Taylor Swift released the video for the second single off her upcoming album Lover called “You Need to Calm Down” earlier this week.
It features a plethora of LGBTQ personalities from the Queer Eye cast to Laverne Cox, RuPaul, Todrick Hall and more. The video ends with Taylor, 29, asking fans to sign her petition for Senate support of the Equality Act on Change.org. “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.”
It’s one of the many signs of support that Taylor has made recently for the LGBTQ community. She donated $113,000 to the LGBT organization Tennessee Equality Project in April and financially supported the media advocacy group GLAAD in support of Pride Month for an undisclosed sum.
Yet, for some reason, gay men aren’t buying it. I posted my support of Taylor after watching the video on Monday on social media and was met with backlash by some who think of her as more faux than friend for us.
“She’s a sell-out. Overrated. I prefer the female singers who don’t have to sell-out to support us (Pink, Kelly Clarkson).”
Others, from what I’ve seen on the internet, have said that her support is “fake as hell” and that she’s “queerbaiting” our community.
You have your opinion, and that’s fine. Now it’s time for an epic rant that gay men really need to understand as I’ve pretty much had it with us complaining about every single damn thing.
Can we, for once, be happy that someone is supporting us, regardless of your own perception as to why they are doing it? Would you rather Taylor be against us publicly so you REALLY have something to vent about?
It blows my mind. Taylor, who is one of the biggest stars in the world, has gone above and beyond to show her support for the LGBTQ community to the point where she’s getting political about it. Yet we call her a “sell-out” and do exactly what she’s singing about in “You Need to Calm Down”.
Why not “calm down” and be elated about what she’s doing? We live in such a polarizing time politically that people in our community are being bullied, abused and even killed for who they are by others who feel that they can do this now given who is in power. Shouldn’t we be mad about this as opposed to someone who is championing us on a worldwide platform?
I truly believe that there are gay men out there who just love to be negative because they are so miserable in their own lives that they want others to be like them as well. They enjoy rustling people’s feathers with their outrageous viewpoints and this is a classic example that I’ve seen splashed across the internet over the past couple of days.
Criticizing Taylor or anyone’s support of our community is equivalent to making fun of an out of shape person at the gym (like me). Why? What’s the point? Seriously why waste effort being annoyed at someone doing something good for themselves and/or others?
Bottom line, certain gay men: calm the f down. Seriously. It’s Pride month. Be happy that we have support. Eat a cookie. Kiss a hot guy. Just do something that doesn’t involve unnecessary hateration.
Thanks, Taylor, for what you have done.
This is the opinion of one contributing writer and not that of Instinct Magazine or other Contributing Writers.