Welcome to this week’s edition of Stacks & Spoons, a weekly substack for bookish girls, gays and theys, written by author Jen Wilde. This post is for paid subscribers only. To read it, you can upgrade here. You’ll also gain access to the full archives and the comments thread.
Yesterday, October 11th, was National Coming Out Day.
Since 1988, this day has been used to celebrate queer people coming out while highlighting the barriers the LGBTQ+ community continues to face.
My favourite part of the day is seeing my queer friends sharing their stories online. Seeing other queers living their best gay lives gave me the courage to come out almost seven years ago.
But this year, I didn’t feel like sharing my coming out story again. To be honest, my view of coming out has changed over the last year. I’ve found myself starting to resent the fact that queer people are expected to come out at all.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like something has shifted over the last few years, and now coming out is demanded of us as some kind of public right of passage. I can trace these feelings back to the day Kit Connor, one of the stars of the TV show Heartstopper, was forced to come out as bisexual after toxic fans online accused him of ‘queerbaiting.’ It was a gross display of entitlement and missed the point of Heartstopper completely.
FYI: real people cannot queerbait. That term was originally used to critique media and fictional characters, and that is where it should stay. You want to say that Supernatural queerbaited? As a huge fan of the show, I agree with you. But real people, from pop stars to actors to authors, cannot queerbait.
Let’s take Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, for example. Both have been accused of queerbaiting and told to come out by demanding fans and haters alike. Neither of them has said they are straight or queer specifically, nor do they publicly comment on who they are dating, but they both have queer themes in their work. Harry’s fashion style is undoubtedly queer-coded and blurs gender lines. Taylor has been linked romantically to other women (yes, I am a Gaylor.) But because neither Harry nor Taylor have had a specific ‘coming out’ moment, where they stand before the world and declare in clear terms that they are bisexual/pansexual/queer, they are assumed to be straight and thus committing the crime of queerbaiting for profit.
The message this sends is: before you do or say anything that could be interpreted as queer, you must first announce your sexuality publicly.
This entitlement, this binary view of out/straight leaves no room for fluidity or privacy. How does this look to someone who is still figuring themselves out? What if you don’t like labels? What if you need time to explore who you are? What if, god forbid, you just want to keep some things for yourself?
Actor Lukas Gage, who played queer characters in shows like The White Lotus, and You, revealed that the pressure to define his sexuality came from within the industry as well as from fans…
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