This Dog Is Now a Gay Icon & We’re Stanning This Legend

We’ve been blessed with gobs of gay icons. But this year has been extra AF with its queer icons this year.

From Tessa Thompson opening up about her sexuality, to the brave gay man who went to the hospital for some d*ck (because we stan big slut energy), and our first queer X-Men couple (and the impending openly queer superheroes in the MCU), #20GayTeen has been feeding us good. Now, there’s a new gay icon: A dog who might be gay and we got to talk to the college student who made us fall in love with this gay doggo.

Like any Twitter-born fairytale nightmare, this gay pupper’s story arc started with a text. While the original Twitter user recounted the story of how her friend, Amy, mentioned to a guy she was texting that his dog could be gay, their textcapades took an ugly, homophobic turn.

“My friend was talking to this guy and she joked that his dog could be gay and…” student at the Georgia Institute of Technology Chaselyn Isabella tweets, including multiple screenshots of Amy’s short-lived convo with this ambiguous man.

The series of texts start with the man suggesting that Amy adopt a girl dog, so his dog and her hypothetical one can go on a date. When Amy mentions that his dog could potentially be gay, he responded with a rather blunt and troubling text. “Lol look. He’s NOT gay. I don’t believe in that silly shit anyway,” he writes.
 

TBH, we can’t blame this dog if he doesn’t feel comfortable with opening up about his sexuality to his human housemate who doesn’t seem that open-minded. When Amy asked the man, “Are you homophobic?” the guy blew up in a problematic way.

He writes, “You must be slow. You’re calling my dog gay when you don’t know me and you don’t know him. You’re forcing the fucking idea of him being gay when that was never being spoken about. So stop trying to impose your ideas on my life and my animal. Period.” Yikes.

First, he opens with some ableist jargon, by suggesting that Amy is “slow.” Then, he implies that it’s impossible for his dog to be gay, which creates a subtle, but problematic, denotation of being gay (especially, since he gets weirdly defensive about the insinuation that his dog might not be heterosexual.) We don’t know what we should focus on digesting first, so we turned to the source of this now-viral tweet: Chaselyn.

Chaselyn tells Her Campus that this man’s reaction to Amy’s straightforward text can show quite a bit about his character. “I think this shows his toxic/fragile masculinity and how insecure he is. He probably had some other issues if he feels threatened by the notion that his dog is gay,” Chaselyn continues. Needless to say, it seems a bit unnecessary to get upset about your pet’s sexuality.

And it’s important to recognize that because the potentially gay individual in questions is a dog, that doesn’t lessen this vital issue. “I know that this is a dog and a lot of people have responded saying you can’t push sexuality on a dog and I think that can be applied to people as well. You can’t assume someone is straight or ignore their identity because you’re uncomfortable or ‘don’t believe in that silly shit.’ People are the way they are and love who they love. It’s 2018. People are not always straight. Dogs are not always straight and that’s okay,” Chaselyn says.

After all, this man’s response to his dog potentially being gay could easily reflect into his perception of gay people, which can be potentially life-threating considering the amount of harassment members of the LGBTQIA+ community face. 

Unfortunately, Chaselyn’s now-Twitter-famous tweet has unearthed the negative side of Twitter (which is saying a lot, seeing as it is Twitter). “I’ve definitely gotten some weird/mean things. People keep making fun of my name and saying it’s weird. It’s all pretty funny honestly. I really wonder what makes people say mean things. I don’t take it to heart though and it’s important to remember that these people don’t know me or Amy so they can’t make any real judgements. I’ve had some people come at me about politics, which I thought was interesting because this isn’t a political tweet, but I’m happy to engage in discourse. I also had some people ask me to send them nudes lol so there’s been a range of responses, Chaselyn said.

This isn’t the first time that a viral tweet has conjured up backlash for the original poster (and the parties involved). Since the infamous plane bae tweet thread gained popularity, the anonymous woman behind those pics endured a horde of online harassment.

Despite the harassment and criticism, Chaselyn and Amy have made this adorable doggo into the gay icon he was born to be—and we’re so glad that this tweet has stirred up a necessary and ever-prevalent discussion about the LGBTQIA+ community. If anything, hopefully this newly inaugurated queer icon can show Twitterverse that members of the community are still vulnerable to harassment and stigma and that we should take texts and side comments like these seriously—regardless of if they’re about a dog, dinosaur or a person.  

Seriously, just let your dog be gay if they want (or whatever sexuality they might identify as), especially since almost every single species has gay animals anyway.