Dolly Parton claimed gay people as family when country music wanted us invisible

It was heartbreaking to hear that Dolly Parton passed away. Yes, she was 80, but it is genuinely hard to believe. Not because 80 is young, but because Dolly never seemed to belong to time the way the rest of us do. She was ageless in looks, laughter, and love.You could watch her talk, giggle at her own jokes, hear her sing - and see her act - and swear she hadn't changed in 40 years. She had a rare, luminous vibrancy that made you feel like she'd always be here, and always be in your corner.Losing her feels less like losing an 80-year-old icon and more like losing a friend who remained the same all her life.I've spent eight years writing about the LGBTQ+ community for The Advocate. When I'm asked if there is one column I regret writing, or would take back, the answer is easy. It was about Dolly.Three years ago, she released a duets album with music legends including Paul McCartney and Stevie Nicks, as well as queer artists Miley Cyrus, Elton John, and Melissa Etheridge. I wrote about how strange it was that Dolly, a lifelong LGBTQ+ ally, would include Kid Rock, a screaming transphobe and homophobe who has spent years cozying up to Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, both openly hostile to us.Related: 10 times Dolly Parton cemented her status as an LGBTQ+ iconI said so. I also spent most of that column praising Dolly for a lifetime of allyship that very few artists, in any music genre, or celebrity-hood for that matter, have matched.Sometimes I peruse the comment section on my columns, particularly when there are many commenters. Such was the case with my Dolly column. Almost nobody who posted seemed to have read past the headline, but it didn't matter.What I read wasn't people lashing out at Kid Rock. It was people defending Dolly, fiercely, fervently, and protectively, from someone — me — they rightly assumed hadn’t earned the right to question her.I've written hundreds of columns in eight years. Only a handful do I truly wish I could take back. One was my overcon