#like. okay. but. consider. maybe a lesbian falls in love w someone who identifies as a guy sometimes

[piplupod]

[whispering nervously] hey i feel like this is the equivalent of throwing a beehive at a bear, but i genuinely do not understand what is going on with the latest queer label discourse,,, why is calling urself a mspec gay/bi lesbian/etc such an issue ?

[bisluthq]

So idk I am feeling conflicted bc you know how there’s a sect of the lgbt community who are all like “go listen to real queer artists and stop trying to make Taylor seem one of us through your lyric analysis” like.

I mean I get what they’re saying and it’s not even like Taylor presents as a great ally lmao but like... I feel like that argument just forgets that 1) closeted people exist and 2) straight people can write songs that can be analyzed through a queer lens

Like I mean there is a severe lack of out mainstream artists and I get we should absolutely support the ones that are Bc it makes it easier for closeted people to come out the more mainstream it is... but like... idk. I do think some people take Taylor’s sexuality too far and to consider her a gay icon is just like not it right now... but like her music slaps and you don’t have to be straight to relate to it. There are so many of her songs that I listen to and think of my ex gf when I do so it’s like? Maybe Taylor didn’t write DBATC for a woman but I ascribe it to one when I listen to it and like that’s the point of music you know?

Idk I get why some lgbt people are annoyed by her but like... I just feel like no one considers that being closeted is a thing and I think some lgbt people fall into the same default that straight people do and just assume everyone is straight unless they have a huge coming out announcement. And like that’s not fair to anyone tbh.

Yeah look I mean I have MANY thoughts on this:

1) shit doesn't need to be canonically gay in order for it to be relatable. Same as how straight people can and SHOULD relate to queer storylines too because WE ARE ALL HUMAN. No one is ever going to write a banger of a breakup song like Adele. Do I think she has a fruity bone in her body? I mean like maybe she's kissed a girl at a party one time but like all her songs are for her about boys. But they're not necessarily about boys for me. And that doesn't make them worse or less relatable. I'm allowed to ugly cry and listen to Turning Tables and I don't have to picture a bloke when I do that.

2) that's true for minority/majority art in general. Minority groups generally find ways to identify to majority groups, but I LOVE it when majority groups identify to my minority identities. Like yaaaaas goy straight bitches please go stan Broad City. The girls are SO Jewish and... so bi... but like I WANT YOU TO LIKE IT and relate. And most people I've spoken to feel that way regardless of identity. Like, obvi the point is not to appropriate but like yes I'm going to bop and sing to Formation and I'll not say the hair line when I'm singing it in my car - y'all should lowkey know by now Lemonade is like one of my favorite albums because I reference it that much - there are lines I skip but the PREMISE of like being with your group of girls is completely relatable to me. Do I get the nuance she's communicating? Cerebrally but obvi not like to my core, but it's a dope song, and I can have fun singing it.

3) those are two important sidebars and bring us back to Taylor. IMO it's okay to like Taylor's music in a gay way in the same way we queer people like Adele's or even in the way goy straight girls like Broad City. Like it's okay if she didn't mean it that way and she didn't mean to speak to us but did via the human experience and that's like beautiful y'know and makes her a phenomenal artist.

4) it's also important to realize that yes Taylor could be closeted but besties she's not like... revolving her life around it. She has made a choice to live a hetty presenting life and - here's where we get to the kicker - she has fostered the bullying of queer fans who pick up on themes in her music and ship while having no issue with hetty weirdos. And that makes me HOPE she's queer in some way and not homophobic because if you are an ally and you're letting people speculate about EVERY boy you're in contact with but lose your shit when it looks like you kissed your female friend, ehhh that's on you. You're a bad ally and a bit homophobic.

5) which brings me to "why I hope she's queer": fundamentally because it'd make her less stupid and more likable, and it'd make her faux pas missteps more understandable because it was like ~personal and she struggled, and it'd make the signaling she's done (and don't start this I never include ship shit I always talk about sus statements and flag usage etc and it's in my nat talks gaylor tag) more understandable.

6) if she's straight eh people have just as much right to queer read her songs as we do with Adele and Lana. It doesn't matter.

Maybe Taylor Swift is straight. If so she has a LONG way to go in terms of allyship, and a long way to go compared to just about every pop star who has come before her. Like she's a problem dudes. She's a homophobe because she's allowed a fandom which allows folklore songs to be assigned to HARRY but freaks at Wonderland being assigned to Dianna Agron.

Maybe she's bi, and I wish society would allow for that but I don't think it does especially not in her case.

Either way I wish hetlors would get off truthering because it doesn't matter.

So someone thinks she's gay. Cool. Make like Elsa and let it go, why can't that be the case? Again, I am CONVINCED Blake, Scarlett, Emma W, and a host of other celebs are straight. I won't truther someone who's saying Emma and Bonnie shared rooms together because I'd be like "lol Bonnie has the range but Emma doesn't but fair enough" and leave it at that.

Being OBSESSED with this issue is weird.

And before some anon says - I'm not obsessed. Maybe she's straight, I think she could be bi, maybe she's a lesbian dealing with comphet. I'm not her and I don't know! But what I am veeeery convinced of is she ain't no gold star.

[queercapwriting]

no rush obv but if you're so inclined: we're not gonna see it on sg but i'd like to see how alex processes being queer (post-coming out & being w maggie). like, she had some brief gay panic but we didn't get to see her really accept and then get comfortable w it.

If people want, I’ll do more follow-ups like this, but in keeping with minific style, here’s a oneshot of her reaching out to Kara about Things. I also have this piece that I wrote much earlier about Alex coming out -- http://archiveofourown.org/works/8856685/chapters/20309353

She said she couldn’t do this without Kara. This coming out… thing.This realizing that her entire life isn’t what she thought it was. That she’s completely different than she thought she was.Except she’s not. Except she is.Because Alex knows what she’s good at. And she’s good at training.Training to be Kara’s protector, at the demand of her mother and the passive agreement of her father.Training to be a scientist, under the tutelage of the most renowned bioengineers in the country.Training to be a soldier, under the sometimes harsh care of the man who’s come to be her… well, her father.Training is something Alex is good at.But this? This thing, this… this liking Maggie? This… this being… whatever this is…Gay?Lesbian?The words still make her flinch inside.This… thing? This thing that she can’t do without Kara?It goes against all her training. It goes against her training – and she’s good at her training – because she’s been trained to be sexy for me. She’s been trained to appeal to men, she’s been trained to not even consider her feelings for women as real, as noticeable, as an option that wouldn’t be… imperfect.Because she’s been trained to be perfect.And she’s pretty damn good at it.But this?She’s fallen out of a spaceship, she’s freefalling to earth, and god, she hopes Kara knows how to catch her, because she doesn’t know if she can catch herself.She tells her mother that she knows better about people. And she wishes she didn’t.And she does know better about people.About men. About men whose hands are too rough – not that she minds things rough – but she minds when the roughness isn’t for her, isn’t about her, doesn’t consider her, doesn’t realize that she might have needs, too.About soldiers. About watching people die and about having to kill. About having to sleep at night, somehow, with the last breaths of people whose lives she’s ended lingering in her ears, under her fingernails, deep in her throat.About perfection. About the way perfection tastes like the bottom of a bottle of bourbon and sounds like her mother’s ringtone and feels like Kara’s smile hiding the storm behind Kara’s eyes that Alex will never, ever be able to soothe.No matter how perfect she is.So this? This… gay… thing?She means it when she says she can’t do it without Kara.She calls her late one night, late one night after shooting pool with Maggie, because Maggie had shown up at her door and told her she didn’t want to imagine life without Alex, and who could say no to that?And Maggie had been kind, and Maggie had been gentle. Maggie had been careful and she’d been funny. She’d been her normal self, on just this side of cautious. Because Alex knew it then, more sure than she’d been even when she kissed her – knew from the way her stomach swooped when Maggie bent over the pool table to line up a shot, from the way heat pooled between her legs when Maggie’s tongue stuck out slightly in concentration, from the leaping of her heart when Maggie touched her arm and the flight of her soul when Maggie laughed, when she was the reason Maggie laughed, the reason she smiled, the reason she seemed happy – that she was falling in love.With a woman.She’s nearly vomiting when she calls Kara, so distraught that she barely even registers Kara’s sleepy tone, the way she clearly just woke her little sister up from a sound sleep. It is well past midnight, after all.“Alex?”“I’m…”“Alex, are you okay? What happened, do you need me to – ”“No, no, I’m not hurt, Kara, I… I’m g… I like Maggie.”She’s collected enough, now, to hear Kara’s relief, her soft smile, in her voice.“I know you do, Alex. Do you want me to come over so we can talk about it? About her? Or about you?”Alex’s stomach swoops, because talking about Maggie? That would be hard. It would be hard, but it would be easier. Because if it was just about Maggie… just about this girl she liked, and then kissed, and then rejected her, and they were just being friends, so it was no big deal, really, it was just this one thing, this one little phase, this one little mistake, misinterpretation, right? But Kara knows, and Kara said they could talk about… Alex.So Alex’s stomach swoops, and she stammers out a no, no, go back to sleep, she’s sorry for calling, but then there’s a tapping on her window and she sighs, because her sister is Supergirl, and her sister is just as fast as Barry Allen.She lets her in and Kara takes the bourbon out of her hands immediately.“Talk to me, Alex, not the whiskey.”Alex sinks back onto the couch and shrugs and sighs and thinks about the way Maggie smiles and the way she smells faintly of motorcycle exhaust and something sweet that Alex can’t quite identify, and –“Alex.”And then she’s crying, and god Kara’s arms are strong, and she’s never been more grateful for it, because she’s breaking and it’ll take a lot of strength to hold her together.More strength than she has on her own, apparently.It’s while she’s gasping for breathing and trying not to hyperventilate that she chokes the words out.“Kara, I… I’m g… I’m… a lesbian.” It churns her stomach just to say it. It churns her stomach and it burns her face and it makes her sob harder, but god, god, god, relief also sears through her like oxygen. Relief and truth and something that feels an awful lot like… herself.“I’m so proud of you, Alex. I’m so proud of you.” Kara is kissing her forehead and stroking her hair and wiping her tears, and Alex’s phone vibrates and she and Kara both laugh wryly, because maybe one day they can cry on each other without being interrupted by work.But it’s not work.It’s someone that makes her heart leap, that makes Kara smile when she sees the caller ID and how quickly her sister goes to open the message.I had a really great time with you, Danvers. Thanks for coming. Let me know you got home safe, if that’s okay? Kara arches an eyebrow – when Alex’s tears are dry and her heart rate is a little steadier, it might be a better time to talk about the fact that Maggie sounds an awful lot like she might like her, after all – and smiles as she watches her sister’s normally steady fingers type out a response, as she watches her sister’s normally shrewd eyes sparkle like a teenager’s.“I’m so proud of you, Alex,” she repeats, because Alex might have been trained by the world to think that being gay, being a lesbian, is less than perfect, but Kara knows better: because the happiness, the hope, the excitement, the affection in Alex’s eyes right now?That look defines perfection.