New York: A lengthy essay speculating over superstar Taylor Swift’s sexuality has triggered anger online, with some social media users calling for its retraction.
The 5,000-word guest column published in the paper’s opinion pages suggests the wildly popular singer is sending veiled signals to her fans that she is queer, despite identifying publicly as straight.
Neither The Times nor Swift’s representatives immediately responded to an AFP request for comment over the piece or the backlash.
Speaking anonymously to CNN, a person in Swift’s camp called the column “invasive, untrue, and inappropriate.”
The essay by Anna Marks, an editor for the NYT’s Opinion section, strings together a list of times Swift has seemingly suggested she is queer.
“In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance,” Marks wrote.
“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.”
In 2022 Marks published a guest essay speculating over the gender identity of Harry Styles, a pop star Swift has dated, examining accusations of queerbaiting against him.
Marks opened her Swift column by referencing the inner turmoil of Chely Wright, a queer country musician and activist who has described staying closeted for years for both career and personal reasons.
Following the essay’s publication, Wright lambasted it as “triggering.”
“I was mentioned in the piece, so I’ll weigh in,” Wright wrote on X, the former Twitter, over the weekend.