New York Times faces backlash for essay speculating on Taylor Swift’s sexuality — “This was the least defensible op-ed I can remember ever seeing the NYT run,” says Variety’s Chris Wilman

by marketrent

29 comments

  1. • In a 5,000-word opinion piece, editor Anna Marks listed references to the LGBTQ+ community overt or perceived in Taylor Swift’s music and theorized that the singer was sending coded messages that she was secretly a member of the community.

    • In 2022, Marks wrote a guest op-ed essay for the Times speculating on Harry Styles’s sexuality, as well.

    • “This was the least defensible op-ed I can remember ever seeing the NYT run, made all the worst by the fact that it was written by a staffer, who specializes in these speculations,” Chris Wilman, the chief music critic at Variety, wrote on Twitter.

    • In the prologue to the re-record of her 1989 album, released in October, Swift said she surrounded herself with female friends at one point in her career to counter ceaseless media speculation on her love life.

    • “If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that – right? I would learn later on that people could and people would,” she wrote.

  2. I mean, the NYT has run far more questionable op-eds than this. Still garbage to allow it to run.

  3. I think the JK Rowling one was a little less defensible but go off

  7. Just in bad faith.

    If Taylor is? Then not telling the world has ultimately, conclusively been her choice from day one. It is counter-productive too and, frankly, fucking bizarre to take away any female’s agency, let alone one with the lifelong ears of millions.

    If she is not? Then not confirming to the world has ultimately, conclusively etc…

    Most importantly, it is no-one’s fucking business but hers. This should not even be a conversation.

  8. Besides the problematic nature of speculation about a person’s sexuality, I truly don’t understand this obsession of finding queerness within someone who’s possibly the most hetero singer that ever existed 😅

  9. It’s wild that they’re speculating about her sexuality when her entire personality for 15 years has been about her boyfriends.

  10. I’d wager a sitting US Senator calling for martial law that ended up getting the editor of the Op-Ed page fired is slightly more worse than this, but this does go to show why Op-Ed pages are written by simpletons and defence contractors paying for space.

  11. This is immensely important. Asteroids are headed to the earth. There are wars in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Trump is under 96,000 legal actions. Yet Taylor Swift is relevant.

  12. Omg who cares.

    It doesn’t matter who is sexing who.

    Like her music? buy it.

    Don’t like her music? Don’t buy it.

    If you’re doing anything because of the sexual preferences of someone else you’re an idiot.

  14. These types of articles should never be published by anyone let alone the New York Times.

    It’s pretty obvious that Swift is straight and her team is trying to confirm that without making people upset or mad.

    It also sets a horrible precedent going forward because if Taylor Swift was gay why is somebody allowed to write a piece outing and speculating on it. I’m very firmly against speculation about people’s sexuality, nobody has the right to know anything about it unless you specifically want to share.

  16. So all those guys that she dated were just for appearances? Give me a break! It’s because of people like this nobody that wrote the article that a lot of straight people aren’t helping the gay community because of “optics, it’s beyond sad that this is even worth commenting on but I guess this woman has some ulterior motive and I hope her career ends with this.

  18. Can we be done defending this billionaire / perpetual victim? I’m so tired of it.

  19. If Ms. Swift is LGBTQ+ then she’s doing a crap job of it by dating only straight men.

  20. Bro people have been retconning DEAD people as gay too recently like damn a person’s sexuality is nothing to casually speculate about on the world stage

  21. Whether it’s obvious what her sexuality is or not (and I have no idea because I don’t follow her career), to speculate and rob someone of their time to come out themselves —if even at all— is in profoundly poor taste.

  22. That’s weird. What’s this obsession with trying to turn women of prominence into lesbians?

    Maybe they are/were, maybe they aren’t/weren’t. It’s none of my concern.

  24. Did I miss the class where they taught us how to decode the secret celebrity messages?

  25. Oh my god. Who the hell cares what her sexuality is.

    Stick whatever you want, wherever you want. As long as everyone involved consents.

  26. It’s not the NYT’s business…..it’s nobody’s fucking business, except Taylor Swift’s. How stupid can the op-ed writers at the NYT be?

  28. I’m so fucking sick of seeing report after report of what she does, says, thinks, who she dates etc

  29. So, as a man, if wear pink and like my legs waxed, in have to be gay? I don’t get to choose my own orientation?

    What is wrong with these seemingly woke people?

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