According to New York Times’ opinion section editor Anna Marks, Swift has “dropped hairpins” – a slang term for letting others know you are queer – for as long as she’s been in the spotlight.
To support this assertion, Marks included references to Swift’s ‘Lover Era’ aesthetic, including “rainbows, butterflies and pastel shades of blue, purple and pink, colours that subtly evoke the bisexual pride flag”.
The article also highlighted Swift releasing her single “ME!” on 26 April, which happens to be Lesbian Visibility Day, and that the music video for her “You Need to Calm Down” hit includes an “army of queer celebrities from across generations”.
“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 [Taylor Swift’s] artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America.
“They suggest to queer people that she is one of us. They also suggest that her art may be far more complex than the eclipsing nature of her celebrity may allow, even now.”
Back in 2019, the “Lavender Haze” hitmaker spoke to Vogue about why she’s been so vocal about LGBTQ+ rights in recent years. She told the outlet that she “didn’t realise until recently” that she could “advocate for a community that [she’s] not a part of”.
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“Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she said.
In the prologue for her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album, which dropped in October, Swift further opened up about being the target of rumours about her dating life and sexuality as her fame has increased.
Swift wrote in the notes to the album that being the “target of slut shaming” and “jokes about [her] amount of boyfriends” had “hurt”.
So to “make it stop”, she swore off “hanging out with guys, dating, flirting or anything that could be weaponised against [her] by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated [her] with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era”.
However, Swift said that focusing on herself, her work and her female friendships didn’t stop the rumours about her sexuality.
