Taylor Swift blasts people who sensationalize or sexualize her female friendships

I still remember when Gawker posted photos of Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss maybe kissing in 2014. To be fair, there were “Kaylor” rumors long before then, as Karlie and Taylor had already been inseparable for a while at that point. Things got really interesting in 2016, when there seemed to be a significant cooling off between Karlie and Taylor, then things turned downright icy when Karlie started hanging out with Katy Perry and other snake enemies (at the time). It really was the end of Karlie and Taylor’s friendship or whatever it was, but “Kaylor” still lived in people’s hearts and minds. Well, on Thursday, ahead of the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), someone leaked her new album prologue in which she specifically called out the “Gaylor/Kaylor” rumors.

Taylor Swift’s version of her Grammy-winning 2014 album 1989 drops tonight at midnight, but there’s already an apparent leak of the written prologue that accompanies the rerecorded LP. And with it, revelations about Swift’s sexuality are taking the internet by storm. Specifically, if the prologue is indeed authentic, the pop star seems to refute years of speculation about her sexuality with just a few sentences. (A subset of her fans, who dub themselves Gaylors, believe she has long been closeted.)

Tweets purporting to show the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) prologue include paragraphs where Swift writes at length about the slut-shaming she endured earlier in her career.

“Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior,” the leaked prologue reads. “I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that—right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.”

Swift diehards are taking this to mean that the pop star is reinforcing the notion that, as has always been her public-facing identity, she is straight. In another purported passage, Swift thanks listeners for following her on her musical journey: “You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in ‘Welcome to New York.’” This, too, is being interpreted as Swift planting a flag in her heterosexuality: The 1989 opening track includes the lyrics, “And you can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls.” By casting this as “allyship,” Swift seems to be saying that she’s a supporter of, but not a participant in, queer culture.

[From The Daily Beast]

Taylor has every right to set the record straight (heh) just as she has the right to keep people guessing. She doesn’t owe anyone her letters, and everyone should let people come out in their own time. Or not come out, as the case may be. Now, do I also think Taylor has spent years having fun with the “Gaylor” rumors, knowing that her obsessive fans would pore over every Easter egg, every clue, every bisexual code? Yeah, she did that too. I remember that thing with her hair dyed a certain way and people were CONVINCED that she was sending visual clues to her bisexuality.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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