistant competitor in the 2021 horror thriller Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, a gender neutral character in the queer-inclusive cartoon Steven Universe: Future, and the trans woman Wanda in the fantasy TV series The Sandman.
In a 2018 interview with The New York Post, Moore said, “My [birth] parents loved me dearly, but we were having issues with my identity being [recognized at home]. They thought I was essentially in harm’s way because of the way I existed.” She said she faced discrimination as a teenager in the city’s foster care system, stating, “People were so cruel because of the way I existed. They may have known I was assigned male at birth, and they didn’t understand why I didn’t exist [as male].”
She also said in a 2019 interview that although she doesn’t often discuss her nonbinary identity, she feels industry professionals and commentators scrutinize her gender because many people see her as a woman. Moore uses she/her and they/them pronouns.
Moore — who uses their platform to oppose conversion therapy, LGBTQ+ violence, and support trans youth — said that her breakthrough role in the trans-lead TV series Pose “reaffirmed how important representation [is when] people with power leverage their access to uplift voices that are less heard,” adding, “People of color and children of immigrants like myself … don’t get to be teachers, or leaders and actors … I think this [TV program] shows marginalized people they can be anything they want to be.”
Aubrey Plaza
Aubrey Plaza, whose father is Puerto Rican and whose mother is of Irish and English descent, is perhaps best known for her deadpan comedic roles in Parks and Recreation and numerous films, as well as voicing the somewhat androgynous villain Eska in the queer children’s TV series The Legend of Korra.
She publicly came out as bisexual in a July 2016 interview with Advocate magazine, saying, “I know I have an androgynous thing going on, and there’s something masculine about my energy. Girls are into me — that’s no secret. Hey, I’m into them too. I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.”
She also said that she grew up in a “very Irish Catholic, Republican area,” adding, “My community theater taught me at an early age that it’s OK to stand out and let your freak flag fly. I felt it was important to inspire people to be their authentic selves by making a fool of myself and not caring what others thought. Even though I have my own insecurities, I’ve always had this mission of disrupting social norms.”
Plaza has spoken publicly about experiencing a stroke at age 20, challenges with social anxiety disorder, and has recently shared the grief she experienced after her now-deceased husband, Jeff Baena, died by
Sara Ramirez
Sara Ramirez — born in Mazatlán, Mexico with both Mexican and Irish heritage — is a Tony-winning actor known for playing bisexual doctor Callie Torres, one of the longest-running LGBTQ+ characters in U.S. television history, in the series Grey’s Anatomy. They also played the bisexual nonbinary character Che Díaz in the romantic TV series And Just Like That….
Ramirez came out as bisexual in October 2016 and as nonbinary in a 2020 Instagram post. They said they felt compelled to come out in order to speak out against LGBTQ+ youth homelessness and anti-LGBTQ+ violence following the deadly 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
“As years went by, and as the political climate intensified, and as I continued to read and hear about the countless forms of violence perpetrated against us … an organic, incremental urgency to use my platform to empower those who are part of these communities that I’m a part of came over me in a way that I’ve never felt before,” Ramirez said via social media. “Coming out publicly has given me a sense of relief.”
“And, because of the intersections that exist in my own life: Woman, multi-racial woman, woman of color, queer, bisexual, Mexican-Irish American, immigrant, and raised by families heavily rooted in Catholicism on both my Mexican and Irish sides,” she added, “I am deeply invested in projects that allow our youth’s voices to be heard, and that support our youth in owning their own complex narratives so that we can show up for them in ways they need us to.”
Ramirez is a board member of True Colors United, working to end LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, and actively speaks out about intersectionality and social justice.
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is of Puerto Rican and African-American descent and is best known for starring as ballroom house mother Blanca Evangelista on FX’s transgender-led dramatic TV series Pose.
But while she reportedly began praying to become female at age 7, and came out as bisexual to her parents at age 14, her role as Angel in a 2011 Off-Broadway revival of the very queer musical Rent made her realize her desire to medically transition. While Angel is a drag queen, Rodriguez saw her character more as “genderqueer” or “gender-fluid” and empathized with the fact that her character feels most herself when dressed fabulously in women’s clothing with full hair and makeup.
“Every single time I came out of the stage [door], I felt like there was some part of me that was missing,” she told Playbill in 2016. “I started to look into [the transition process] more because I knew deep down inside I’m putting on a smile for these wonderful people who see me backstage… It was me that was holding myself back because I felt like I had to fit into this mold of what people want to see.”
About her medical transition, she told the aforementioned publication, “I’ve always felt I was the same person. There was never really any change; there was just evolving that had to take place. There was an enhancing that had to take place — mental enhancing, physical enhancing, all those things … I had to take time to myself to figure a lot of things out.”
After her transition, she informed her talent managers that she was no longer interested in auditioning for male roles. In 2021, she became the first out trans woman to earn an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress. The following year, she became the first out trans woman to win a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama.
Tessa Thompson
Tessa Thompson is an American actress with Afro-Panamanian and Mexican ancestry, acclaimed for roles, including her role as the college-aged racial justice advocate Sam White in the 2014 film Dear White People, bisexual warrior Valkyrie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor films, and as the love interest of nonbinary and pansexual musician Janelle Monáe in Monáe’s 2018 music video film Dirty Computer.
She publicly came out as being attracted to both men and women in a June 2018 interview with Net-A-Porter magazine, stating, “I’m attracted to men and also to women. If I bring a woman home, [or] a man, [my family and I] don’t even have to have the discussion…. I want everyone else to have that freedom and support that I have from my loved ones. But so many people don’t. So, do I have a responsibility to talk about that? Do I have a responsibility to say in a public space that this is my person?”
She added that she and Monáe “love each other deeply,” but didn’t comment further on the nature of their relationship.
“I guess I’ve always been conscious of the ways in which identity is a creation,” Thompson added. “I could tuck all my hair up into a cap [in high school], and suddenly people would treat me differently because they’d assume I was a boy. I think maybe that’s what attracted me to acting. I would look at people and wonder how they made themselves.”
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