My Hobbies? Uhhhhh Symbolism Mostly. Metaphors And Implications And The Like.

dancing with our hands tied

Girl

Gene, 3

Gene said he wanted to “dress fancy” and threw this together: deadstock squirrel-print shirt from eBay, shorts are part of a 2-piece suit from Janes Exchange, scarf, beret, and plastic parrot pin are borrowed from his mama, snakeskin cowboy boots belonged to his papa when he was a kid, faux fur tail is a repurposed Uniqlo men’s parka hood lining. Ting, the stuffed squirrel is by Hansa Creations, makeup is “cherry me” Baby Lips by Mabeline, bracelet (wooden beads and fluorescent vinyl cord) made by Gene when he was 2. Before he left the house Gene asked his parents, “do you think Mozart would like my outfit?”

Sep 25, 2021 ∙ Lower East Side

Taylor Swift leaving a gym in New York City June 2014

it’s nice to have a friend is not about having a different best friend during different stages of your life and is instead a progression of an imaginary friendship into a lifelong partnership, because after the school bell rings, sidewalk chalk is covered in snow and later when the church bells ring after she marries her best friend, the rice on the ground looks like snow, connecting the final verse to the first verse and therefore confirming that the same friend that that taylor passes notes with and sleeps in tents with and plays 20 questions with is the same friend she later on marries and the song sounds lonely and desolate like a still winter morning when the windows are frosted with snow but the chill hasn’t let itself into your bedroom just yet because it speaks to the inherent loneliness of growing up as a girl who falls in love with her best girl friends, but that lonely girl finally marries her best friend and that is why the song sounds lonely like a grey winter morning but at the same time comforting like a friend/love of your life running her fingers through your hair in bed on a grey winter morning, in this essay i will-

You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

look not to be heterophobic but there’s no way a straight person could write folklore

Just a reminder because apparently people don’t realize this, but the rainbow gay pride flag isn’t like…a gay male pride flag? it was literally meant as a pride flag for everyone in the community. not that there’s anything wrong with specific identities having their own flag, but i keep seeing ppl post flag sets as if the rainbow ride flag only represents gay men and saying that not including every single other flag known in existence means you’re excluding people when no it’s not the rainbow flag is for everyone

now that tour rehearsals have started, we might get more pics like these soon: