Taylor Swift Gives Moving Speech in Support of Pride Month

Taylor Swift is one month deep in her Reputation Stadium Tour, having hit Arizona, California, Washington and Colorado. This weekend, she made a two-night stop in Chicago at the famed Soldier Field, amassing crowds of up to 104,000. Saturday night, she made a moving speech in support of Pride month, speaking directly to her LGBTQ fans.

After moving through her recent smash hits, such as “…Ready For It,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” and oldies like “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me,” the 28-year old pop star decided to slow things down a bit. Before ascending in a glowing orb that traverses the stadium, she proclaimed, “It’s very brave to be vulnerable about your feelings in any situation, but it’s even more brave to be honest about your feelings and who you love when you know that it might be met with adversity from society.”

Referring to Pride Month, Swift added, “This month and every month I want to send my love and respect to everybody who has been brave enough to be honest about how they feel, to live their lives as they are, as they feel they should be, as they identify.”

“This is a month where I think we need to celebrate how far we’ve come, but I think we also need to acknowledge how far we have left to go,” the singer-songwriter insisted, elaborating, “I want to send my love and respect to everybody who hasn’t felt comfortable enough to come out yet … and may you do that on your own time and may we end up in a world where everyone can live and love equally and no one has to be afraid to all say how they feel.”

Nodding to the Reputation lullaby “Delicate,” which she performs each night floating above the crowd, she concluded, “When it comes to feelings and when it comes to love and searching for someone to spend your whole life with … it’s all just really, really delicate …. you know?”

Back in April, Swift voiced her support of lesbian singer Hayley Kiyoko, who accused music executives of homophobic bias after industry execs asked her, “You’re doing another music video about girls?” Kiyoko juxtaposed herself with Taylor Swift, noting, “Taylor Swift sings about men in every single song and video, and no one complains that she’s unoriginal.” 

Swift supported the artist, writing on her social media, “We should applaud artists who are brave enough to tell their honest romantic narrative through their art, and the fact is that I’ve never encountered homophobia and she has.” She added, “It’s her right to call out anyone who has double standards about gay vs straight love interests.”

The pop star has been significantly more vocal in issues of social justice within the last year, proving to her LGBTQ fans that she’s an ally and she’s here to stay.

The next leg of Taylor Swift’s tour will sweep through Europe. She’ll perform in Manchester, Dublin and London before returning to North America for the third leg of the Reputation Stadium Tour.