Thank you for writing this! I've often wondered if the meta obsession with Taylor's fictional queerness also has something to do with closeted (white) queer folks trying to attain proximity to Taylor's position as the best-loved white woman celebrity in America right now? Like they can bypass their own perceive grotesqueness being queer if a white woman as well beloved as Taylor can be "secretly" queer and still welcomed eagerly into white society? The weird white queers are experiencing a sort of removal from the mainstream, thanks to all these fascists, that hasn't been a thing maybe since the AIDS era so this whole "is Taylor secretly queer" feels like a reaction to how white queers specifically are being publicly and politically reviled.
'(I mean yes, I suppose you could make the argument that none of them are "at Taylor's level," but also, can you? This is a serious question. I truly don't know how to rank that shit.)'
I think it's fair to say that currently there are zero other pop stars, and few other cultural figures in general, "at Taylor's level," but that's also one of those things where you have to just accept it.
I agree there is something about the chase going on here. And I also agree that her coming out would only add something else for people to press her on and add new standards for her to fail to live up to. As you mentioned, there are so many openly queer celebrities now, even in formerly conservative genres like country music, that people's obsession with the status of This Specific Woman feel so weird.
(And as I mentioned in another comment, Swift herself may not even know how she feels about women, it's not always the easiest thing to suss out one's own queerness, I can offer my own mostly-straight self as exhibit a. One's own relationship with one's sexuality is something that evolves over your entire life, especially if you are queer. Swift deserves privacy and time to figure herself out if she wants to.)
One thing to note: “Taylor insists she is not queer.” Taylor has never actually said she is straight (the Vogue quote often used to claim she has doesn’t say that, either). If she is, I really wish she would just be like, “I love my queer fans and am so glad my work resonates with people of so many different experiences, but I am straight” because it would shut down so much of this! Plenty of other celebs have done it! But the fact that she’s never actually said those words means that people continue to speculate.
Taylor may not know if she is straight and might not want to close that off. Queerness is a lot of things and sometimes it's mostly confusing. Right now she's being as public with her relationship as any celebrity in the spotlight and I don't see any reason to interrogate her interviews as though they are always a crafted narrative created by a writing team. This isn't the writers dropping hints, this is a person handling her interviews.
That’s fine, what I’m saying is that Taylor has never said she is straight or insisted that she’s not queer. I was correcting the statement made to that effect in this piece.
Fair enough, you know more about Taylor Swift's public statements than I do. (That is not hard, I get my Taylor Swift updates via Todd in the Shadows videos.)
I spent a weekend at a camp for Gaylors last summer reporting a feature for Cosmo so this is one place I am well-versed lol! But that’s because it’s my job. I’ve also written pretty extensively about how that community *does* listen to and support other queer artists too, so it’s an unfair criticism to make of them. Girl in Red is also not a group, she’s a solo artist, so I guess I’m noticing errors in this post that make me wish some more research had been done if it’s a topic that’s gonna be written about for a newsletter. 🤷🏻
Thank you for writing this! I've often wondered if the meta obsession with Taylor's fictional queerness also has something to do with closeted (white) queer folks trying to attain proximity to Taylor's position as the best-loved white woman celebrity in America right now? Like they can bypass their own perceive grotesqueness being queer if a white woman as well beloved as Taylor can be "secretly" queer and still welcomed eagerly into white society? The weird white queers are experiencing a sort of removal from the mainstream, thanks to all these fascists, that hasn't been a thing maybe since the AIDS era so this whole "is Taylor secretly queer" feels like a reaction to how white queers specifically are being publicly and politically reviled.
'(I mean yes, I suppose you could make the argument that none of them are "at Taylor's level," but also, can you? This is a serious question. I truly don't know how to rank that shit.)'
I think it's fair to say that currently there are zero other pop stars, and few other cultural figures in general, "at Taylor's level," but that's also one of those things where you have to just accept it.
I agree there is something about the chase going on here. And I also agree that her coming out would only add something else for people to press her on and add new standards for her to fail to live up to. As you mentioned, there are so many openly queer celebrities now, even in formerly conservative genres like country music, that people's obsession with the status of This Specific Woman feel so weird.
(And as I mentioned in another comment, Swift herself may not even know how she feels about women, it's not always the easiest thing to suss out one's own queerness, I can offer my own mostly-straight self as exhibit a. One's own relationship with one's sexuality is something that evolves over your entire life, especially if you are queer. Swift deserves privacy and time to figure herself out if she wants to.)
One thing to note: “Taylor insists she is not queer.” Taylor has never actually said she is straight (the Vogue quote often used to claim she has doesn’t say that, either). If she is, I really wish she would just be like, “I love my queer fans and am so glad my work resonates with people of so many different experiences, but I am straight” because it would shut down so much of this! Plenty of other celebs have done it! But the fact that she’s never actually said those words means that people continue to speculate.
Taylor may not know if she is straight and might not want to close that off. Queerness is a lot of things and sometimes it's mostly confusing. Right now she's being as public with her relationship as any celebrity in the spotlight and I don't see any reason to interrogate her interviews as though they are always a crafted narrative created by a writing team. This isn't the writers dropping hints, this is a person handling her interviews.
That’s fine, what I’m saying is that Taylor has never said she is straight or insisted that she’s not queer. I was correcting the statement made to that effect in this piece.
Fair enough, you know more about Taylor Swift's public statements than I do. (That is not hard, I get my Taylor Swift updates via Todd in the Shadows videos.)
I spent a weekend at a camp for Gaylors last summer reporting a feature for Cosmo so this is one place I am well-versed lol! But that’s because it’s my job. I’ve also written pretty extensively about how that community *does* listen to and support other queer artists too, so it’s an unfair criticism to make of them. Girl in Red is also not a group, she’s a solo artist, so I guess I’m noticing errors in this post that make me wish some more research had been done if it’s a topic that’s gonna be written about for a newsletter. 🤷🏻