the thing is i think everyone has conveniently forgotten bettygate in 2020. maybe this is because we gave it a name that sounds unserious.
but bettygate, if you’ll give me a minute where you take the name seriously, began with popular anti-gaylor sentiment within the fandom after folklore (and specifically betty)’s release. gaylors were having a field day with taylor singing about kissing girls and the anti-gaylors were disgusted by it. so there were a slew of posts about how gross gaylors are and how much taylor likely hates them. keep in mind, some of the louder anti-gaylors here identified as queer.
in august of 2020, some gaylors received disturbing messages. i know where you live, your brother’s name is, this is the school you attend, this is where you work. all of these messages were with the explicit threat: i will tell them, whomever they are, that you are queer. some of the recipients of these messages were minors. ultimately, many people were doxxed. more than a few were outed. you are disgusting, the messages said. it sounds familiar.
you’ll remember there was a portion of queer swifties who were angry about gaylorism. as there is now. you’ll also note, though, that the sentence “ultimately many people were doxxed” does not specify gaylors. that is because what began as an attack against gaylors morphed into an attack against queer swifties.
you see, the stalkers couldn’t differentiate between the two - or perhaps they were never trying. they had seen the anti-gaylor hatred, but did they see who was saying it? did they assume all queer swifties are gaylors, or did they see this as an opportunity to dig queer people out of the fandom at the root? i don’t know.
what i do know is queer people suffered, gaylor or not. young people were outed to families, sometimes in a dangerous situation. many people disappeared from the internet and i can only hope they were and are safe. people’s jobs were threatened. in the end it did not matter whether they were pro or anti gaylor - queer people’s lives were ruined that day, and we’re all the worse for it. we might choose to be on different sides but homophobia does not care.
bettygate is not the only time gaylors have been doxxed. just in august a few twitter gaylors shared that their families were alerted that they’re queer, with the stalker(s) specifying that gaylors deserve it. many gaylors went private or deleted their accounts just in case. you might disagree with what they say, but a queer person being outed to their families is not warranted. your loud exclamations of disgust and hatred are heard. they may have consequences.
years ago, someone was posting something to the effect of “i’m gay and i think gaylors are disgusting” and i decided to, off-anon, send an ask explaining my take. a large part of it was the bettygate story. they replied publicly something like “you seem genuine and nice so i won’t block you. i’m happy for you or sorry that happened.”
and all i can think of when i think of bettygate is “yeah. you should be sorry. we should all be so sorry.”
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