[music]

Kerry: It's All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kerry Nolan in for Alison Stewart. Musicians Harry Styles and Bad Bunny have a few things in common. They're both global superstars. They were both nominated for Album Of The Year at the 2023 Grammys, and they're both some of the most high-profile targets of accusations of queerbaiting. Our next guest will help us define queerbaiting, but broadly it's the accusation that a straight celebrity is using markers of queerness in their fashion, presentation, or career choices without identifying as queer. Think for example, Harry Styles appearing on the cover of Vogue in a dress while refusing to comment on his sexuality.

Some people would argue that straight celebrities are using cultural markers of queerness to pander to the LGBTQ community and profit from their fandom. Others say that celebrities don't owe us explanations about their sexual preferences and isn't breaking down gender norms a good thing regardless of how you identify. While joining us to wade through this complex topic is Mark Harris, a <i data-stringify-type="italic">T Magazine contributor and author of the recent piece Is Celebrity ‘Queer Baiting’ Really Such a Crime? Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark: Thanks so much for having me.

Kerry: Listeners, we want to hear your thoughts. What do you think about celebrity queerbaiting? Do you think it's wrong for straight celebrities to invite questions about their sexuality? What do you think is the line between breaking down gender norms and "queerbaiting?" Give us a call. Our number is 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-9692. We especially want to hear from listeners who identify as queer. The number, again, 212-433-9692. Mark, for those who might be hearing this term for the first time, how do you define queerbaiting?

Mark: Sure. I think it's complicated because I'm in my 50s and if you're my age you probably are more familiar with the term gay-baiting which is a term that used to be used a lot in politics to connote the idea that homophobic politicians would suggest by implication or insinuation that someone was gay without coming out and saying it as a form of attack. Queerbaiting is the reverse. It's a term that started to be used first in terms of fictional characters and now in terms of real people to suggest the idea that certain celebrities and public figures would wink at the gay community either by comments that they made or clothes that they were wearing or things that they did during a performance say to suggest the idea that they might be not entirely straight. At the same time, those celebrities have been cagey about identifying themselves in terms of their sexuality or sexual orientation. The term queerbaiting now is a way of saying someone is having their cake and they're eating it too is playing off the idea of possible queer sexuality without really owning it and specifically doing it for profit, doing it to extract money from the LGBTQ community.

Kerry: In your piece, you also break down the complicated relationship that you have with the word queer in the first place. Would you feel okay sharing some of those feelings with us?

Mark: Sure, of course. One of the complicated things about this whole queerbaiting issue is that it goes to things as basic as language. You can't talk about how we got from gay-baiting to queerbaiting without talking about how we got from gay to queer. One of the things I talk about in the piece is that queer has become this interesting, complicated catch-all. It's a word that now means to a lot of the people who use it anything other than 100% heterosexual. As I say in the piece, you can identify as gay and call yourself queer. You can identify as lesbian or bisexual or trans and call yourself queer but you can also call yourself queer and identify as none of those things and in fact identify as nothing but queer.

Language being what it is, that will lead a lot of people to say, "Okay, but what does that mean?" Because the definition of queer as it's used now is so large and so one size fits all that it can mean anything from yes, I am specifically a member of one of these well-known communities to queer is just a term for how I see myself and I'm not going to get more specific than that. That is really complicated because when you get into the issue of queerbaiting, you get into a lot of questions of things like cultural appropriation, issues that are particularly important to young LGBT people. The idea that unless you are one of us you don't have the right to claim ownership of certain things. If all you identify as is queer, are you in that community or not? It's a really complicated, troubling question.

Kerry: It's interesting that you say that because it's almost like you have to make this declaration of what community you want to be a part of. I could be completely off base here, but I also see it as a way to draw a curtain around yourself where you don't have to address those thornier topics.

Mark: I think for some people it is that. For some people, it's not that it's a completely natural word to use that is frankly less of a mouthful than LGBTQ+. It's easier to stay queer.

Kerry: True.

Mark: A lot of people will just do that. I have used it sometimes with my friends in conversation interchangeably with gay. Although, I think we should note that for a lot of older gay men queer is still a slur. It's still something they grew up with being called as an insult, and like many slurs in minority groups, it has been largely reclaimed by that minority group but that doesn't mean that everyone is comfortable with it. I know a number of gay men in their 60s who are fine with the word queer and I know a number who are violently opposed to being called queer, that they feel they really fought for all their lives to get rid of that label.

Kerry: How much of this do you think is a generational divide?

Mark: I think a lot. I think some of the friction over queerbaiting which is largely a charge that is leveled by young consumers at young celebrities. It comes from two things that are generationally specific, which is the idea that sexuality is fluid and that it's everybody's absolute right to define themselves by whatever term they feel fits them the best and this conflicting attitude among a lot of younger people about cultural appropriation and ownership and about the primacy of authenticity and lived experience as a prerequisite for being an artist. The idea that you really must have identified a certain way or have lived a certain experience to be able to tell a certain story and the idea that sexuality is really up to you to define as you see fit. Queerbaiting is where those two principles can crash into each other in an uncomfortable way.

Kerry: If you're just joining us, my guest is Mark Harris. He's a contributor to <i data-stringify-type="italic">T Magazine and the author of the recent piece Is Celebrity ‘Queer Baiting’ Really Such a Crime? Give us a call if you want to weigh in on this conversation. Our number is 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-9692. Let's take a call. Rocky in Brooklyn. Welcome to All Of It.

Rocky: Hi. Thanks for having me. This is a conversation that, I'm older so it's frustrating to me because I tuned into TikTok and this is where I first heard this term queer baiting as it was leveled against someone like Harry Styles. I'm a huge fan of his and I wondered here's a young man who doesn't feel like he owes anyone an explanation about his sexuality. Yes, he likes to wear feather boas and he dresses extravagantly but there was Bowie, there was Prince, there was Lenny Kravitz, there are all these entertainers who do that. People are making so much clout really off of going after him for not declaring himself. I don't feel that-- Your celebrity is a job. It's not your life. You don't owe anyone any allegiance. One of the things that's done as an older person looking at this has made me wonder about the younger community, what's going on with you guys? Why are you fighting against your allies? There are people out here who are really invested in you as a community and then you turn around and you bite them on the ass and you're just like, "Well if you're not telling us who you are, we're going to torment you for it." Don't you see that happening?

Kerry: Thank you for your call, Rocky.

Mark: I think it's a great point that this goes back to David Bowie, this question of performative sexual ambiguity we can trace back in modern pop culture at least 50 years. It's also an important point that we actually all know nothing except what we read in gossip columns and stuff about who Harry Styles is or what journey he might not be on. I think it's important too when we say just flatly, "Well he's straight and he's pretending to be queer." We have to be really careful about how we talk about these people even though they are celebrities as if we have knowledge of what's going on in their heads or in their lives.

Kerry: Rocky said she first heard queerbaiting on TikTok, how do you think that social media is factoring into these discussions?

Mark: I think social media factors into these discussions the way social media factors into every discussion which is that it makes it louder, faster, and angrier. It's incredibly easy if you're on TikTok or if you're on Twitter to drop a bomb to level a charge and then to walk away from it. I don't think that someone like Harry Styles is besieged by it. It was really interesting to me that just as this story I was finished with it and it was closing and about to come out. That night there was Harry Styles on the Grammys and everyone knows now the way he dressed on the Grammys. I thought it was really interesting because to me what it said was that if he had really felt minister overwhelmed or threatened by this discussion of queerbaiting, I don't think he would've worn what he wore. The fact that he did just indicated to me either that he's fine with the queerbaiting discussion or that how he dresses is just a really important form of self-expression for him. It's not something that he's done once or twice. Dressing in a gender-ambiguous way is something he does a lot and I find that interesting.

Kerry: We're going to take a quick break but continue our conversation on the other side with Mark Harris. He's a contributor to T Magazine, the author of the recent piece Is Celebrity ‘Queer Baiting’ Really Such a Crime? We want to hear from you as well. This is All Of It, stay with us.

[music]

It's All Of It from WNYC. I'm Kerry Nolan in for Alison Stewart. My guest is Mark Harris. He's a contributor to T Magazine, the author of the recent piece Is Celebrity ‘Queer Baiting’ Really Such a Crime? The phones are lighting up. f you'd like to get in on this conversation give us a call at 212-433-9692. Let's take a call from someone in Woodside, Queens. Hi, welcome to All Of It.

Speaker: Hi, thank you. I am a queer gay male in my late '70s and I have worked for gay causes and equality since Anita Bryant. I actively participated in organizing the first march in Washington DC by gay people. When it comes to queerbaiting, I resent very much a non-gay person using it when we people of my generation and other generations after me have gone to the hard drive of getting rights where we are today. When I first started out in gay politics, the concept of gay people, same-gender people being married was so far out of our reach. We weren't even working for it. We have made great strides and I feel as though non-gay people who queerbait are riding on our hard work and our backs and I resent it.

Kerry: Thank you for your call. Mark what do you think?

Mark: First of all, I want to thank that caller for his lifetime of activism. I think it's a hard- What he's articulating is a difficult problem because he says he resents these young celebrities coasting on the backs of the work of their forerunners. A lot of people also resent young gay people coasting on the backs of their forerunners and I think it can be a painful thing.

One of the things we have to remember is that whatever we are fighting for right now as queer people no matter what age we are, one of the reasons we're fighting for it is so that future generations can't take it for granted. That's just part of the nature of progress that the people you're trying to help and make things easier for are-- One of the things you're fighting for is their ability to not have to suffer and struggle the way you did and to take certain things for granted.

I think one thing that younger people take for granted whether they're gay or straight or no matter how they identify, is that it's a litte more okay for people to play with these things than it used to be. That can be painful I think for a lot of older people to contend with but it is also in a way one of the things that was being fought for.

Kerry: Let's take another call. Isabelle in Manhattan, welcome to All Of It.

Isabelle: Hi.

Kerry: Hi.

Isabelle: Basically I have a friend who's in a band and he performs more in women's clothes. It's typically effeminate clothing. He has a bit of a David Bowie moment happening for him. I have other mutual friends in our friend group that have accused him of queerbaiting. He's always been open about the fact that he is straight and that he's a cis man and he is straight and he is never claimed queerness.

I just think that in calling him out for queerbaiting he's really just embracing gender, smashing the gender binary and freedom of gender expression. I feel like in calling out a man who's not claiming queerness for dressing effeminately, it's stifling and limiting the dismantling of gender binary. The umbrella of queerness is evolving and instead of tribalism within the queer umbrella, why not focus on embracing both gender, like dismantling gender binary and embracing queerness as a whole. Ultimately smashing white supremacist patriarchy at the end of the day which is the ultimate evil.

Kerry: Thank you so much, Isabelle. There's a lot to unpack there Mark.

Mark: Yes. It sounds like Isabelle's friend is a straight guy who likes dressing in this ambiguous way and as she said playing with gender identity. My initial reaction is that's fine. Everybody should be okay with that if it's a genuine form of self-expression and isn't being done purely opportunistically. I don't see any really big issue with that although there are people then who would sooner or later in this conversation analogies to race are always brought up.

That's where it gets really, really tricky because the struggle as your caller said to smash white supremacist patriarchy goes across many lines including race and orientation, and gender identity. There are also ways in which the struggles of queer people and the struggles of people of color for instance are really distinct and each has their own issues. If we keep that comparison out of it, yes. It seems to me that if what her friend is doing is sincere self-expression, it's very hard for me to envision a progressive world in which you could say to that person, "No, I'm sorry. You're not allowed to do that. You're the wrong person to do that."

Kerry: Let's take another call from Joe in Peekskill. Hi, Joe. Welcome to All Of It.

Joe: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I guess apropos of what your guest was just saying. I listened to-- I'm just jumping into it because I tend to be really wordy and I'm trying to be succinct. As a 52-year-old gay man coming up in my generation, generation X, I don't feel the slightest bit put off by gay-baiting, especially like, say using someone like Harry Styles as an example, as you talked about earlier.

Then also in hearing from the gentleman who called in who did so much work for gay liberation and for the cause which, of course, I'm grateful for and appreciate especially because he's a generation ahead of me but my feeling is ultimately that what we're working for is that younger generations get to express themselves their gender identity, their sexuality however they express themselves wherever they fall on that. That's the liberation that I am hoping that we're fighting for.

Of course, it's terrible to see what's going on in places like Texas and don't say gay bills and all of that thing, which it's horrible to see us lose ground in those ways. I've been married for-- I've been in the same relationship for 30 years. I guess we were only allowed to be married in 2010. That happened in my lifetime, and I think a lot of it is through exposure and pop culture. Will & Grace brought boring gay people into the home for most people, in an entertaining way but in a way that I think a lot of people didn't know.

Kerry: That's true. We're going to have to leave that there. We've only got about a minute left. Mark Harris is my guest. We're talking about his article Is Celebrity 'Queer Baiting' Really Such a Crime? I've got maybe 30 seconds left for you. Do you think, Mark, that will ever get to a place where these sorts of questions about people's sexuality aren't going to matter?

Mark: Yes, I do think that. I certainly hope that, and I think it's possible. Already in my lifetime, I'm 59, we've gotten to places that I didn't think were conceivable to get in my life. One thing we know about this is that progress can happen slowly and then very, very quickly. Yes, I absolutely envision a future where we're having different arguments but not this one.

Kerry: Okay. Mark Harris, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Mark: Thanks for having me.

Kerry: We could have talked about this for a lot longer, and we'll do it again. Thanks again. That's All Of It. It's produced by Andrea Duncan-Mao, Kate Hinds, Jordan Lauf, Simon Close, Zack Gottehre-Cohen, L. Malik Anderson, and Luke Green. Our intern is Kat St. Martin. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Our engineer today, Juliana Fonda. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

[music]

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.