shades fills you in

Evie Magazine explains: Some fans have used song lyrics, social media posts, and other hints to support their theory that Taylor Swift is secretly gay. That theory is called “Gaylor”

For a sense of scale, the r/GaylorSwift subreddit has more than 19,000 members -- check it out here

Vox says part of the theory’s enduring appeal is Taylor’s obsession with hiding Easter eggs in her songs and music videos. Her fans love sleuthing, and she encourages it

For example, many thought the song “Lavender Haze” was Taylor coming out -- only for her to clarify it actually about her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. Gaylor theorists were pretty upset, reports Gawker

Vogue isn’t a fan of Gaylor or really any of the speculation around Taylor’s personal life -- it’s weird and misses the point of her art. Let’s put it to rest

This Daily Tar Heel Op also doesn’t like it: This obsession with turning Taylor into a queer icon ignores all the actual queer artists making music today

Ok, ok, but not all “Gaylors” are nutty, says Xtra Magazine. Some of us don’t care at all about Taylor’s real-life relationships --it’s an academic, literary quest for queer subtext

Rolling Stone agrees Gaylor may be weird, but it’s not some completely bizarre fringe theory -- it’s a natural consequence of how Taylor and her fanbase interact. Taylor encourages the speculation

And BuzzFeed adds that it taps into an historical queer impulse: Trying to decode subtle nonverbal hints and cues to figure out whether someone is or isn’t gay

And just for the record: Taylor said in a 2019 Vogue interview that she is “not a part of” the LGBTQ community