Pride month kicked off on Friday, June 1, and both Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande made a point of speaking out about their admiration and love for the LGBQT community.
Dedicating her new song, "Delicate" to her LGBQT-identifying fans at a Reputation tour stop in Chicago on Saturday, June 2, Taylor issued a strong message of support, telling the sold-out Soldier Field crowd (via Billboard): "It's very brave to be vulnerable about your feelings in any situation, but it's even more brave to be honest about your feelings and who you love when you know that it might be met with adversity from society."
She continued: "This month and every month I want to send my love and respect to everybody who has been brave enough to be honest about how they feel, to live their lives as they are, as they feel they should be, as they identify. This is a month where I think we need to celebrate how far we've come, but I think we also need to acknowledge how far we have left to go. I want to send my love and respect to everybody who hasn't felt comfortable enough to come out yet … and may you do that on your own time and may we end up in a world where everyone can live and love equally and no one has to be afraid to all say how they feel."
Explaining the title of her song, she added: "When it comes to feelings and when it comes to love and searching for someone to spend your whole life with … it's all just really, really delicate."
Fans quickly began tweeting their appreciation of the singer's speech, which she reportedly delivered while wearing a rainbow dress.
The day before Taylor's show, Billboard published a note from Ariana Grande, which serves as the first of 30 "love letters to the LGBQT" community it plans to run this month.
"There is nothing more infectious than the joy and love that the LGBTQ community exudes," Ariana wrote in the letter. "I grew up with a gay brother whose every move I would emulate. I idolized him. Everything Frankie did, I would do. I can't remember a difference between Frankie before he came out and Frankie after he came out. He's always just been Frankie. Sexuality and gender were never topics my family and I were afraid to discuss. When Frankie came out my surprisingly unfazed (for his age) grandfather said, 'Congrats! Can we go to dinner now? I'm f—– hungry."
She went on to cite ties to queens who gave her makeup lessons in gay bars where she regularly performed Whitney Houston covers as a teen in New York City.
"My music being embraced and celebrated by the LGBTQ community is all I ever truly cared about when I thought about my career goals early on," she wrote. "There's no award I could win or accolade I could receive that would fulfill me more than seeing a 6-foot queen with a 4-foot ponytail walk into my meet n greet and say 'hey girl' or meeting a young queer person at Starbucks and them letting me know that my music has helped them become who they are. Literally nothing."
She concluded the post by writing, "Love is like music. It knows no boundaries and isn't exclusive to any one gender, sexuality, race, religion, age or creed. It's a freedom and a delicious luxury that all people should be able to sink into and enjoy every moment of. I am eternally indebted to and inspired by the LGBTQ community. I hope to create anthems for you that wrap you up with comfort and make you get your best life for as long as I live. Thank you for celebrating me the way I celebrate you. I love you forever."
Pride runs for the month of June, putting a special focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer civil rights and equality issues.