on Halloween this year actor kit Connor briefly returned to Twitter after a short Hiatus and posted this Tweet back for a minute I'm bi congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself I think some of you missed the point of the show bye how the hell did we get to a point where a teenager felt pressured into coming out publicly to Stave off harassment let's dive into this story and the obsessive world of queer speculation to uncover its motives and its dangers kit Connor plays one of the leads
in the new Netflix series Heart Stopper based on the enormously popular webcomic and graphic novels of the same name by Alice oseman his character Nick starts a story unsure about his sexuality but soon realizes that he's bisexual by the end of the first series of the show he's come out to his friends and his mum and his dating fellow high school student Charlie Nick knows he likes girls but it isn't really until he starts to fall for Charlie that he begins to figure out his attraction to boys
too him specifically being bisexual is a big part of his character and from the Pirates of the Caribbean induced by Panic to the bisexual flag color lighting the show is very clear about his sexuality during the casting of the show The open casting calls were also clear about the queer nature of the series including a line needless to say we would like to ensure performers from the lgbtqia plus Community for inspire to apply along with allies to our community after the show came out a number of
the young Stars talked about their sexualities and gender identities including Joe Locke who plays Charlie Sebastian Croft who plays Charlie's ex-ben and Kissy edgel who plays Charlie and Nick's friend Darcy comments on their own experiences Journeys and thoughts and representation became part of the discussion around the show itself however it's important to note that it wasn't a prerequisite of their roles in the show to be this open about their sexualities or genders it just seems to be somet
hing that they wanted to talk about However the fact that kit Connor hadn't commented on his own sexuality Drew attention from people who it turns out decided that they had the right to know how he identified the fact that he had also played a queer role previously in his career as a young Elton John in the movie Rocket Man only stoked this online speculation due to this scrutiny Connor took to Twitter earlier in 2022 to address this tweeting Twitter is so funny man apparently some people on her
e know my sexuality better than I do in the summer he spoke with W magazine about it too explaining that his boundaries were important even though he understands people's enthusiasm for authentic representation telling the reporter people can get a bit too comfortable on social media if I haven't said anything you shouldn't assume anything but you also shouldn't pressure me to tell people it's a very personal Journey that people have to go on it seems pretty clear Conor could not have been putti
ng out more signs that he was not comfortable with the public speculation like he says don't do it please yep it continued he's talked about the effect of this wave of negativity people not just speculating but criticizing him for either taking a queer role from a queer actor or not publicly coming out in a kind of harassment Catch-22 he's talked about the phenomena of psychologically you almost want to seek out the bad things people say about you it's like if you overhear your name after you le
ave a room or you see a private message about yourself there's that morbid curiosity that element of psychological self-lagellation that can reel you in luckily he says he almost fell into that spiral but decided to delete Twitter instead calling it the best decision of his life social media is not a window into my soul at all in many ways it's great but as someone who's in the public eye if you look for people saying bad stuff about you you'll find it everyone wants to be liked which is slightl
y heartbreaking when you're in the position of someone like me or Joe Locke he also talked about this on a podcast back in May saying we're still also young to start sort of speculating about our sexualities and maybe pressuring us to come out when maybe we're not ready for me I just feel perfectly confident and comfortable with my sexuality but I don't feel the need to really you know I'm not too big on labels and things like that I'm not massive about that I don't feel like I need to label mys
elf especially not publicly it feels a bit strange to make assumptions about a person's sexuality just based on hearing their voice or seeing their appearance I feel like that's a very interesting slightly problematic sort of assumption to make like not to over egg this but here he is again over the summer talking about the same issues still asking people to maybe consider you know the Nuance of the situation in Hunter magazine I don't feel like I have to tell the world about my sexuality I comp
letely understand that many fans want queer representation to be authentic and that they want to know whether it is authentic but at the same time you shouldn't make someone feel uncomfortable to the point where they have to tell a stranger about their sexuality so clearly this is something that Conor has been having to deal with pretty much since the casting was revealed but especially once the show dropped and gained even more popularity so what was the breaking point that got him to post on H
alloween for a while there had been an air of speculation and rumor people either deciding Conor was straight and criticizing him for taking on a queer role because of that or else insisting that he was really gay and hiding it both of these of course being entirely based on nothing that had come from Conor himself because as we've just seen up until that point his decision was to remain unlabeled although in the tweet from Halloween Connor doesn't specify why he felt he was forced to come out I
think the reason becomes clearer if we look at how he'd been treated online by users immediately prior to this tweet the word queerbaiting began to be increasingly thrown around a word I've covered extensively on this channel before we're baiting is when a TV show or movie will hint a queerness within a script performances marketing or subtext but never officially confirm it on screen this is largely accepted to be a marketing practice the idea being that you can draw in queer audiences who wil
l accept basically crumbs Clinging On To The hope that it would eventually be made explicit in the show while also not alienating conservative audiences who wouldn't watch an openly queer story for years it was a frustrating practice because it felt impossible to prove it was happening after all while a show was on the air there was always a chance that it would end up being queer right and who could say if it was a deliberate Ploy or just queer fans reading too much into it but more recently we
've had Writers come out and talk about how queerness was curtailed to just below the surface by execs an increasingly evident examples surface like the infamous we're on a ship marketing from Teen Wolf so queerbaiting is undeniably a real thing in fictional media however applying it to an actor like kit Connor who's just living his life is honestly fundamentally ridiculous there is no part of a teenage boy simply existing that can be compared to a knowing and manipulative marketing tactic but t
hose who are accusing him of queerbaiting were angry they were angry with the idea that a celebrity might be benefiting from a closeness to the queer Community without actually being a part of it or sharing in its struggles except Conor doesn't seem to have done that at all what did he do to cause such anger and offense well the Catalyst of these accusations came after he was seen holding hands with a Cuban girls guide to Tea in Tomorrow's Star my Maya rafiko yep you heard that right the great I
njustice that he apparently did to the community was to hold hands with a girl the buy Erasure right there feels like more of a danger to the community than any potential straight actor playing a queer role like surely and to add to the bitter irony Maya herself also bisexual because as I'm sure we can all agree a boy holding hands with a girl even dating her doesn't necessarily confirm anything about his specific sexuality and whether or not Conor is dating this actress his bisexuality is just
as real queerbaiting is about taking a queer person's need for representation and turning it into profit for a media company accusing a real person of queer baiting familiar existing is the opposite of respecting queer people's needs those who aren't out have the need for privacy the need for safety and the need for understanding Connor literally plays a bisexual team coming to town with his sexuality and learning that liking girls doesn't mean he can't also like boys vice versa in Heart Stopper
he experiences harassment from the antagonist of the series he struggles and cries and finds an accepting community of friends who love him importantly his love interests Charlie is completely supportive of the fact that he isn't ready to come out immediately to the rest of the school or his family the irony of Conor being harassed for playing this character by supposed fans of the show is tangible there is literally a scene in the comic where a teacher says you can't tell whether people are ga
y by what they look like and Gail straight aren't the only two options anyway it's very rude to speculate about people's sexuality so Conor himself is a bisexual teen and yet the messages of acceptance and love and your identity and coming out being your own damn decision seem to have been completely lost on viewers harassing him not only were their skills of media literacy utterly missing but also their basic sense of empathy apparently the Heart Stopper team and Connor's co-stars immediately p
osted their support online the creator of the webcomic and the show Alice oseman wrote I truly don't understand how people can watch Heart Stopper and then gleefully spend their time speculating about sexualities and judging based on stereo types I hope all those people are embarrassed as kit you are amazing Joe Locke who plays Charlie tweeted you owe nothing to anyone I'm so proud of you my friend Sebastian Croft who plays Ben tweeted kit Connor the world doesn't deserve you love you my friend
and Kissy edgel who plays Darcy tweeted I love you kit I'm sorry this has been so disgustingly rough on you been treated so unfairly also it shouldn't be this way but I think that it's unfortunately understandable that on top of the usual worries about coming out you know personal comfort with your sexuality being known publicly concerned with how ready you are to take the next step actors also have this added pressure of their careers to potentially add to the mix there might have been an outpo
uring of support for kit on the internet backlash against what led up to the Tweet but it shouldn't have got to this place at all other queer actors like Rupert Everett have talked about the impact that coming out had on their role offers even those in established careers for an actor who is as young as Conor I honestly wouldn't blame him for not announcing his sexual reality to the public even if he was out in the rest of his life privately coming out can be a wonderful and joyous process but i
t isn't a moral imperative no one owes you that information about themselves not even actors in the public eye it also honestly reduces the rest of the cast's own interviews and posts about their sexualities and gender identities to Simply being part of marketing allowing queer actors the opportunity to play queer characters is important but if the consequence is holding them hostage by forcing them to either come out to abuse their harasses or forcing them to out and out lie about their sexuali
ty it isn't being taken with the intended generosity that it should gatekeeping access to the community to only those who are out publicly ensures that you leave some of its most vulnerable members out in the cold but this isn't the first time we've seen celebrities forced to come out all been the subject of public speculation not by a long shot part one a brief history of outing let's talk about coming out there's a whole video essay waiting in the wings about the entire history of this queer c
ustom but for a day let's stick with the ideas of coming out as it relates to public figures and the potential issues of morality that come with it first let's talk about coming out as a political statement the idea that coming out is a political act and activist statement almost has a long history but probably the most famous example of it in action is this speech from Harvey Milk in 1978. milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California and was assassinated the sa
me year that this speech was given gay brothers and sisters you must come out come out to your parents I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth come out to your relatives come out to your friends if indeed they are your friends come out to your neighbors to your fellow workers to the people who work where you eat and Shop come out only to the people you know and who know you not to anyone else but once and for all break down the myths d
estroy the lies and distortions for your sake for their sake this rallying cry was a response to the passing of homophobic laws at the time and the ACT active coming out became something that had the power to potentially stop more from passing the issue at the time was people thinking that they didn't know any queer people at all that the gay person wasn't their friend or family but a frightening Boogeyman who was entirely other milk was all too aware of the possibility of his own murder recordi
ng a tape to be played in the event of his death where he said I would like to see every gay lawyer every gay architect come out stand up and let the world know that will do more to him Prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine I urge them to do that urged them to come out only that way will we start to achieve our rights all I ask is for the movement to continue and if a bullet should enter my brain let that bullet destroy every closet door I think there's some people who pressure people t
o come out now have this idea that the sentiment in these speeches a powerful rallying cry to bravery and solidarity is a fundamental moral imperative today that these words spoken at a very different time during the fight for legal equality can and should be applied entirely today in the same manner and to everyone but I would argue that it's the progress done by activists like Harvey Milk that allow queer people today the freedom to decide their own identities and narratives it's due to them t
hat coming out doesn't have to be something painful that you do to try and Claw equality from a society that hates you but instead something you have agency over this wasn't a dictator's order yes Prejudice exists today still but it's not our obligation to suffer to try and prevent it and two outings of political act so outing is essentially revealing their sexuality to the public or at least individuals that didn't previously know without that person's permission the overwhelming consensus is t
hat doing this to someone is not good however there have been instances of this being used as a tactic by activists in the past in 1991 for example there was an offshoot of the political group outrage which engaged in an outing campaign against public figures who use their platforms to spread homophobia while being gay themselves in private outrage was a British organization which described as self as a broad-based group of queers committed to radical non-violent direct action and Civil Disobedi
ence and was formed to Advocate that lesbian gay and bisexual people have the same rights as heterosexual people to end homophobia and to affirm the right of queer people to their sexual Freedom choice and self-determination the Breakaway group involved well-known activist Peter tachel who acted as their contact with the Press passing statements on figures to be altered along to his contacts in the media Tacho recently talked about this tactic I regret not using outing earlier and against more h
omophobes it proved very effective to stop them in their tracks after outrage wrote anti-gay MPS in the 90s most cease voting against equality we should have used that tactic much sooner it was a tiny fragment of our work but all the same outrage practice ethical outing we never outed anyone because they were gay and in the closet it was because they were public figures who were abusing their power and influence to attack and harm other gay people there was a contradiction between their public h
omophobia and their private homosexuality it was a clear example of hypocrisy and double standards it was ethically and morally right to expose them at one point the group threatened to out 200 leading figures across industries from politics and religion to business and sports this culminated in a press conference where they revealed that this campaign had been a hoax a way to highlight the hypocrisy of the media who criticized these members of outrage for engaging in political outing of specifi
c figures while outing random celebrities themselves for no other reason than selling papers again even if you agree with these controversial methods of outing homophobic politicians who inflict harmful policies and votes onto the public that is still not comparable to the modern attempted outing of teenage actors and thirdly let's talk about the outing of celebrities so whatever you think of their methods outrage had a point over the years we've seen many examples of the press contributing to t
he outing of actors singers and other public figures with seemingly No Remorse from Paparazzi shots of Portia de Rossi to the Tabloid outing of Charles Bono the connotations of shame and Scandal tied up in revealing someone's sexuality still exists today even though the general climate might be more accepting in many ways I'm going to look at two well-known singers who have had a lot of queer speculation around them in the next part of the video Harry Styles and Taylor Swift but I wanted here to
talk about two examples of musicians who've experienced outing in the UK in the past the first is Stephen Gately who is a member of the mega popular boy band boyzone fellow band member Shane Lynch has talked about gately's experiences before and after his outing saying obviously me and the boys always knew steel was gay it wasn't a question because his boyfriends used to come on the road with us and stuff I think in the early 90s when we came to the UK being a boy band and being gay nobody had
come out it was just not the thing to do in the interview Lynch explained that management wanted it swept under the carpet which is why the public didn't know about Steven's sexuality Jane then said that there was serious efforts made to keep it a secret there's an understanding among celebrities or whatever you want to call it but he was meant to be dating babies spice and all that Stephen was given an ultimatum while boyzone were touring in Germany he got a phone call to say that the Press wer
e going to run with a story on him he was distraught they said to him look you can tell your story or we're going to print our story it nearly destroyed him it really nearly destroyed him so we have an industry that kept queer young people in the closet fake relationships to keep up appearances and callous threats of outing in the Press but these issues with the industry would not have been lessened by fan speculation about his sexuality it would have in fact contributed to a situation that near
ly destroyed him however fans support after he came out was a different story with Lynch telling reporters the support he got from our fans they were the best from that point he just flourished he'd always been that preserved he grew into this beaming man of Joy the release he turned into just the most joyful person the second example which comes immediately to mind to me is Will Young Who won singing competition pop Idol in 2002 and essentially had to immediately come out to stop a tabloid news
paper from outing him he's talked about being comfortable with his sexuality at the time and not actively hiding it but the choice of how and when to publicly come out was taken from him he never had the choice of whether or not he wanted to make a big announcement because he was backed into a corner when asked more recently about the way he came out the fact that he did it in a very understated way and the suggestion that he was you know confused about why it was seen as a big deal young had th
is to say I wasn't confused by it but I suppose my point was deliberately to not make a point about it I thought that would be the most powerful thing to do in a way turning it back on people and going what's the big deal I'm pleased I did that I don't think it was easy now I look back on it I did get a lot of abuse I'm not quite sure how I managed to get through that really but I suppose all gay people at that time were just used to getting abused so it wasn't like it was out of the blue it's o
nly now looking back on it because times have changed that I think God how awful for so many of us that we had to go through that and it makes me even more proud to be gay and proud of my community the nonchalance of his coming out in other words was manufactured as an armor against the outing itself even with his comfort and his sexuality at the time and then the factory was out the industry still didn't fully accept him as a gay artist he got an interviewer in 2018. I didn't know at the time b
ut when I was recording leave right now someone in the record company said I sounded gay and kept making me re-record the track young has also spoken about his struggles with his mental health including anxiety and battling PTSD which developed in part because of the experiences of hiding his sexuality as a teenager he said to feel gay shame is traumatic I can pinpoint two times when I almost imploded I didn't know what to do you think God there's nothing worse than me because all the messages a
re it's the most disgusting thing to be gay you know how traumatic it is to be thinking God I shouldn't even be taking up space in this world I hope it's getting better and then while writing his book to be a gay man young emailed a conversion therapy provider in America pretending to ask for help I said to them I'm desperately ashamed of myself can you help me obviously they wrote back saying we can definitely help you with this no you can't you however much the world might be improving there's
still dangers to being queer conversion therapy violence discrimination and more to come out it's not as simple as some might like to think you would hope that people within the queer Community would understand the potential dangers and yet we've gone from tabloid newspapers delivering these threats and speculation to it coming from the community itself or those professing to be allies online how the hell did this happen and what could be behind these campaigns to force people to come out I thi
nk there are three main reasons we see you pop up again and again when it comes to queer speculation either people speculating that a supposed straight celebrity is secretly queer or that a celebrity like Connor who engages in queer art is definitely straight and using it for their advantage let's talk about the first reason which is the most innocuous to begin part two humor and self-identification this is the most casual and kind of silly level of this discourse or although it isn't without it
s potential negative side effects it's this fun in-joke focused discussion of celebrities as secretly being queer which is more about the queer Community banding around allies or unsuspecting Straits to claim them as our own nearly everyone engaging at this level of speculation doesn't really believe that the celebrity in question is in fact queer not only do they not really believe it but they also don't really care it might be about an element of identifying with that person's life story you k
now self-expression or their creative output in this way knowing that Jose is totally a lesbian makes you feel included in a harmless bit of fun when nobody is about the joke the idea that these straight people give queer energy is not literally true but it's also not really meant to be so three quick examples of this that all spring from different places are one the aforementioned Hozier is a lesbian joke this can be applied to a lot of male singers with Jose it's like this man is giving Goblin
lesbians who seem like they emerge fully forms from a moss-covered forest floor the representation that they deserve of you can listen to songs that he sings about women and imagine yourself in that speaker's voice his most famous song Take Me to Church has a ton of imagery that queer people can relate to oppressive relationships with religion uh dwelling on the concept of sin admiring not just a woman's looks but her sense of Personality humor and power 2. Dolly Parton whose campanas simply ca
nnot be denied the jokey idea that this high performance gender is giving Femme lesbian is coupled with the fact that doing a queer analysis on her style and career is just fun there's also an element of the gay icon about her where straight women become rallying points for gay fandoms even before openly gay icons were widely possible one reporter described it as obsessing over straight entertainers who were allies or perhaps seemed kind of queer or who were known to be family among certain othe
r entertainers and fans but not by the mainstream were pretty much the only options we might have more options now but the tongue-in-cheek speculation lives on the nudge and wink claiming of gay icons as part of the community was often tied to the idea of their sharing in our suffering in a tangential way in their own trauma the idea that they understand us in a certain way as writer Trevor Martin put it the most noted and revered of gay men's icons are inevitably quirky or uncommonly beautiful
and always talented they portray a vulnerability that's often wrapped up in strength in the face of adversity lurking behind the glitz they may have trouble personal lives perhaps their lives are tainted by emotional turbulence and sometimes a subtle sense of pathos filters out from just behind the eyes and the third and final example in this section is natash Lyon the honorary lesbian like this actress played one of the most iconic lesbian characters on film in But I'm a Cheerleader and did it
damn well the fact that she's straight comes as a shock for many queer people the joke is more wait she's straight no than any serious speculation about her harboring a secret sexuality this phenomenon of actresses becoming lesbian icons is a process journalist Grace Perry broke down in four hilarious hypothetical steps one seemingly straight actor portrays queer character two queer Community thirst over that queer character three queer Community transitions thirst for queer character to thirst
for straight actor four straight actor is deemed queer icon and sometimes there's a 3B phase where a woman actor wears a suit on a red carpet this level of queer claiming is good-natured but it does have its iffy moments not to bring us back to the days of trump but I think everyone remembers seeing at least one political cartoon implying that he and Putin were in a sexual relationship together this joking speculation of homophobes being secretly gay in memes and tweets it's not the harmless pro
vocation that it might seem at first ultimately it does serve to annoy someone like Trump but that's because it's using the idea of being gay as something inherently humorous pitiable or degrading it also perpetuates this idea that all homophobes are secretly gay and ultimately let straight homophobes off the hook while doing nothing to stop the internalized homophobia that might contribute to queer people hating themselves and their own community in the first place but ultimately the examples i
n this section aren't really speculation as such it's not a claim to the truth so much as a joke about it so what happens when people get serious about these theories part three the rhetoric of True Believers okay so it's finally time to talk about the big ones Taylor Swift and Harry Styles both successful musicians and less successful actors at the Pinnacle of Fame but that's not all they have in common both Swift and styles are at the center of fan conspiracy theories about their sexuality if
you spend time on the internet at all I'm sure this isn't a surprise but there is a not insignificant portion of fans who believe that their respective pop Idol is in fact queer now I want to say from the off that it is fairly easy to queer the art of Taylor Swift and Harry Styles in a kind of English class analysis sort of way early Taylor Swift love songs frequently feature parents or Society disapproving of the loving question and you can see how that might well resonate with queer listeners
in the song hours Taylor promises to ignore her father's snide remarks about her partner's tattoos and reach shows them don't you worry your pretty little mind people throw rocks at things that shine ours also features a love interest that's only referred to as you rather than he or boy or any other gendered indicators this gender-neutral language is actually pretty common with swift throughout her discography later Swift songs frequently explore the challenges of keeping a relationship a secret
the feeling that everybody is watching you judging you king of my heart dress Wonderland ready for it the Lakes question I know places are all love songs about a couple trying to avoid public speculation often using a hunting metaphor or imagery of a crowded room Whispering gossip obviously it makes sense that a lot of queer swifties did and still do identify with these songs a lot of queer people struggle with disapproving parents a hostile Society balancing authentic gender performance and de
sirability secret romances and unwanted attention surrounding your relationship but just because the lyrics can be read in a queer way it doesn't necessarily mean that Swift herself is queer the idea of wanting needing to keep a relationship resonates with many queer people for example but it's not exclusive to us you can see how a girl in the spotlight might sing about longing for privacy too Harry Styles likewise has songs that queer people identify with Matilda which was inspired by the Roald
Dahl book of the same name has become a kind of found family Anthem the lyrics are almost tailor-made to be screamed by a queer 20-something healing their inner child you can let it go you can throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family because they never showed you love you don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up then there's the unreleased song medicine that Harry Styles sometimes performs in concert which features the lyric the boys and girls are here I mess
around with them and I'm okay with it which yeah that's definitely one for the bisexuals but more than his music it Styles's image that resonates with a lot of queer fans post One Direction Stars embraced a more androgynous style wearing pearl necklaces skirts and a dress on the cover of Vogue during a Halloween concert he dressed up as Dorothy in a blue gingham dress and ruby red slippers the dress and the Dorothy nod feeling queer and equal measure to many alongside his stylist Harry lamber St
yles has created this playful colorful campy aesthetic that accentuates the vibe of his music this image is part of the art and the image resonates with a lot of queer fans so clearly it is very easy to engage with Harry Styles and Taylor Swift's music in a queer way but it's honestly pretty easy to queer the art of countless straight artists the queer Community has been doing it for decades to get that sense of personal meaning from songs that were publicly available to listen to AKA straight s
ongs but unlike many of these other artists who have been embraced by the queer Community both Swift and styles faced a lot of rumors about their sexualities themselves and these rumors this queer speculation began very early on in their careers these series about Taylor Swift really took off when Jeep befriended Dinah Agron an actress most famous for playing Quinn for Bray on Glee it was here that Swift grung Pharisees were born Agron became the first of Swiss friends that galers think was actu
ally a secret girlfriend but she was far from the last Taylor has been speculated to have dated her backup singer a fiddle pair in her band Carly Kloss and most recently Zoe Kravitz the Harry Styles speculation about his sexuality is mostly tied to a specific alleged relationship Larry's as they're called believe that Harry Styles is in a secret relationship with former One Direction bandmate Louis Tomlinson as a side note people who don't believe that Harry and Louis are together in reality but
like the idea of them as a couple in a very hypothetical fictional way are also called Larry's but for the rest of this video when I use the term it's going to refer to fans who do believe that at some point Louis and Harry were a couple in real life or still are before I talk more about the speculation surrounding these artists I want to point out that both Louis and Harry have publicly denied any romantic or sexual relationship multiple times Louis Tomlinson in particular has gone out of his
way to say that not only are these rumors not true but that the speculation has made him deeply uncomfortable in an article with 17 Louis said that a certain amount of fans dropped this conspiracy it created this atmosphere between the two of us where everyone was looking into everything we did it took away the vibe you get a funny one it made everything I think on both fences a little bit more unapproachable stars has also talked about his desire to keep his private life well private stating in
an interview I've been really open with it with my friends but that's my personal experience it's mine Taylor Swift has also expressed discomfort and frustration with the constant speculation at the height of the mainstream Taylor Swift Carly Kloss speculation Swift tweeted for my 25th birthday present from the media I'd like for you to stop accusing all my friends of dating me but despite the repeated denials by the various subjects of these theories the Larry and Gala Believers haven't faulte
d we're going to come back to the implications of this later in the video but now I want to talk about where these rumors and speculations have come from both gailers and Larry's have a lot of evidence that they build their theories on fans intensely analyze tattoos song lyrics interviews paparazzi photos social media posts outfits and more and then share their analysis online popular ways of presenting this information would be creating relationship timelines slideshows analysis videos and comp
ilations which get quite literally millions of views a core tenor of Gala rhetoric is the concept of Easter eggs Swift is publicly confirmed multiple times that she leaves clues for her fans about her music or upcoming tours these clues or Easter eggs appear in her music videos her social media even her fashion sometimes these Easter eggs take months to pay off as a result she's developed a reputation for being a bit of a mastermind many galers believe that Swift leaves similar Easter eggs about
her sexuality the pink blue color scheme of her album lover obviously Swift artistic Mastermind wants you to know that she's bisexual in the very first night there's a Eric that goes didn't read the note on the Polaroid picture they don't know how much I miss you but wait you doesn't rhyme with picture but you know what does rhyme with picture her obviously the original lyric was meant to be didn't read the note on the Polaroid picture they don't know how much I miss her because Swift is way to
o good of a songwriter to not rhyme her chorus properly right or look at how Taylor looks at Dita vontes in the Bejeweled music video obviously this is intended to represent by Panic right plus she wrote a song called Wonderland with lyrics like two in love to think straight and she knows that we know that Diana Agron has an Alice in Wonderland tattoo obviously she wants fans to know that she and Diana are secretly in a romantic relationship and so on and so forth Larry compilations frequently f
eature clips of Harry and Louis interacting during concerts and in interviews most of it feels fairly harmless it's a lot of plain old eye contact and Casual physical affection and Harry and Louis saying nice things about each other the there's like a deep analysis of these two rainbow colored stuffed bears bought with them on tour for example but some of it is honestly genuinely disturbing like multiple Larry evident slideshows and timelines feature sexualized underage images of Harry and Louis
there are close-up Gifts of Harry whispering to Louis that focus on Harry's tongue there's a picture of Harry and Louis Ware and there's no like delicate way of saying this they both appear to have stains on their jeans and this image is followed by speculation as to what bodily fluid those stains might be again these are pictures of them when they were teenagers like yikes I think part of the persistence is about this kind of confirmation bias right when we want to believe something we over em
phasize information that confirms our beliefs and tend to dismiss information that contradicts it take this post from a Kayla blog analyzing a post from Carly kloss's Instagram for example it's a photo of Taylor kissing Carly on the cheek in the caption Carly counts Taylor Swift as my friend sister partner in crime the Tumblr analysis says she no home made the out of it with her caption with the sister throw in but I say the picture speaks for itself this Tumblr user zeroed in on potential queer
imagery in the Polaroid and dismissed the context of the caption as a red herring as a lion meant to throw people off the scent of their relationship the thing that gets me about this is that clearly if they're trying to publicly confirm they aren't dating even if it is a misdirect to protect their privacy why would you then draw attention to how much you think it's a lie surely if you have the kind of compassion and respect for an artist that is claimed here you wouldn't want to go against the
se implicit and explicit messages you see something that is consistent through much of the gala fandom is that they don't really think that Swift is in the closet they think that she's basically already told her fans that she's queer in an article writer Joe Packer wrote for these fans it's not that Galas are spies uncovering a secret that Swift once hidden but Rob however that Swift is trying to communicate her queerness to and only to a sympathetic audience capable of piecing together her hint
s or as one tumblr post puts it girly said all right I'll come out but only to the people with good reading comprehension on the other hand most larries don't seem to believe that Harry and Louis exercise a similar level of control in fact a key element of these theories is that Harry and Louis are trapped under homophobic management and then when they left One Direction they like were under different homophobic management that works together to ensure that both of them stay closeted anything th
at contradicts this idea is dismissed as a hoax and then used as further proof that Larry is real for example when Louis Tomlinson announced that he was expecting a child Larry fans immediately decided that this had to be a fake pregnancy when Louis posted a photo of him holding his newborn son people analyzed the lighting the filter the levels the composition and declared that it was photoshopped paparazzi photos of Louis with his baby in a stroller were dismissed as Louis simply pushing around
a real ballistic doll or being staged and very quickly the fake baby Theory became further evidence that Larry was real like management figured out that the Larry's got into their gay love affairs so they created a fake baby for Louis to really try and prove that he's straight I want to be clear here that this is a spectrum right so there are people who just casually are like yeah I mean I've seen some of the evidence that I I think it could be plausible that Taylor Swift might be queer all the
way to the people who are going to look at like actual significant life events in these people's lives and be like nope this is a lie I still believe what I believe like there is a spectrum girlfriends of both Harry and Louis have been dismissed as beards meaningless Affairs and PR relationships I think it should be noted that a lot of the women sing dating either of these guys received a lot of harassment from Larry fans because of this not even people on this extreme level but like people ove
r here in the Spectrum as well secret relationship theories happen with heterosexual pairings as well people like Tom Felton and Emma Watson or Emily Bobby Brown and fern wolfheart for example but none of these relationship speculations received nearly as much intensity as Gala or Larry because if you follow that logic then if gailers believe that Taylor Swift wants her fans to know her sexuality they're not believing that she's queer is akin to deliberate ignorance or even Erasure if Larry's be
lieved that Harry and Louis are trapped in the closet by their management then they can imagine that queer speculation is a form of Liberation for their Idols where speculation isn't a guilty pleasure or mere gossip it's a moral act for fans and one article Asha Romano writes any Larry Shepherd will tell you that homophobia is the main reason Styles and Tomlinson are still in the closet and one of the main reasons Larry shippers are so vocal is that they hate the idea that these two men can't op
enly Express their love this feeling of moral righteousness led to a lot of toxicity within the fandom after all if larrys are moral then non-laries are immoral in an interview with BuzzFeed Caitlyn Tiffany author and retired One Direction fan said the great tragedy of the One Direction fandom is that it ended up splintering because of conspiracy theories that were just Divergent ideas of reality like that Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles were secretly in love or that Louis Tomlinson didn't real
ly father a child it eventually became a dark conspiracy that blamed the people around the boys mostly women for making them suffer they weaponized social justice courses so if you question the Larry stalinson narrative you could be accused of being homophobic for the most part there isn't a similar level of intensity in the gala discourse while galers believe that Taylor hasn't explicitly come out because of homophobia Within the Music Industry they also believe that she is making that choice a
nd not management there's lower stakes in a way long Galas aren't necessarily perceived as malicious or homophobic just kind of oblivious there is this phrase that's been gaining traction recently real people can't queer Bay primarily in response to instances like kit Connor's forced outing I think it's an interesting one in regards to stars as famous as Styles and Swift because they are real people but they are also brands they have stylists and PRM management who are informing their Public Ima
ge if queer baiting is about producers or companies using the Aesthetics and subtext of queerness to get TV viewers I don't think we can assume that music management isn't willing to do the same to sell albums tours and merch but that connection between the brand and the artist is way closer than that of an entire TV show and any single person involved in the cast or crew calling out a show for queerbaiting is talking about a single credit on a writer's IMDb page in regards to fictional characte
rs it's not tied to the actual identity of a real person we don't know if Harry Styles is stylist putting him in florals and nail polish is a true reflection of the real person within the brand image or entirely a fabrication for the singer's persona but when accusations of queerbaiting are leveled at the Persona they will inevitably affect the real person at the heart of it particularly if they are in fact queer and not wanting to be publicly out in that way because if the queer interpreted lyr
ics and of self-expression are coming from a closeted queer artist wanting to show and feel their queerness in a small way using that to pull them out of the closet by force feels counter-intuitive to real support we talked earlier about singers like Stephen Gately who were made to be closeted by Band management even set up with famous women in PR relationships so this isn't an idea that comes from nowhere when it comes to actors or other celebrities in the realm of autistic Fame it used to be g
uaranteed to be a huge potentially life-destroying Scandal if you were gay so if you were threatened with being outed you were in a pretty rough situation conspiracy theories around celebrities secretly being gay was for most of History potentially the closest thing to the truth because they literally couldn't be out there were absolutely queer musicians and actors back in the day in Hollywood who had to be closeted their entire careers but these aspects of queer history like lavender marriages
remain a part of current conspiracies about potentially queer celebrities a lavender marriage was a male female female mixed orientation marriage undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatized sexual orientation of one or both Partners marriages speculated to be of this nature in Hollywood included that of actor Rock Hudson and his secretary Phyllis Gates who married in 1955 but then separated two years later after rumors of his sexuality and supposed infidelity grew
to be too much nowadays we also see so-called PR relationships cross the rumor mill of celebrity couplings no queerness required when we look up these relationships you see a lot of hints at Insider industry info and speculation one article I read as research for this video has a section that reads Superman Henry Cavill and Kaley Cuoco's relationship suspiciously coincided with the release of Man of Steel Cuoco dated how Big Bang Theory co-star Johnny Galecki privately for two years and suddenl
y she's flaunting her relationship the couple was seen holding hands and buying groceries right if we know these lavender marriages existed in his history and the current heterosexual couples enter into fake relationships for the Press is it so wild to think that a homophobic industry might Force queer celebrities into fake heterosexual relationships for their image no I don't think it's that wild at all I can understand on some level the impetus behind the desire for these theories to be true i
f you feel connected to this music especially as a queer person you feel like you know these people through their lyrics you understand that the music industry can be homophobic and force artists to stay closeted there is a kind of vindication even a feeling of compassion in believing that you are seeing these secret hints that they are trying to send to True fans and then add that to recently revealed evidence of corruption Within the Music Industry from Kesha's mistreatment to the free Brittan
y movement and you give validity to the potential behind some of these theories however it is also vital to acknowledge that there have been repeated and open requests by Swift Styles and Tomlinson to stop and they have directly addressed their own discomfort yeah these conversations persist for me I think ultimately it doesn't matter if these people are queer or not it doesn't matter if all of these things that you're picking up on are Clues if they're little hints if they're things that point
to the real truth because they've asked people to stop doing it it doesn't matter if they're queer or not that is besides the point it matters that people have been asked to stop there is a world of difference between critiquing the observable homophobia of an industry while supporting those who have come out with testimony about their struggles and using this knowledge of potential issues to speculate on individual sexualities and relationships while they are within the industry and not out and
explicitly talking about not wanting that speculation to be happening and this leads us to the third and final level of the question why do people do this part 4 moral superiority the queer speculation around kit Connor or I guess the straight speculation was not a joke or due to the Stan level of True Believers it was all about proving a kind of moral superiority over him the Assumption at the heart of the speculation was that he is straight as opposed to secretly queer like in the examples of
Swift or Styles and ultimately this has led to a queer teenager being forced out himself and the most messed up thing is I reckon a lot of people harassing him don't see that as evidence of their wrongdoing but that what they did was justified because they were right that's what's important the harassment and pressure he felt seemed to stem from a kind of absolutist morality that is an ethical view that any action we might make is intrinsically either right or wrong regardless of context or Nua
nce for some people there is a safety in this type of strict moral thinking it might feel easier to go through the world and navigate different situations if you have a strong sense of right or wrong to do in any circumstance they can also give a sense of certainty that moves into a heightened sense of moral superiority not only do you know the right thing to do but you feel able to judge those that stray from this because no matter their reasoning or what is happening in The Wider context it is
always wrong this type of thinking as it relates to queer speculation relies on a number of value judgments and assumptions to function so in the example of Kit Connor we have of all Queer roles should be played by queer actors therefore if someone takes a queer role that isn't queer themselves this is wrong but also it is my duty as someone who understands this truth to ensure that it is being followed and therefore my bad treatment of an actor who might be flouting this truth is Justified bec
ause them taking the role without being queer is worse that first initial idea is not entirely without Merit if we take it in a more nuanced and open way for example the queer actor should have the opportunity to play queer roles or that the connection with a character's experience and Community can make a queer act to feel more authentic in a role or even the the prevalence of straight actors who have been rewarded for playing queer roles in mainstream movies including being awarded Oscars for
portrayals of tragic quiz stories is a troubling Trend I can see where this absolutist framework comes from other marginalized communities have talked about similar issues of representation in the past this Inc includes whitewashing of black and Asian roles where characters or real people portrayed in film were originally people of color and are replaced with white actors other examples in film even use black and yellow phase to maintain the character's supposed race or ethnicity while a white a
ctor was in the role even when the role was specifically significant because of their race like Lawrence Olivier's portrayal of Shakespeare's Othello for example we can see how this is something objectionable as slay Lani nishime professor of communication at the University of Washington explains there are so few representations of people of pinkala and media losing even one more hurts us it also silences us so we don't get to tell our own stories similarly CIS actors playing trans roles has bee
n the norm for years and is only just starting to be acknowledged as damaging to the community there are very real and harmful stereotypes like the man and a dress attitude towards trans women which are supported by this type of casting and can have an effect on the attitudes of audiences with limited experience and exposure to authentic trans narratives transactors are also historically extremely unlikely to be offered CIS roles limiting the opportunities given to them when even the small handf
ul of trans roles go to CIS actors by that logic having a straight person play a gay role seems to fall into this same trap right there are limited portrayals of queer people on screen especially in these roles and who hasn't cringed at straight actors on press tours for queer movies making tone deaf remarks about how this isn't a gay story it's a love story but there is a practical difference between whitewashing and straight watching in reality although white passing does exist for the most pa
rt someone being black for example will either be evident from their looks or will be something that they can disclose reasonably easily on an actor's resume it will say things like eye color age range and playing type that last one basically meaning what race or ethnicity can you play being Queer on the other hand is not such an easy disclosure for many although we've made progress in the last few decades coming out can still be a dangerous or scary process us even for those who want to take th
at step the growing acceptance I think has made way for this attitude that coming out should be easy to do and that those in the public I have an obligation to do it they can be seen as symbols as Role Models rather than as people with their own private lives and struggles they are seen to be made for our judgment and consumption in this way not only is it seen as a good thing to come out but an actively bad deceitful thing to stay in the closet so when kit Connor is cast in a leading role as a
queer teen we have the combining of these two ideas one that queer role should always be played by queer characters and two that coming out is a moral obligation that led to the harassment campaign against him it isn't bullying or harassment because it's righteous Justice there is this idea that queer celebrities have an obligation to increase lgbtq plus representation and you know help young queer people even more so if that celebrity is playing a queer character on screen and needs to authenti
cate their reason for playing them but like kit Connor is a queer young person he is a queer teen how is it helping queer youth at all to try and force him to come out or admit that he's like being deceitful and taking a role away from a queer person if celebrities actors and public figures are given the space to come out at their own pace and timing surely it's more likely to lead to them feeling comfortable accepted and ready even excited to be part of the community and even more likely to wan
t to share that Journey with others to actively want to be the kind of role models that we seem to be seeking with this Behavior this pressuring people to come out playing with a kind of Justified vigilante morality system is the opposite of what the industry needs there is no sure a way to stop queer creatives from wanting to come out and make art about their lives and experiences and treating them this way this policing needs evidence and the evidence that you can find about public figures tha
t you don't know is always going to be limited to what they feel comfortable showing or is gained through the overstepping of boundaries this supposed evidence itself then furthers problematic narratives encouraging assumptions based on things like gender non-conformity or the gender of your partner as if straight men can't wear florals or bi men can't date women public bisexual life in this way is being seen as queerbaiting by those with biphobic attitudes to Identity kit Connor's co-star Joe L
ocke has commented on the speculation saying the idea of a tabloid being interested in a teenager's love life is really gross someone making money out of rumors about who I an 18 year old boy might be liking or talking to it's really gross and perverted I'm 18. I don't know who I am yet I don't think that actors should be forced to come out in order to play a queer character they feel a connection with whether they are a teenager or an adult because it isn't just that kit Connor is a kid this ki
nd of speculation judgment and harassment can be traumatic whatever your age possibly the most notable example of this outside the world of acting is a case of Becky albertalli who wrote the book that loves Simon the movie is based on berky albertalli was accused of queerbaiting after having written several waya novels which centered around lgbtq Plus teenagers despite not at that point having told the world how she identified Becky is married to a man but obviously this doesn't necessarily say
anything about someone's sexuality so as a result of the subject matter of her books alongside the apparent confirmation of her heterosexuality based on honestly the assumption that if she hadn't said anything about her sexuality she must be straight some criticized her for lacking the authority to write stories about lgbtq plus lives I was frequently mentioned by name held up again and again as the quintessential example of aloe's hair in authenticity she's written about the experience I was a
straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights profiting off of communities I had no connection to things further came to a head in the 2018 release of the film love Simon which sparked an overwhelming scrutiny of her personal life and even calls for boycotts of her work in a 2018 article with the advocate for example albertalli said she identified with Simon because he is a theater kid who is full of secrets and piecing together how to grow up quotes from this from her were used as
evidence of her heterosexuality especially for those who were co-opting the hashtag own voices on Twitter the own voices hashtag had its origins in the bookish side of the internet and was meant to highlight stories about communities that were told by an author within that Community a little extra label to potentially reassure a reader if the book tackled nuanced Community issues or if they were just interested in expanding the types of authors that they read however it soon became used as a we
apon against any author seemed to be writing outside of their own experiences and the discourse surrounding the own voices hashtag was the ultimate Catalyst for albertalli's coming out the demand for an author and protagonist to match identities was something that abitaly has said caused harm to herself and others however unintentional there is this real sad sense of irony in that albertali was herself on a coming out journey as she wrote about the coming out processes of her characters she said
my understanding of bisexuality as a concept didn't entirely track with how I see it now for one thing the idea of sexual validity wasn't even on my radar and there didn't seem to be a word for girls who basically liked guys but were sometimes randomly fascinated by girls because of this lack of lgbtq plus representation and education in her life albertalia said she edited out all the parts that refused to make sense including her bisexuality in fact The Epiphany about her sexuality didn't full
y come to fruition until she was writing Leia on the offbeat a why a novel about a love story between two girls using writing and art to explore your own Identity or questions you don't yet have the answers to is a powerful thing but it's something that was ultimately taken away from Albert Ali by this pressure to come out tying her journey of self-discovery forever with a kind of coerced and defensive confession coming out has the potential to be liberating but instead she describes it like thi
s this doesn't feel good or empowering or even particularly safe honestly I'm doing this because I've been scrutinized subtweeted mocked lectured and invalidated just about every day for years and I'm exhausted and if you think become the only closeted or semi-closited queer author feeling this pressure you haven't been paying attention she's also talked about the way that what might feel like individual posts online can add up especially when people are making statements about someone in the pu
blic eye who has access to these messages just a reminder that interesting Community discourse isn't just discourse when it directly targets an actual human person while inflicting massive collateral damage on a group of people who are fairly likely to be in a position where they can't even speak about it this is so personal and so traumatic and I'm begging you to stop on Instagram using her own page she has posted genuinely heartbreaking messages clearly affected by the impact of these discussi
ons these intense emotions I think we've just seen echoed in kit Connors coming out tweet writing captions like hey can we talk believe it or not I'm a really private person and I hate going live by myself but I'm feeling really desperate to be seen as a person right now and I legitimately don't know what else to do a sense of moral policing was clearly part of the criticism and harassment against albertalli the idea idea of a kind of purity of consumption I only read these kind of books that ha
ve passed this special test and if you don't follow this rule you're a bad person and if you're the one writing books that break this rule you're even worse it takes an idea that could do a lot of good that marginalized authors should be given more opportunities in an industry that is still lacking in terms of representation and applies it with an absolute morality model that misses out on vital nuances I want to talk about a final example in this section Jamila Jamel an actress a model who has
been outspoken about issues she cares about for years and has caught a lot of flack because of it I think she's long suffered from this idea that people who are seen to try in the public eye come under much more scrutiny than those who don't seem to give a at all she was selected to be a judge on the HBO Max show legendary a reality show which focused on the world of queer bull culture as soon as the announcement was made people were on the attack how dare Jamil take this judging position this s
traight woman who clearly knows nothing about this world soon after did an interview with the times and officially came out saying I guess I'm bisexual but also quite fancy everyone I don't know if that means I'm pansexual but I don't just fancy CIS straight men I fancy everyone in a sense later tweet she said this is absolutely not how I wanted to come out there to my mind is a reason why including positive and questioning people as part of the queer Community is so vital and not just as a forg
otten couple of letters in an acronym it takes conscious thought and effort to ensure that there are spaces that include these people that they are met with compassion resources and understanding rather than condescension or vitriol the community has been burned before by CIS hat people and companies profiting from us without giving back but the desire to keep queer projects pure and separate cannot come at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in our community the possibility that a
rogue says hat might sneak into a role in our representation it's worth it to keep questioning and closeted people safe from harassment and Outing otherwise we have a situation mission where you need to admit to being queer or you need to come out as a kind of penance or punishment or you need to out yourself as the only thing you can do to avoid harassment even if you would be happier or safer in the closet it almost feels like those old stories of witch trials you know if you aren't a witch d
on't worry we'll just test it sit on this stool we'll tie you up and dunk you if you are a witch you'll float and then we'll burn you oh if you aren't a witch don't worry we won't burn you you'll just drown instead the reasons why people take on these absolutist morality viewpoints are varied for some it's comforting to have a set of rules you can apply to every scenario and feel that they are in the right for others they feel a kind of anger are people who are safe in their supposed secrecy thi
s feeling of jealousy I guess of you know I had to go through this trauma of coming out and being out my life is harder because of my sexuality why don't you have to go through that there's also of course that parasocial element thinking that you know this person or owed their private thoughts and identity because of that these things mix together to justify harassing people for taking up queer space while supposedly not being queer or conversely to critique people for not coming out and not doi
ng it sooner when they are secretly gay because of some obligation to fans this parasocial element is also why I think there seems to be a higher rate of speculation and shipping among celebrities whose careers give them a balance of accessibility and privacy actors like clay Blanchette Rachel Weis and Natasha Leone may have played queer characters but they aren't as speculated about as say YouTubers or musicians who are more likely to make content or songs about their own lives and be available
to meet in person at concerts or events actors whether personal lives have been connected to the characters like the cast of Heart Stopper or where viewers have physical access to them like the cast of Supernatural and other shows that gather fans in person at events like conventions or meet and greets seem more likely to have this kind of discourse around them those that engage in it often feel a sense of entitlement around these public figures I think the replies in one Twitter thread I saw a
fter kitcon is coming out demonstrate the differing points of view of people engaged in this discourse pretty well people getting up in arms about being queerbated by people feels a lot like the old friend zoned era people don't owe you anything based on your perception of them let alone actual celebrities you don't know sure but the arguments around queerbaiting are far more nuanced people are dying around the world for the right to be out it's an affront to their lives and activism when someon
e uses queerness as a marketing tool you don't know they're using queerness for marketing you're making an assumption about people you don't know people dying for coming out doesn't mean anyone has to come out if they don't want to you're not entitled to anyone's sexuality period there is something dangerous about the idea that because queer people are suffering to extreme degrees around the world any lesser queer suffering is unimportant the idea that it's an insult to complain or want to be po
sitive when other people have it worse than you is so dismissive you wouldn't tell a queer person who has found happiness that some queer people have it better than them and feel happier so they don't have the right to be happy at all yet this misplaced morality citing extreme suffering in a conversation around a teenager's sexuality is exactly what we're talking about here in regards to the moral superiority being key to many people's feelings of justification in their speculation and even in t
heir active outing part five the harm the effect of queer-baiting accusations and queer speculation about people in real life have been vast and consequential not only the harm from the pressure to be outed but also the harm after and The Wider effects on the community when these conversations begin around celebrities they are public discourse that anyone can stumble across that means that the attitudes presented can also have an effect on bystanders comments made about one stranger online can a
lso affect other strangers online any pressure or judgment thrown out against a public figure that you think doesn't even read their social media mentions is also pressure and judgment directed even unintentionally towards more vulnerable members of our community one of the things I worry about most is how this public discourse might affect how people interact with questioning or closeted people in their own lives potentially creating a culture of everyday speculation that can be hugely damaging
or popularizing the idea that not coming out is an inherently bad or dishonest or deceitful thing I've had conversations with more than one friend in person about how the accusations of queer baiting and by Erasure from recent months have affected them for some the negative feelings come from these online discussions solidifying their own self-doubt whether they are queer enough whereas for others it highlights the ignorance that can still exist even within the queer Community Kate Baskerville
wrote the issue is that by calling them queerbaters we're also telling other people who haven't found a label or who may not identify with a label that their expression of sexuality is wrong sexuality like gender is fluid and only ours to understand and express it's deeply personal and often more complicated than fitting the binary of being heterosexual or homosexual Sean Mendes is another example of someone in the music industry where a number of fans continue to speculate that he is in the clo
set it's speaking to Rolling Stone about when he was accused of being too feminine Mendes has said I thought you guys are so lucky I'm not actually gay and terrified of coming out that's something that kills people that's how sensitive it is maybe I am a little more feminine but that's the way it is that's why I'm me these conversations often end up reinforcing stereotypes limiting people's self-expression and curtailing their freedom to explore themselves gender non-conformity especially for me
n is linked to sexuality so tightly in these rumors and speculation florals painted nails outward shows of emotion even are all seen as evidence of queerness which only serve to limit lgbtq plus and CIS hurt people alike if someone is queer and their own self-expression aligns with gender non-conformity then just expressing that in a muted way runs the risk of outing them these All or Nothing black and white attitudes of sexuality also encourage the kind of biracial that leads people to accuse s
omeone like kit Connor of queerbaiting for simply holding a girl's hand a apparently these people had not even considered that he could be bisexual even while he is literally playing a bisexual boy in the show that introduced him to these speculators in the first place like it couldn't be more there the speculation is binary either admit you're gay or you're straight there is no room or consideration by these fans that you could be bisexual or pansexual otherwise queer again not giving bisexual
or queer people any agency to explore their identity as well as invalidating their identity if they do Express their sexuality wrong maybe again a theme of this video the speculation and judgment itself might be the problem because this kind of in-depth theorizing goes further than forced outing Camila Cabello and Lauren Jauregui from Fifth Harmony were speculated to be in a secret queer relationship for years just like Larry's or gala's Carmen shippers made timelines slideshows and compilations
of moments between the two of them that proved their relationship but after Fifth Harmony broke up haragi came out as bisexual fans were wrong about her and Cabello being together but they were right about her being queer in an interview last year she commented on the harm that the carmanship had done not just to her relationship with Cabello but also to interactions with women she has to this day that made me so uncomfortable like disgustingly uncomfortable because I was queer but she was not
and it made me feel like a predator because of the types of Clips people would put together and the stories they would write I was always the aggressor but I did not have that connection with her she goes on to say that the experiences made her hyper analyze every connection that I have with a girl because I don't want to make them feel like I'm looking at them in that way it was so traumatizing it really with my head because I wasn't even comfortable telling my parents about it I wasn't even co
mfortable telling myself that I was queer and also I didn't see Camilla that way so it made me uncomfortable that I could potentially be putting off that Vibe this is so indicative of the predatory lesbian Trope that can also be used against Bible women an idea that we see in pop culture and social attitudes through the years of the older more experienced lesbian turning or preying on younger more innocent Straight girls it's the same idea that feeds into the lesbophobic ideas of lesbians being
lecherous dangerous scary possessive and interested in preying on unwitting girls and these ideas can absolutely prevent lesbians from engaging with their own identity and Community without adding the pressure of people commenting on the possibility on the internet publicly for hundreds and thousands of people to look at I know more than a few lesbians who have been bullied harassed even assaulted for even looking at a straight girl doing the kind of harmless flirting that is not aggressive at a
ll but is interpreted that way because of their identity and it kind of breaks my heart that that was something that someone has been made to go through on such a massive scale it's worth reiterating something that we've talked about throughout this video here outing can still be dangerous we've come far in terms of queer safety and rights in the past few decades but it's still not a utopian world even for celebrities who have a level of financial or Social Security feeling you have the right to
out someone in this pressurized way in a way where the person isn't ready yet minimizes how hard coming out can still be if the same idea moves from speculating about those in the public eye to those in personal Social Circles the dangers and pressures may be even greater after all if you think you have the right to speculate or even outright out someone you don't even know that entitlement can very easily shift onto someone that you have a more personal connection to there's a real sense of de
humanization that flows from this these people cease to be people and become hypotheticals caricatures to project stereotypes and speculation onto for entertainment or internal moral satisfaction and I think anything that encourages the dehumanization of anyone including Rich pop stars is something to be questioned not to mention that for those who are not already out in their private life this is potentially their first entry into the queer community at all meaning it wasn't on their own terms
which to put it lightly doesn't create the ideal environment or circumstances by which to begin to explore a community that should be full of support and solidarity with speculation ultimately is going to help encourage outing either making celebrities feel like they need to out themselves or incentivizing media to out celebrities we're perpetuating the demand that I talked about at the start of the video that outrage criticized and that musicians like Will Young and Stephen Gately had to suffer
through it was only this year that comedian Rebel Wilson was threatened with being altered by a gossip columnist Andrew horary in the Sunday Morning Herald he coerced her into coming out by giving her just two days to comment before he would publish an article with details about her relationship with jewelry designer Ramona a groomer rather than allow the article to talk for her Wilson posted on Instagram trying to have some semblance of control over the narrative but the post-captioned I thoug
ht I was searching for a Disney prince but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney princess alongside rainbow hearts and hashtag Love Is Love the horrible irony being that the post itself garnered press coverage either way and we have no idea if Wilson was ready for that kind of scrutiny and publicity about something that until then she had not entered into the public eye part six Where Do We Go From Here I do understand the impetus Behind These Feelings of righteous anger queer pe
ople have a lot to be angry about and queer rage is a valid emotion to feel I think especially when you're young there is very little you have power over and even less that you can safely show your anger towards it doesn't surprise me that some people can get caught up in expressing that frustration towards celebrities who seem removed from being real people not only can rival anger directed at the wrong target still feel righteous but it often connects you with people feeling that same pain and
anger and consequently can make you feel less alone but it can also encourage the same feelings of negativity as your expression of it leads to positive associations of camaraderie and justice but that's because it's easy to be distanced from the other side of that harassment the person who is targeted against who often has done nothing to justify the level and volume of abuse that they face there is great power in queer rage but it feels wasted on the pressuring of someone like kit Connor into
coming out or even an actually straight actor into apologizing for not being queer there are so many queer issues that could use motivated and energized people putting in the work to make life actually measurably better for queer people and I'd encourage anyone who is feeling these kinds of negative overwhelming emotions to see if turning them towards tangible positive change might ultimately make them feel better in the long run while doing some real world good in the process in terms of those
artists that gather conspiracies around them being secretly queer like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles like you can have queer interpretations of straight produced art that's allowed the author is dead baby you don't have to justify your connection with their music by deciding that they themselves have to be queer you get to decide a song as super queer to you without it meaning the artist themselves has to be too maybe one or the other of them will come out as Queer as some point but right now t
here are so many openly queer artists worthy of support who are actually singing about queer love and queer experiences Girl in red little narzx Janelle Monae Haley Kyoko King princess Teegan and Sarah to name just a few plus dozens of up-and-coming artists that you can find on music apps or through Tick Tock where your support is even more meaningful I can't help but speculate on the emotional impulses that feed these theories the desire for community that leads so many to the world of fandom b
ut which can run headlong into a kind of mob mentality the harassment of these actors and musicians fueled by queer anger at the apparent safety and successor they hold the vindictive jealousy the loving adoration the misplaced empathy some of those dissecting lyrics and videos and interviews spend hours and hours developing these theories and I honestly want to see what could happen if they use their powers for good instead of evil like genuinely because of some murders puero style you know I g
uess I thought that I'm ultimately left with is that if you are harassing someone online or God forbid in person or posting things that could pressures someone to come out that could make them feel bad for the journey that they are currently going on that can take away their agency when they are discovering and expressing their own sexuality or gender identity even if your theories are true and Harry Styles and Taylor Swift and Natasha Leone or make a joint announcement tomorrow that they're que
er it doesn't matter it doesn't suddenly all become Justified because ultimately protecting queer people who aren't out will always be more important than exposing potential queerbaiting and it's certainly more important than a desire to prove yourself as some kind of morally righteous judge of strangest lives and identities thank you so much for watching these were just my thoughts please let me know what you think in the comments thank you so much for watching these are just my thoughts I woul
d love to hear what you have to say in the comments please keep it respectful I'm sure that you will and if you would like to support me and my work there are a couple of ways you can do it uh one would be to buy my book hearing queer the links are in the description is a growing up guide for queer girls very fun joyous inclusive lots of beautiful illustrations from the illustrator Jackie Sheridan and the other is to check out my patreon I have a ton of really cool perks and I will leave all the
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“Protecting queer people who aren’t out will always be more important than exposing potential queerbaiting.” I can’t even imagine thinking differently.
Queerbaiting allegations against individual people seem to just enforce heteronormative standards. Harry Styles is “queerbaiting” for wearing a dress when we should be saying anyone can wear a dress for whatever reason. Bending gender norms is FINE. There’s nothing wrong with it. Doubling down on heteronormative standards only harms gender-diverse people like trans and NB people.
Honestly, I've often felt there's something pretty homophobic about the way online queer communities deal with ostensibly queer individuals. Like, once you identify or are identified as queer, you are no longer considered a human being with your own identity, you only exist to reflect the fans experiences back to them, and if your experience differs from theirs that is considered a Personal Betrayal.
There is an argument to be made here that sometimes some people believe straight people can’t support the queer community if they’re not queer themselves. Taylor Swift openly supports legal rights for gay people and uses her platform to support the queer community and encourages people to vote for their rights. Some people believe it’s impossible for her to do that if SHE herself isn’t queer/bi. But the queer community NEEDS straight allies to cross the threshold of “us vs. them” Straight vs queer. Straight people also believe in queer rights and representation.
We just need to stop using the word "queerbaiting" for real people
i genuinely thought we were over discussing people's sexuality after the dan and phil insanity going on tumblr back in the day
One other thing I want to mention. As a gay man who came out relatively early in life (I was 15 when I came out to my parents and I came out to my community later that same year), even if everyone in your circle is incredibly supportive, being outed can still be traumatizing. I was outed three times in my life, and all three times, the people I was outed to were supportive, but that didn’t take away the panic and the sense of violation that came from not having any agency in people finding out that personal information about me
queerbaiting applies to media, not people. how you dress doesn't define your gender or sexuality, it's literally just a piece of fabric and paint. that's like saying a feminine lesbian or a masculine gay man are trying to bait straight men / women by not dressing "gay" enough. wear whatever makes you happy and don't let other people dictate it! your identity is none of their business♡
There's such a big difference between saying that a Taylor Swift song can be read as queer and saying that she's secretly gay. I can understand that her songs about secret relationships come from how the media talked about her love life and still relate to them in a different way it's not that hard
I´m just thinking about how Daniel Howell has been very open recently about how this exact "shipping culture" has ruined their lives and absolutely messed with their mental health, yet here we are 10 years later and people haven´t gotten any smarter
I'm a closet lesbian and I swear to you, the amount of people that have asked me when I'm coming out if baffling, I've even had people saying that they have more expercience than me and are more "ahead" on the queer journey because they're not closeted anymore or that my parents wouldn't react horribly because theirs didn't. The thing is, I can't come out, I live in a very strict household, to say the least, and cannot support myself financially If I get kicked out (which is a very real possibility). Being in the closet is not a step to overcome, Is protection, It doesn't mean that I'm less queer than anyone else and people should never be forced to come out in any given circumstance.
The "your fave is problematic" has really done a number on people's ability to be normal(=not an a-hole) online didn't it. As a long time tumblr user, this whole superiority of "only consuming unproblematic media" bothered me for ages. It clearly played a role in Kit Connor and Becky Albertalli being harassed by chronically online people who weaponize social justice causes to justify their bad behaviour. And now people mainly do this on much more public platforms than tumblr, like twitter and instagram, it gets to the people it's about even easier.
Does anyone else remember what happened to Becky Albertalli author of Simon Vs homo sapiens agenda. She wrote the book based on her experience working with queer kids as a counselor I believe. Well after the movie and show were made she started getting a lot of hate and shit about how she's "straight" and taking queer stories. Que probably the most heartbreaking open letter I've ever read where she had to out herself as bi to stop all the hate. I get that people want representation, as a trans person myself I am ecstatic when someone in the public eye comes out. But I also understand that they don't have to! I would be happier with 20 trans actors I had no idea were trans over one openly trans actor. I just want us to exist without it being a spectacle. Everyone else gets to
I did not spend my teenage years on tumblr in multiple fandoms that used queerbaiting heavily for marketing(sherlock, supernatural etc) for people to use queerbaiting to out real life people in 2022 Edit: I forgot to write “not” 😬
As a bi woman, I just want to thank you for highlighting the fact that so often these attitudes are rooted in intense biphobia. It's a big part of why I STILL have days where I don't feel like a valid part of the LGBTQ+ community. And why it took me 28 years to come out to my family. Videos like this are so important 💖💜💙
considering Kit's age, he was so incredibly mature about how he handled the online discourse surrounding his own personal identity
I said this before, but I'd rather be queerbaited by a celebrity than force a queer person out of the closet.
The closeted people trying to go in queer spaces/playing queer roles/etc are so courageous! To relatively safely explore these spaces should be absolutely allowed. Newly out I wanted to support my local queer centre and barely there I was asked how I identify. After asking why I should answer he just said that we're all the same here. Granted he was the only person this aggressive. I can't even imagine how brutal these kinds of gatekeeping on a social media/global level must be and to feel you have to stick to this once established label, especially at this young age like Kit Connor.
i’m only 7 mins in, but one of the biggest frustrations i had with the kit situation was that people a. were going hard on the bi erasure thing and b. it never occurred to these people that kit chose to audition to heartstopper, specifically for nick nelson, BECAUSE he related so hard to his struggles? something about it just irks me that people will try and cancel a teenager for going through what we all did as queen adolescents.