Carl Bean, the openly gay gospel artist and minister who sang “I Was Born This Way” has died, The Guardian reports. Bean’s passing was confirmed in a statement from the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, the church that Bean founded for the Black LGBTQ+ community. “Our hearts go out to all as we mourn the loss of this trailblazing leader and legend in the worlds of activism, advocacy, AIDS, community outreach, faith, liberation theology, and so much more,” the statement reads. Bean was 77.

Bean was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but he moved to New York at the age of 16 to escape a troubled upbringing and pursue a career in music. After relocating again to Los Angeles, he signed with Motown Records and recorded “I Was Born This Way,” a disco track written by Chris Spierer and Bunny Jones and originally performed by Valentino, in 1977. “I’m happy, I’m carefree, and I’m gay/ I was born this way,” Bean sings in the chorus. His rendition became the definitive version, and the song itself became a gay liberation anthem that would later inspire Lady Gaga’s 2011 hit “Born This Way.”

Following the success of “I Was Born This Way,” Bean studied to become a minister and was officially ordained in 1982. He founded the Unity Fellowship Of Christ Church for Black LGBTQ+ congregants, devoted to proclaiming “the ‘sacredness of all life’ thus focusing on empowering those who have been oppressed and made to feel shame,” that same year. He founded the Minority Aids Project, which offers care and treatment for low-income Black and Latinx people, in 1985. He also published a memoir, I Was Born This Way, in 2010.

Lady Gaga acknowledged Bean’s influence in a 2011 interview with Howard Stern. On the 10-year anniversary of Born This Way in May, she tweeted thanking Bean for “for decades of relentless love, bravery, and a reason to sing. So we can all feel joy, because we deserve joy. Because we deserve the right to inspire tolerance, acceptance, and freedom for all.”