#i'm just not into how negative and frighteningly parasocial this has gotten

[septembersghost]

hi different anon here I get what you're saying about the whole thing about say someone's favorite color was lavender they'd have it at their wedding and their m/f relationship that's not really doing any harm that's just someone's favorite colour but I think here the difference it's not someone with no influence doing it it's taylor swift it's a song and swifities joke all the time about oh she owns red she owns 22 she owns this she owns that and even when maroon was announced there were joke she owns maroon too and when we hear the song I feel like there will be a lot of people saying she owns lavender and its not about gatekeeping a color it's about being allowed to share the history behind it without getting dismissed and if the song is a love song there's gonna be lots of people captioning things with in the lavender haze (which other than mad men and urban dictionary I can't find sources off it being a 1950s saying but there's countless sources about lavender and the queer history of it) (also I take taylors words at face value she is straight in a heterosexual relationship of 6 years she heard the phrase on mad men and she also has a history of not being well researched in a lot of things aka wtcs and amsterdam just this year I definitely do not expect her to know queer history even with her being an ally and being an advocate since even queer people themselves don't know half their own history which is a whole other thing and sucks) but say we never ever had a such thing as gaylor discourse and taylor announced lavender haze and made that reel I think there still would be people rightfully upset at her and her fanbase using the word lavender to describe heterosexual love because there will be a lot of people who are heterosexual and using lavender from her lyrics as symbolism of themselves being in love and colors being used as symbolism is a huge thing for the LGBT+ community each color of the rainbow symbolises something each label has their own specific pride flag colours that have specific symbolism and of all the colors that mean the most and have the most queer history it's lavender so when someone is saying that this could be harmful for queer history I don't think that's a statement that's wrong because it could be and we'll realise how after the song comes out but because of gaylor discourse people are going out of their way to constantly say it's just a color and dismiss other people's concerns I think yeah it's fine to defend taylor against gaylor discourse but people need to stop letting it cloud their minds and end up spreading harmful rhetoric like the only statement needed against gaylor discourse is taylors own words "I can advocate on a community I'm not apart of" but some people go out their way to give all sorts of other reasons to defend she's straight by saying "oh taylors only dated men so she can't possible be..." but there's no need for this comment because take taylors name away and the generalised statement then becomes "she can't be bi or she can't be lesbian because she's only dated men" which is harmful rhetoric that could be seen by people who are questioning and it's a harmful belief to have in yourself especially if you are wanting to be an ally to the community I think the lavender discourse is going the same way where in defending taylor from gaylors swifties are just outright not listening to legit concerns and are not even willing to try to understand and educate themselves in queer history of lavender because if something good is to come from discourse it should be the spread of this information sorry for the rant this is just my perspective I've seen a lot of "it's just a color" comments by people outside and in the community and it's very annoying seeing that because never has a color just been a color in the community and in our history

i just feel like some of this is terminally online discourse? i've seen people say they heard their grandparents use the phrase, like a honeymoon phase (someone dug up this excerpt from an old newspaper: https://href.li/?https://twitter.com/callitwhatuwnto/status/1579241430949965825?s=46&t=lKc_ZS_xuOA9JBoI7wOOog), i've also seen many many queer people with no knowledge of the history at all and surprised by this, it's all dependent on what you've been exposed to. you're definitely allowed to be annoyed (i agree with you that amsterdam was a huge mistake by everyone involved and deserves no attention), but this particular battle isn't getting anyone anywhere, it's only causing rampant toxicity and people being awful to each other, or ascribing the worst, most malicious intent to her (comparing her to putin???). the rampant biphobia and aphobia happening is a mess, but that's on the people perpetuating it. she's an ally, but that doesn't mean she's perfect. none of us are. learning the history is good and valuable, saying she's homophobic and intentionally queerbaiting or being oppressive is not it. she's also not responsible for the stupid things swifties do online and can't control that. i don't expect musicians to know everything, and only we can control how we respond and treat one another and artistic intent, and if we want to educate each other, it's better to do that positively, instead of this engagement in personal attacks and projection. she simply heard a pretty phrase and decided to use it in her art.