"My coming out was something that was truly of the moment. I'd been thinking for quite a while ... I was going to come out, and maybe I'd wait till my album came out at the end of the year. I just got up (at a gay political event in D.C.) and spoke after k.d. (lang) and said the truth: that I was proud to be a lesbian. ... I guess I wanted to be out so I could just relax and be me."

Melissa kissed her first girl at seventeen years old. Although she didn't even know what a lesbian was, she later said "fireworks went off, and then, it was just... clear."

She graduated from Leavenworth High School in the fall of 1979. She then moved to Boston were she attended the Berkley College of Music. She originally planned on majoring in guitar but dropped out after her first year.

After dropping from Berkley, Melissa worked gigs and then moved to LA on her twenty-first birthday. She made tapes and sent them to many different record companies with no success. They just weren't interested in a woman playing rock. She said, "They weren't interested. I played some women's music festivals, but I was always rock-n-roll whereas their music was always quieter, more folksy... I never did write any songs that were specifically about women -- I wanted the big picture, singing about passion and desire, and love of any kind."

In 1993, Melissa Etheridge openly admitted that she was a lesbian. In April of 1993, she performed at the "March on Washington," a gay rights movement. She openly supports gay rights and same-sex marriage. In July of 1996, she said:

"I want to marry my partner of eight years. I think it's only fair. I'm a tax-paying individual. I'm a law-abiding citizen. I've followed all the rules. I don't see why I can't get the same financial breaks that heterosexuals get. I don't want to go into your church and do this -- this is not a religious thing for me."

"This is merely a health insurance issue... visitation in the hospital issue... to be flying together overseas and not have to fill out two forms... to look at a form that you fill out and when it says 'spouse,' being able to fill in the name of the person who would fall into that category. Those are the things that people don't realize and take for granted."