Pride month has only just begun, but the beauty industry has already been doing the most to celebrate, with everyone from MAC Cosmetics to Morphe releasing rainbow-themed collections. And now nail brand Essie has announced Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness as its first-ever nonfemale brand ambassador.

Taking to Instagram to announce the news, Van Ness, who has long rocked a bold manicure, wrote that he was honoured to be the brand’s ambassador, “For me, polish has always been a form of self-expression. Right now that means this mosaic rainbow mani moment. Wearing it proud!”

The news has been cause for a lot of celebration particularly among parents of young sons who wear nail varnish.

“Yes! My 3yo son loves to wear polish and I’m so glad we are all (hopefully) relaxing these messed up ideas we have about what people can and can’t do!” wrote one commenter on Van Ness’s Instagram post.

“My son just came out to me a few weeks ago, yesterday we painted his nails, it made him so happy #proudMomma” posted another.  

“I'm showing this to my son, Sam, who was bullied last fall for wearing nail polish to his kindergarten class. THANK YOU!!” Twitter user @DaddyFiles wrote.

With this partnership, Van Ness joins the growing ranks of men repping beauty brands – from Troye Sivan for MAC and Glossier to Luka Sabbat’s Milk Make-up campaign – and indicates a turning tide of how we gender beauty. Recently, Marc Jacobs, himself a fan of a good manicure, spoke out about men being more comfortable to wear make-up in the future, while singer-actor-heartthrob Harry Styles has also been rocking the nail polish of late, showing up to the Met Gala with a colourful set of nails.

As we continue the fight for acceptance and equality for those in the LGBTQ+ community or those who express their gender in non-traditional ways, this sort of representation is an important step in the right direction.