Taylor Swift’s new album Midnights took the world by storm. When it was released on October 21, it broke the single-day streaming record for an album with 184.6 million streams. However, before its release, Swift found herself in the middle of a controversy with her self-titled fans the “Gaylors,” or fans from the LGBTQ+ community who believe Swift is gay.
This can be a sensitive topic, and as a gay fan of Taylor Swift, this is my point of view on this issue that is widespread throughout the LGBTQ+ community.
It has long been theorized by Gaylors that Taylor Swift is biding her time to come out of the closet. Fans will scrutinize lyrics, search through live performances for female pronouns, and dissect interviews for support of relationship rumors. It has become more common in the age of social media for queer fans of celebrities to speculate about their sexualities which can lead to harmful pressure for both the public figure and fans.
In her recent segment “Midnights Mayhem With Me,” Swift announced the track titles of the album in chaotic, 70s game show style TikToks. In true Swiftie fashion, theories of what the song titles could refer to swept through the fandom. When she announced the track title “Lavender Haze,” Gaylors pounced on the chance to prove that Taylor Swift is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The historical connotation of the color lavender was enough proof for them to think that Taylor Swift might be coming out of the long-suffered closet.
During the sixties, the feminist movement was incredibly focused on middle-class, straight, white issues. Leadership in the movement believed that focusing on a more intersectional approach would divide the concentration of their platform. Lesbians and their issues were cut out of the conversation. In an act of protest, they created their own movement that was derogatorily deemed the Lavender Menace. They embraced the term and lavender has been an important color in the lesbian community ever since.
The day after Swift revealed the “Lavender Haze” title, she released an Instagram reel that explained the context behind the song. She said she found the phrase while watching the show Mad Men. She defined it as when you are in “that all-encompassing love glow.” Swift also said that the song was about wanting to stay in the “lavender haze”, referencing having to dodge weird rumors for the past six years in her current relationship with Joe Alwyn. Immediately, Gaylors began to attack the artist for “queerbaiting,” inviting the conversation of whether a real-life person can queerbait (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/queerbaiting-lgbtq-community-1201273/).
Queerbaiting is traditionally a marketing tactic used to string along queer audiences by hinting at characters being queer without actually depicting a relationship. For example, the first trailer for Riverdale showed the characters, Veronica and Betty, sharing a kiss, but when the episode aired, the kiss was not romantic at all. Queerbaiting brings in queer audiences without having to commit to a truly queer storyline. It is a capitalistic marketing tactic that is used to manipulate queer people to engage in not-quite-queer media, but it is not something a celebrity can engage in.
The idea that Taylor Swift is queerbaiting her fans with song titles like “Lavender Haze” and songs with arguably gay connotations is almost ridiculous. It plays into the idea that she owes her fans to come out and if she doesn’t, she is profiting off of the LGBTQ+ community as a straight woman. Even if Taylor Swift is gay, she never has to come out if she is uncomfortable with the idea. What Gaylors forget is that just because Swift has established a close relationship with her fans, they are not privy to every detail of her life.
Taylor Swift is not the only person to come under fire this year for queerbaiting. Heartstopper’s Kit Connor was accused of profiting off of the queer community by playing a bisexual character as a straight man. The hatred came from queer fans of the show, and in response to the messages, Connor came out in a tweet after a month-long break from the app. He said in his tweet, “…i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself….” While most fans understood the traumatizing nature of being forced to come out, it does not change the fact that there was a minority that felt entitled to that information.
The idea that a celebrity can queerbait is incredibly harmful and shows the presumptuous nature of fanbases. If someone like Kit Connor plays a gay character, they get hate for doing their job. If someone like Taylor Swift uses the word lavender, they cannot escape the speculations of their sexuality. The queer community needs to do better. We need to remember the terrifying nature of coming out, and that just because you are out and proud, does not mean that everyone is comfortable with that yet. Remember, there is power in coming out, but that power should be reserved for the individual, not the speculators.