Anna Paquin, Ricky Martin: More Stars Coming Out Than Ever Before

April 2, 2010— -- Today's closet doors must be a bit easier to open.

With the recent flood of stars coming out and embracing their true sexuality -- Anna Paquin, Ricky Martin -- Hollywood seems to be welcoming them.

Paquin, who's engaged to her "True Blood" co-star Stephen Moyer, revealed that she's bisexual in a PSA video for the the Give a Damn campaign released Thursday, which features stars speaking out for equality.

"I'm Anna Paquin. I'm bisexual and I give a damn," Paquin says to the camera. Paquin's publicist declined to comment on the PSA or the actress' sexuality.

Martin came out in a similarly direct fashion.

"I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man," Martin wrote on his Web site Monday. "I am very blessed to be who I am."

In his online announcement, Martin wrote that the major catalysts for his coming out were the personal memoirs he is writing and his two boys, whom he had through surrogacy.

"From the moment I wrote the first phrase, I was sure the book was the tool that was going to help me free myself from things I was carrying within me for a long time," Martin wrote.

Then, addressing his boys, he wrote, "This is just what I need, especially now that I am the father of two beautiful boys that are so full of light and who, with their outlook, teach me new things every day. To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids were born with."

Jarrett Barrios, the president of GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was the first Latino and first openly gay man elected to the Massachusetts state Senate.

Barrios said that coming out in Hollywood "is not as hard as it used to be."

"Over the last couple of years, celebrities both at the top of their careers and at the beginning of their careers have been coming out," Barrios told ABCNews.com. "All the celebrities coming out now are coming out at a time when a generation ago it meant the end of their careers, but now it can enhance their appeal and expand their fan base."

Howard Bragman, the founder of Fifteen Minutes, a Hollywood public relations company, is a well-known publicist who says he has "brought more people out of the closet than anyone else." He agreed with Barrios that coming out in Hollywood is getting easier.

"Every person that comes out makes it better for others," Bragman told ABCNews.com. "But it is still definitely not easy."

Bragman said that it would be hard to prove that coming out prevents actors from getting cast in certain roles, but that he is "sure there is still homophobia in Hollywood."

"In the end, it is called acting for a reason," Bragman said. "You need only look to people like Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight to see that gay people are playing straight and doing it well."

"The single biggest thing anybody can do to help gay rights is to come out of the closet," Bragman said. "And I think every new star that comes out is helping to show that the sky doesn't fall in when someone comes out of the closet. In fact, most of the time that star lives a happier life and is still respected in their field."

Ricky Martin's announcement this week got us thinking about the pressures and the odds that stars have faced in coming out. Here is ABCNews.com's list:

Ever since the "Livin' La Vida Loca" era, fans have wondered what team the hip-swinging Latino superstar is playing for.

Just last month, Barbara Walters admitted to the Toronto Star that she was wrong to push Martin to speak about his sexuality in a 2000 interview.

"I pushed Ricky Martin very hard to admit if he was gay or not," Walters told the Toronto Star. "And the way he refused to do it made everyone decide that he was. A lot of people say that destroyed his career, and when I think back on it now, I feel it was an inappropriate question."

Despite the Walters interview, Martin went on with his career. He released another album in 2005, called "Life," that made it to number six on the Billboard chart. Several singles from the album reached number one on the Latin charts.