Taylor Swift has come out to clarify and double down on her support of the LGBTQ+ community.
In a wide-ranging interview in Vogue‘s September issue, the pop star responded to accusations that her recent – and very public – allyship of the LGBTQ+ community was disingenuous. “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she said. “I didn’t realise until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.”
Swift shared an anecdote about her close friend Todrick Hall that had convinced her to adopt her current position: “Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick and I are in the car, and he asked me, ‘What would you do if your son was gay?’”
To which the icon replied, “If my son was gay, he’d be gay. I don’t understand the question.”
Hall’s blunt query, Swift continued, forced her to reassess her public stance on the subject. “The fact that he had to ask me shocked me and made me realise that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough,” she told Vogue. And it “devastated” her to know there were members of the LGBTQ+ community who may share Hall’s uncertainty.
The singer also brought up how she found it tricky to ‘go public’ on her support for Pride. “It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Swift opened up on her feud with Kim Kardashian. “A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote cancelled, is a very isolating experience,” she said.
‘Lover’, Taylor Swift’s seventh studio album, is set to drop on August 23. She’s already shared three singles off the record: ‘You Need to Calm Down’, ‘The Archer’ and ‘ME!’, a collaboration with Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco.