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Last week, a New York Times op-ed divided Taylor Swift’s fandom by speculating about her sexuality.
In the article, the writer detailed a series of “clues” that apparently “prove” that the star is secretly queer, including her rainbow-themed Lover album launch — which coincided with her short-lived LGBTQ+ activism era.
The writer also insisted that there were “dropped hairpins” — a reference to the way that people flagged that they were gay in the past — well before Lover, and claimed: “Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift's artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us.”
Taylor did not publicly respond to the article at the time, but a source close to her made it clear to CNN that she wasn’t happy about it.
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“Because of her massive success, in this moment there is a Taylor-shaped hole in people’s ethics,” the insider purportedly told the publication. “There seems to be no boundary some journalists won’t cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is — all under the protective veil of an ‘opinion piece.’”
Even Shawn Mendes caught a stray, with the source adding: “This article wouldn’t have been allowed to be written about Shawn Mendes or any male artist whose sexuality has been questioned by fans.”
At this point, it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t actually true — with both Shawn and other male stars, such as Harry Styles, facing repeated media speculation about their sexuality over the years.
In fact, Shawn — who shot to fame at 15 years old — literally reflected on the “frustrating” rumors surrounding him during a 2020 appearance on the Armchair Expert podcast. He said at the time: “It’s such a tricky thing. You want to say, 'I'm not gay but it'd be fine if I was gay — but also there's nothing wrong with being gay but I'm not.' You don't really know how to respond to the situation."
"Everyone's been calling me gay since I was 15 years old,” he added. “I’m not gay and I'm like, 'What does that mean?' I had these problems with the way my voice sounded. I'm like, 'How do I sit?' I'm always first to cross my legs and sit with a position of this feminine style and I really suffered with that shit.”
Prior to this interview, Shawn had discussed the rumors with Rolling Stone, saying: “I thought, 'You fucking 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. Do you like the songs? Do you like me? Who cares if I'm gay?"
Needless to say, this recent situation with Taylor has sparked a whole load of discourse, with many people pointing out that publicly speculating about anybody’s sexuality is inappropriate.
But some took issue with the insider’s response to the piece — particularly the misguided implication that the op-ed stemmed from a place of misogyny.
Quote-tweeting a post about it on X, formerly known as Twitter, one person wrote: “This is wild to say when Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes have been harassed about their sexuality for years now.”
“The ‘a man would not be treated this way’ argument is valid and correct 99.9% of the time but this is the 0.01% where it’s not,” another tweeted. “Men’s sexualities are sensationalized by the media so much more than women. A man just has to bend his wrist and it becomes a story about if he’s gay.”
Others pointed out that the same author of the Taylor op-ed had actually written a similar piece about Harry in 2022. It was also mentioned that a large portion of One Direction fans have speculated that Harry has been in a secret relationship with his bandmate, Louis Tomlinson, for more than a decade, which has been heavily discussed in the media.
And it wasn't long before other male celebrities who have been subjected to mass speculation about their sexuality were remembered — as well as some of their impressive responses to it at the time.
After Harry and Shawn, one of the biggest namedrops has been Misha Collins, who famously “came out as straight” on X back in 2022.
Misha found fame on the TV series Supernatural back in 2008 and has faced years of fans theorizing that he is secretly queer. This was fueled by his onscreen character, Castiel, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community on the show.
In the final season of Supernatural, Castiel proclaimed his love to Jensen Ackles’s character, Dean, which fueled the way that viewers shipped Jensen and Misha in real life — despite them both being married to women at the time.
Misha largely ignored the speculation, but in 2022 he made a clumsy joke about it at a convention that made many mistakenly believe that he had come out as bisexual.
“By a show of force, how many of you would consider yourself introverts? How many extroverts? And how many bisexuals?” he asked the crowd, before quipping: “I’m all three.”
This tweet has since been seen almost two million times and has racked up tens of thousands of likes and retweets as other users expressed their agreement.
Meanwhile, The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki has also had his sexuality speculated about over the years, and when he was quizzed about the rumors during a 2010 appearance on The View, he had a pretty solid answer.
The actor, who dated his Big Bang costar Kaley Cuoco for two years, told the hosts: “I’ve never really addressed those rumors because I always figured, why defend yourself against something that’s not offensive?”
None of the men mentioned have reacted to being brought into the recent discourse, but we will be sure to let you know if they do!
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