Wrestlers Who Are Openly LGBTQ

Wrestling fans often like to reminisce about how awesome everything was back in the Attitude Era, but one thing that was decidedly uncool was how pro wrestling made LGBTQ wrestlers stay in the closet while using kayfabe gay romance storylines for shock value or having a wrestler "play gay" to draw heat. In fact, when Goldust turned face, WWE made a big deal out of announcing his heterosexuality, while Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo pretended to marry in 2002, then stopped the ceremony to say "just kidding, ha ha, we're not gay, either."

Ironically — or perhaps in an act of atonement — both Dustin Rhodes and Billy Gunn now work for AEW, which is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly organizations in all of professional sports. As the fabulous Sonny Kiss said "The Sessions with Renee Paquette," "I think that it's awesome AEW allows all it's LGBTQ talent to be themselves and allows everyone in the company to embrace that." WWE, too, has come a long way since the bad old days, although it's interesting to note that three of the four NXT wrestlers featured in a 2021 Pride Month shoutout – namely Toni Storm, Mercedes Martinez, and Jake Atlas — would soon depart that company for AEW. It is not just the big companies that are becoming increasingly inclusive, though. From the indies to GCW to NJPW, WWE and AEW, here are some of wrestling's biggest LGBTQ stars.

Anthony Bowens may be one of the best-known, most outspoken gay wrestlers, but it wasn't too many years ago that he was nervous about coming out and how it might affect his career. As Bowens wrote in Outsports, the big reveal occurred in 2016 when his boyfriend mentioned their in a video he posted to his YouTube channel. Bowens, already a pro wrestler, was fearful that the backlash would be harsh, but he didn't want to ask his boyfriend to take down the video. As it turns out, people were actually supportive, and even more so when he publicly announced his bisexuality on Facebook a few months later.

Early in 2019, Bowens came out yet again in a video posted to the YouTube channel he now shares with his partner Michael. In it, he clarified that he prefers to be "labeled" as gay. That video has over a quarter of a million views and nearly 7,000 likes, and Bowens may well now be the most over gay athlete in the sport. (After all, everybody but MJF loves The Acclaimed.) He is also AEW's first openly gay belt holder, ever since September 2022 when he and Max Caster won the AEW World Tag Team Championship at "AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam."

Cassandro may be the best-known Exotico, a type of luchador that incorporates a drag queen aesthetic into their act. Although Exoticos' campiness was originally seen as strictly kayfabe, Cassandro was the first such performer to come out as gay. In doing so, he broke ground for numerous other gay Exoticos who have reclaimed the trope and made it an empowering one rather than something meant to marginalize or make fun of the LGBTQ community. As Cassandro told the Wrestling Inc. podcast, "the first Exoticos, our old timers, they were mostly like the clowns at the circus ... nowadays, we Exoticos, we're flamboyant wrestlers that are truly wrestlers."

Cassandro may be mostly retired from the ring these days, and yet he's hardly fading away into obscurity. He's the subject of a 2020 film called "Cassandro, the Exótico!" that SupaModu describes as "breathtaking" and The New York Times calls "effervescent" and "infectious." Cassandro also main-evented Effy's Big Gay Brunch in 2020. Effy told Wrestling Inc. that "Cassandro was nothing but the most gracious professional the whole time ... I love Cassandro. She is so fun." 

(Note on the pronouns: Effy referred to Cassandro in linguistically fluid fashion as he, she, and they during his interview with Wrestling Inc., but sources including Outsports and Gayly refer to him with masculine pronouns so we've followed this convention, as well.)

When Edith Surreal was growing up in the 'burbs outside of Philadelphia, she was a huge fan of Extreme Championship Wrestling, another Philly product. As she told The Philadelphia Inquirer, though, "In wrestling, there were very transphobic tropes that appeared on TV that were upsetting to me as a person." She felt unable to relate to the wrestlers she saw on TV, so when she grew up, she focused on making a career out of her art. All that changed in 2016, however, when she saw a presentation by the founder of a wrestling network. She signed up for a wrestling class and discovered she had quite a gift for it.

Originally Edith wrestled as Still Life With Apricots and Pears and it was under that name that she became one of the breakout stars of CHIKARA (via Last Word on Sports). Her name change didn't come about because of CHIKARA's demise, however, but was adopted in 2021 because she wanted to acknowledge her transition. As she explains, "Being a wrestler gave me the confidence to transition" and she wants to make sure that her fans, especially the LBGTQ ones, are aware of her identity as a trans woman. Perhaps remembering her own mixed feelings about wrestling as a child, she says "As a trans person, I want to show that we belong everywhere. We can compete and be a part of society and be loving and heroic and someone that anyone can look up to."

Leyla Hirsch, who is Russian by birth but was raised in the U.S., has some truly "Legit" wrestling skills as she learned her sport by competing in high school and college. Two days after her 21st birthday, she turned pro and signed with Combat Zone Wrestling. A few years later, she made her first AEW appearance in a match against Hikaru Shida. While she didn't get the "w" at that time, she did win her way onto AEW's roster.

Hirsch, who is a lesbian, is not very outspoken about her private life, but Pro Wrestling Post says that she's been together with fellow wrestler Ashley Vox for the past few years. She makes no secret of this, it's just that she prefers to talk (or tweet) about wrestling, instead, and there's not a thing wrong with that. Despite Hirsch's reticence, Anthony Bowens, speaking with Watermark, has said of her, "People like myself ... [and] Leyla, we're trying to make the world and entertainment a better and safer place for our LGBTQ+ athletes."

Mercedes Martinez is someone who, according to Cagematch, has wrestled in every single year of the 21st century, a claim not many can make. Her career has actually been on an upward trajectory in latter years — in 2020, she signed on with WWE, and in 2022 she became All Elite. She was especially pleased with the latter job offer, saying in an interview with Them, "It is breathtaking to be honest ... AEW is giving me the platform and the freedom to be me." She also noted with pride (pun intended), "On the AEW roster, we have so many members of the LGBTQ community ... We are a part of this community that is so diverse and we're giving the mainstream fans a different aspect of wrestling."

Martinez didn't actually come out as a lesbian until 2019, but once she was out of the closet, she was all the way out. That same year, she took part in Rise's Pride and Joy event where she went up against Cassandro. While she's admitted to Outsports that coming out in her early wrestling days might have tanked her career, she's thrilled to see how things have changed. "For me to still be a part of this business and see how the acceptance of the LGBTQ is now," she says, "It's like, man, I just want to stay in this business forever."

When Pro Wrestling Illustrated released their Women's 150 for 2022, Outsports announced with pride that 19 of the women on the list were LGBTQ. On a slightly more disappointing note, they did point out that there hasn't been a bi, lesbian, or transwoman at the top of the list since 2014 when the WWE's Paige came in at number one. Well, Paige, who is now AEW's Saraya (her real name) is back in the ring, so perhaps 2023 will be a different story if she performs at a high level.

Back in 2014, though, Saraya wasn't widely known as being bisexual. She outed herself on an episode of "Total Divas" (of all places) the following year. As E! News reminds us, it was in a January 2015 episode where Paige admitted to having been with women. This led to a little awkward one-sided flirtation from Rosa Mendes.

Men's wrestling often comes across as a parade of manly men each trying to out-macho the other, and indeed we do love this non-toxic, often cartoonish masculinity. What we love even more, however, is wrestlers like Sonny Kiss who feel free to fly in the face of gender and societal norms. Kiss, who uses either he/him or she/her pronouns (but never they/them, according to Out Front Magazine), may be listed on AEW's men's roster, but tells CBC's Day 6, "Sonny Kiss is a breath of fresh air. Sonny Kiss is the girl next door. Sonny Kiss is, you know, that bad-ass b***h that will kick your butt."

The gender-fluid Concrete Rose, who's been out of the closet since childhood, participated in AEW's first-ever pay-per-view, 2019's "Double or Nothing." In the wake of the event, Kiss came in for some hate speech from the often-controversial Jim Cornette. The eponymous host of "The Jim Cornette Experience" podcast spoke of the wrestler as "Sonny Kiss, who apparently got off his day job at the drag-show at the f***ing Tropicana ... the transvestite or Exotico as they would say at AAA." Kiss, unfazed by the remarks, tweeted in response, "Sometimes, you have to let people's words and actions speak for themselves. Good & bad" and followed up this statement by reassuring fans "his 'attack' was a complete fail. I'm good."

While most coming out stories tend to be pretty inspiring, Tegan Nox's is extra special in that it actually saved someone's life. Nox came out in 2020 by posting a couples photo with her partner Sierra St. Pierre. Although the post is no longer visible, Outsports says she captioned her share "Life is good," while St. Pierre, who'd posted the same photo on her page, used the caption "It's hard being the famous one in the relationship." As to why Nox came out at that time, she revealed to Brie Larson that the movie actress had been her inspiration. In a video of when the two working out together she told Larson, "If it wasn't for 'Captain Marvel' and yourself, especially with all the work you do outside of 'Captain Marvel,' there was no way I would have the power to come out to people with my sexual orientation and my mental health."

So how did Nox save someone's life? One of her fans admitted that he'd been closeted for years, even going to the extent of dating women because he badly wanted his family to believe that he was straight. Seeing a WWE wrestler unafraid to share her bisexuality, as Nox told Pink News, "helped him come out and saved him from what he said was a very fatal time in his life." As far as we're concerned, this makes Lady Kane somewhat of a superhero herself.