Pride Month has been particularly eventful this year, and we’re only two weeks in. The queer community is rightfully tackling areas where we need improvement and addressing the unaddressed shortcomings of the system, as well as non-representative media, among other issues. Currently, the community is deliberating their feelings about queer people in media and changing their minds about their sexuality. It’s a complex and sensitive subject that has spawned numerous think pieces, hateful messages, and widespread confusion.
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The community hasn’t been too pleased with Jojo Siwa as she went from identifying as a lesbian to discovering her queerness as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother UK. To rub salt in the wound, Miley Cyrus poked fun at Siwa’s sexual identity shift during World Pride, and Siwa wasn’t too happy about her childhood idol’s joke.
The community is also not pleased with Giovanna Ramos, notably known as Gio, an internet influencer. Gio has identified as lesbian for a while. Still, she recently sent the internet into an uproar because it’s rumored she and Playboi Carti are dating after he took to the stage to call her his wife, and the two cemented the rumors with what appears to be a hard launch on Instagram. Many lesbians cited their frustrations with Gio for allegedly dating Playboi Carti because they felt it fed into the offensive, incorrect narrative that men can “turn” lesbians.
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We’re not able to make the judgment if the community is justified in being upset or not, but we can say understanding sexuality is tough. It’s a different experience to change labels privately among people you know versus being in the public eye and being openly judged during a vulnerable time.
Queer people deserve the right to explore, feel different labels, and express themselves. It’s more harmful to the community to expect queer people not to change labels and to shame them for being seen trying.
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