Stop Forcing People Out of the Closet

Real people are not queerbaiting you

A few weeks ago, Taylor Swift released her latest album, Midnights. Being the obsessive Swiftie I am, I spent the days leading up to the release listening to Taylor’s old music and watching fans’ TikToks theorizing about the album. I also kept up with Taylor’s Midnights Mayhem, short Instagram videos in which she revealed a new track listing every day. One of these tracks was “Lavender Haze.”

Reader, the Internet lost its collective mind.

For a solid 24 hours, my TikTok feed was inundated with fans and haters of Taylor alike accusing her of queerbaiting. Apparently, lavender is a color that is associated with the lesbian community and people saw this song title as just another example of Taylor baiting her LGBTQIA+ fans (there’s a very long and weird history of Taylor’s fans accusing her of being a closeted lesbian and referring to long-time boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, as her beard — I won’t get into all that now, but look here and here if you’re curious).

Ignoring the fact that the term “lavender haze” literally just describes the feeling of falling in love and is not unique to the LGBTQIA+ community, it is just so creepy to speculate on a real person’s sexuality. Maybe Taylor’s straight, maybe she’s gay, or bi. The fact is, you are not entitled to…