Norris Bumstead Herndon grew up in a shadow as broad as Georgia. Yet he could only live up to his father and society’s expectations by shrinking himself.

“Norris was a young man coming of age and struggling with his homosexual identity,” historian Carole Merritt wrote in her 2002 biography, “The Herndons: An Atlanta Family.”

“With a father who insisted upon a straight and narrow course and in an early 20th-century society that had no tolerance for what it considered deviant, Norris would have to deny himself. He would assume a compromised selfhood, his sexuality arrested, denied, or expressed in secret.”

Lil Nas X is a self-affirming Black gay millennial, a megastar still rising, and an impresario of social media. His releases shatter sales and streaming records. His videos and live performances display unambiguously queer Black sexiness before mainstream audiences.