Singer-songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs came out today in a letter posted to LGBTQ youth advice website EveryoneIsGay.com and announced that she is engaged to the site's co-founder, Kristin Russo. Said Owen Youngs: "I'm writing to tell you, among other things, that I am super gay. This may or may not come as a surprise to you. If it does: Surprise! If it does not: You were right all along! Either way: Hooray!"
Owen Youngs began gaining attention in the music scene in 2005 with her album Batten The Hatches, when the single "F*** Was I" was included on the soundtrack of the Showtime hit Weeds. She has since released an EP and two additional full-length albums in between touring with a variety of musicians including Allison Weiss, Aimee Mann and Regina Spektor.
In her letter, Owen Youngs explains she was initially reluctant to come out because of career concerns and her upbringing, but that she is "proud to offer [her] voice to that expanding chorus" of people who have come out and she is inspired by the work her partner does through Everyone Is Gay for LGBTQ youth.
"I think it is damaging and isolating for young people to look out into the world and not see a representation of their experience. To encounter others who are like you is to know that you are not alone. Even if you never meet them in real life, these representatives help to contextualize you – they are proof that you are part of something. You are not an anomaly. You are not a mistake."