Latest / gasp! the pod / the history of queer flagging

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the history of queer flagging · gasp! the pod

0:00
To drop a house on somebody. And I guess it's gay folk speech
0:05
for getting even with like an offensive person, which I think
0:08
is so fucking funny that like in the 30s and 40s, they're like
0:12
drop a house on somebody and like that's them being like
0:16
bitch. Hello, all, and welcome to
0:30
another episode. Making sure my mic is on right
0:33
of gasp the pod. Thank you for joining me.
0:38
Again, just a reminder, I will have some guests on, but this is
0:43
a podcast that's like primarily us deep diving into like
0:48
specific topics. And today I'm extremely,
0:51
extremely excited. If you're not watching me on
0:53
video, I wanted to kind of put on like a scholarly outfit.
0:58
So I'm just wearing like, like a dress shirt.
1:03
But I was like, I'm very excited today 'cause I feel like we're
1:05
talking about some like more educational things besides like
1:09
Travis Kelsey being weird, you know?
1:12
So not weird. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that.
1:14
He's a nice lad as far as I know, but they're in a weird PR
1:21
relationship. But anyways, it's going to be
1:24
more of a scholarly history lesson today and our topic is
1:29
the history of queer flagging and queer coding, AKA gay's
1:33
secret language. This is one of my all time
1:37
favorite things to talk about with people and I think there's
1:41
just not a lot of information. Even me doing my research for
1:46
this episode, there's not like one body of of like central
1:52
information for this stuff, right?
1:55
Like queer history and like kind of like anything about, about
1:59
the LGBTQ community, It's there's not like a handbook,
2:03
right? So different people have
2:05
different things. A lot of this information is
2:07
just kind of passed down through generations.
2:09
But we also did lose a lot. It was unsafe to be queer up
2:15
until like, literally, I mean, it's still very unsafe to be
2:17
queer, but he was even more unsafe to be queer.
2:20
So a lot of this hasn't been written down.
2:22
People didn't wanna admit that they were queer people didn't.
2:27
You know, there's a lot of lost history.
2:30
But from what I did scrounge up, we're in for a tree.
2:34
There is so much on top tier. Like I could do so many more
2:38
episodes on this. So I'm just very excited to dig
2:40
into that today. You're seeing me live, well, not
2:44
live at all from New York City. I am in the Upper East Side.
2:49
Tonight is a Saturday night, and it is currently 10:00 PM on a
2:55
Saturday night. And what am I doing?
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I'm talking about the history of queer people because sometimes
3:01
I'm a nerd. But also I just want to talk
3:04
about my last night for a second.
3:06
You guys, I was supposed to have a hair appointment this morning.
3:13
My roots have grown out and it's so expensive to get, like, your
3:16
hair dyed. So I was like, finally found
3:20
this, like, discount code for this place.
3:23
And I was like, so excited to get it done.
3:25
And just like, get it lighter this morning.
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It was at 11:00 AM. You think that wouldn't be hard
3:30
to make, right? Last night, me and my friend
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Nicole. Nicole, if you're listening,
3:35
love you. We went out for some drinks and
3:38
some dinner. OK, you know when you're out
3:41
with your friend and you're just like, we're going to have
3:43
literally like 2-3 drinks with dinner, Like I'm not going to
3:47
get that drunk. I don't know why I mixed the
3:54
alcohol that I mixed together. I drank.
3:58
We started off with Aperol spritzes.
4:00
I took a little edible on the subway there.
4:03
So already off to a great start. So I thought then we get to the
4:07
restaurant, Oh my God, which by the way, for the Swifties that
4:11
are listening, which probably all of you, we went to this
4:16
restaurant Via Kuroda. I swear I won't be talking about
4:18
this for too long. Via Kuroda, which is this
4:21
Italian restaurant in the West Village.
4:24
And when I got there, I was like, this looks so familiar.
4:28
And my friend's also a Swifty. And Nicole was like, yeah, like,
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this is like one of Taylor Swift's favorite spots.
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And I was like, oh, my God, she's literally in New York
4:36
right now. Like, what are the odds she
4:38
comes in right now? But on top of that, she was, I
4:42
was like, wait, is this the place that Taylor and Sophie
4:46
Turner went to when Sophie Turner was going through a
4:49
divorce with, like, Joe Jonas? And like, Taylor pretty much,
4:53
like, let her stay at her penthouse.
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And she was like, yeah. And I was like, oh, my God,
4:57
We're sitting right. We're Taylor Swift.
4:58
And Sophie Turner ate dinner. It was just a magical
5:02
experience, but we yapped, yapped, yapped.
5:04
I had an espresso martini, then I had a glass of wine, then I
5:07
had another espresso martini. That's where it went downhill.
5:11
Then we went to another bar. I got a Cosmo.
5:14
Then we went to another bar and I don't even know what I got.
5:19
I got some like gin drink. So the combination of all these
5:23
things made me not feel too hot and like last night I literally
5:26
had the spins. I had to cancel my appointment.
5:28
It's just a very rough day. My girlfriend ordered me a
5:32
bagel, thank God. So all that to be said, finally
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I'm feeling a little bit better like 12 hours later. 24 hours
5:42
later and I'm staying in tonight because I cannot have another
5:47
sip of alcohol. However, I did take an edible
5:53
about 20 minutes ago, so you guys are going to see it live.
5:58
Hit me. The edible as we're talking,
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which I feel like is, you know, professionals would say not
6:05
would be would not be a great plan.
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I think it's a great plan because I'll get excited.
6:13
I will talk more and what else usually I do post tik Toks high.
6:20
I hope like my my parents are probably watching this.
6:23
That's OK. I do post some tik toks high,
6:27
but it's like that's kind of like when I'm scrolling on
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TikTok and I want to post something.
6:33
So anyways, just keep that in mind.
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If you're like, whoa, what's off with Haley this episode?
6:39
She's high last little thing before we literally got into my
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8 pages of notes that I wrote for this episode.
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I'm really excited. I have an on air sign behind me
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that I like forgot to put up last episode.
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I knew something was off. I was like, why does like my set
6:55
feel different right now? And then I was putting all my
6:58
things away and I saw this sign and I was like, Oh my God.
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So she's back. I kind of like it kind of looks
7:03
like bisexual colours, you know what I mean?
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OK. Oh also, little pumpkin candle,
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so cute. So those are the updates.
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That's my update. That's the set up date.
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Let's get into queer flagging. So First off, the main question
7:21
is why are we talking about this?
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Right? Well, First off, most people are
7:26
not aware of queer history, queer culture, queer language or
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meanings of queer symbols at all.
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And they're they heavily influence our art and the music
7:41
that we listen to and the films we watch every day.
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There is AI actually don't have a stop on this, but someone look
7:49
it up. I'll look it up at at some
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point. Queer people are often in the
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arts, right? That's why we all talk about all
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the gays in drama club and the gays in film and entertainment
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and media. Gays are in the arts a lot.
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We know that. And art is a huge platform in
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which queer language is spread through.
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And if you are any person walking around listening to
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music or like reading, you should know queer language and
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like, understand like the through lines of that and what a
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lot of this means and the history behind it.
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Because words are usually deeper than what like what we first
8:36
hear. Like there's your, there's
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usually a deeper meaning. Not all the time, but sometimes
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there is. And don't you wanna understand
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that? That's my pitch to straight
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people. I feel like there's no straight
8:46
people watching this. But if you are, that's some
8:49
reason to like learn about queer language and like queer history
8:53
and queer flagging 'cause it's, it really permeates the art we
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listen to. OK.
9:00
Also, queer language and queer symbols have also been straight
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washed in the meaning of a lot of these words and this code
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language used by the queer community for hundreds of years,
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I believe. And I see it all the time on the
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Internet and like reading and like just talking with people
9:22
that there's a lot of people that don't understand the
9:24
meaning of a lot of like queer code.
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And also the larger meaning is removed, I think under this
9:32
assumption that there's no need for queer code anymore.
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So therefore it's impossible that that's embedded in the art
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we see. I think there's a lot of
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straight people that forget that like homophobia really is still
9:51
still exists and is rampant and not just in like the Deep South
9:54
and in other countries. Like, I will still, me and my
9:57
girlfriend will still get many stairs walking on the street in
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New York City, OK, the most liberal place on the planet, and
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we're still getting gross stairs and people shouting at us.
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Like there's a safety like element that you have to think
10:14
about when you're when you're queer and you're visibly queer
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as well. I think there's a lot of
10:19
straight people that kind of forget about the homophobia and
10:21
also the need for queer coding. Like there's not a lot of times
10:24
where queer people want to be visibly queer all the time.
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And there's a lot of times in art where also, you know,
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there's a reason why maybe artists hide their identity and
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use queer code. They want to connect with their
10:37
queer audience and, like, have their LGBTQ fans kind of like,
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know that they are queer as well.
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Without, you know, I would argue like, losing millions of your
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fans. You can make a point to say, OK,
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well, isn't that just doing everything for the money?
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Like, yeah, but there are millions of people that would
11:01
stop listening to Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter,
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all of these rumoured queer artists if they were out and,
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like, loudly proud. You know, just because it's more
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socially and legally acceptable to be gay in like, an umbrella
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sense of the word doesn't mean flagging is not heavily used
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still. And I love the resurgence we're
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seeing of queer flagging through some of these, like pop stars.
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I talk about Taylor Swift a lot. But Sabrina Carpenter is also
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kind of taking a play out of her playbook.
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And I'll go through examples later in the episode.
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Let's talk about what queer flagging is getting in.
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Code is in pop culture, music and art, and literally occurs
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every single day. If you ever see a girl wearing
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carabiner on her belt, that's a queer flag.
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You know, like, that's her being like, I want to be visibly seen
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as queer. OK, so queer flagging.
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I got this offofthem.com. It's a system of coded messages
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signaling an individual's sexual proclivities.
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And when you look up the definition of flagging, there's
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queer flagging. There's a lot of different
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definitions that come up, and queer flagging originated in a
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very like in the way like history views it.
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It's like a very clear, very specific act.
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But queer flagging as a term can kind of be used to explain like
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queer code and queer language and this secret language that
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queer people have with each other that straight people are
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not tapped into. OK, so the original meaning is
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flagging. It's also known as the hanky
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code. This I actually didn't know
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before I did research of this episode.
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I've no idea why it's called hanky code, but hanky code was
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also like a way that people referred to queer flagging the
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way and I quote to wordlessly tell other people, other queer
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people your sexual preferences. It involves wearing different
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colors of bandanas that this is what I mean.
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Like where this is the very like original definition of what
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clear queer flagging is. Wearing different colors of
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bandanas in your pockets, left or right, respectively, to
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signal a top slash, bottom or bottom slash submissive roles to
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indicate different kinks, fantasies, other sexual
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interests, whatever the system originated in the 70s.
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Like of the very clear system in the 70s, a time when it was
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illegal, obviously, in most places to have queer sex like
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leather bars and BDSM spaces. Flagging is an iconic part of
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queer history that's alive and well to this day.
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So that's from them.com. Yeah.
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That's like a very accurate definition, but I also think is
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very specific and doesn't really take into account, like, so many
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other ways that people queer flag 'cause that's just in the
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very sexual nature of like, are you a top or bottom and not
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like, are you safe? Are you also queer?
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So queer flagging can, like, you can communicate if you're queer,
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what your identity is, if you're a top or bottom all through
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this, like language, right? Flagging's origins kind of our
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trace to the 1960s and 1970s when we actually see it in like
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language because state sodomy laws were introduced and they
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obviously criminalized queer sex and local laws banned cruising.
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Gay cruising, which is like now a term that I feel like is kind
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of like a pop culture like joke term was pretty much like for
14:43
used to kind of talk about gay men in like the 60s and 70s in
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these bars where they were. Or like just public spaces where
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they're trying to like find someone to hook up with or like
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find a romantic partner. And you had to like use queer
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flagging in order to let a potential partner know you're
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queer and what you're interested in and what not.
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In 1984, a legendary lesbian magazine on our backs included
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an adapted hanky coat for women. And these apparently have colors
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that said you're menstruating or you're a breast fondler.
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When I saw that, I was like, OK, and I guess the magazine sold
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silk hankies and 18 colors. Here's my thing with that is
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like, if you're a queer woman, like you're probably a breast
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fondler anyways, that's like the very specific, like flagging,
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putting like a handkerchief in your pocket.
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But when we talk about this word, it's kind of, you know, it
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can be expanded to a lot of different meanings.
15:53
I saw this. I think this was on them, that
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nails and nail Polish have also long been ways that lesbians and
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queer women have signaled to each other, especially amongst
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femmes who have experienced invisibility and erasure within
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the community. I didn't know that this had a
16:07
name to it, but you know when and we I also think about Taylor
16:12
Swift when I think about this. The femicure is what they call
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it. The femicure is, I guess, the
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informal name given to the queer manicure featuring long nails on
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every finger save for the middle and pointer finger for reasons
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we all know why. And there was, I think it was
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Taylor Swift's Oscars after party or like Golden Globes
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after party a few years ago. And there's a picture of her
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with long nails on one hand and the other hand short nails on
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her dominant hand. And I made a TikTok about it.
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I got like so much hate. But that's a very clear example
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of how queer women signal to each other.
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I'm like you. And especially for femmes, it's
16:57
very difficult to tell who's queerer.
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Like it's almost impossible. So you have half you want to
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flag. I mean, I see these videos all
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the time of, of queer women being like, how do I look more
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gay without sacrificing like how I want to present myself.
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I love having long nails. I don't always have long nails,
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but I like getting them done and it makes me feel more gay, which
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I think it's kind of ironic. It makes me feel very hyper
17:26
femme in a sapphic way, but I do feel like it makes me look
17:30
straighter to straight people if that makes sense.
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I like that they included this. Oh, this isn't Flare magazine?
17:36
Sorry. The early 2010's efforts were
17:39
made to combine manicures with the history of queer flagging
17:43
and also called called finger flagging involved painting one
17:48
or two nails a different color. So instead of like the longer
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nails having different colored nails.
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So this is all kind of examples of like modern day queer
17:57
flagging. I also was wondering like where
18:00
queer flagging like originated from.
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And as I was kind of saying earlier, it's kind of hard to
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like track down like written down history of this because,
18:12
you know, it was a crime. So people didn't want to write
18:14
down their crimes. I guess it looks like that what
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a lot of people are saying is that during the gold rush in the
18:21
19th century and like kind of around like San Francisco, men
18:27
would obviously went to go like get gold, whatever.
18:30
And it was mostly men out there, like women and children did not
18:33
usually kind of go to the gold rush towns, according to
18:36
historians. We know that gay relationships
18:39
were common if not outright accepted, which is so
18:41
interesting. We think of this like
18:43
hypermasculine environment that kind of like bred gay behavior.
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And some theorize that during square dances, when available,
18:51
men vastly outnumbered women. Men would wear blue bandanas to
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indicate they take the leading role, and then others would wear
18:59
red bandanas to show that like they would follow, they would be
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the bottom. So interesting, right?
19:06
I've never heard of that, but it kind of makes sense.
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Like, you need a way to kind of communicate this invisible trait
19:15
that you have without being caught by straight people.
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And I think, like, then it was, you know, obviously, like, you
19:24
don't want to be caught. And I think a lot of artists, a
19:28
lot of people use queer flagging now as not necessarily a way of
19:32
it being secret because you're afraid of being caught, but also
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wanting to connect with queer people without having to be
19:38
like, hey, are you queer? So then I wanted to get into the
19:41
modern examples of queer flagging in music, pop culture
19:44
and art, and also their original meanings behind it.
19:48
I'm gonna talk about like the most famous ones when we talk
19:51
about Gaylord Tiktok and Gaylor, if you haven't followed my last
19:57
two episodes, is the belief that Taylor Swift is gay in some way,
20:01
shape or form and a lot of Gaylor theories.
20:04
We talk a lot about the phrase friend of Dorothea or friend of
20:08
Dorothy. So this is probably one of the
20:11
most popular terms. As a like tool of queer code
20:18
throughout queer history, so common in like pop media and
20:23
movies about queer people. And, and it's just so obvious
20:27
that I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked seeing
20:30
people in the comments and in in on my Tik Toks and seeing people
20:35
kind of talk about this online and have no idea what this
20:39
phrase means and that it has anything to do with queer
20:42
people. And this is what I mean, where
20:45
it's like there needs to be education around queer culture
20:49
'cause this is, this is not an opinion.
20:51
This is a fact, right? The phrase friend of Dorothy is
20:54
a queer term. Inherently.
20:58
You can't strip the queerness away from that phrase.
21:00
So whenever that's used, it's inherently queer, and that's a
21:04
fact. But anyways, according to a
21:07
letter in 2001 from the Los Angeles Times, the source of
21:11
that phrase was Dorothy Parker, who lived from 1893 to 1967.
21:17
There's theories on like, where this originated.
21:20
This is 1 theory. And she was a witty member of
21:23
the Algonquin Algonquin Round Table who frequently invited gay
21:28
men to fashionable soirees during the 1920s and 1930s.
21:32
First of all, she sounds like a sleigh.
21:35
I love her. She sounds awesome.
21:37
I want to go to a soiree. But anyway.
21:39
So that's one theory that the term emerged from her being
21:43
like, are you a friend of Dorothy?
21:46
Let me backtrack a little bit. The phrase friend of Dorothy is
21:51
usually used in a question and the question being are you a
21:57
friend of Dorothy To ask if someone is gay.
22:00
It was a really really common term used in the 40s and 50s
22:04
especially and was used with gay men, gay women, ever and in
22:08
between. To ask if you were queer they
22:13
would say are you a friend of Dorothy?
22:15
So the question is who was Dorothy?
22:17
But also the explanation most people think is accurate is
22:23
Dorothy Gale, the lead character obviously played by Judy Garland
22:26
and the Wizard of Oz in 1939. This was like documented in a
22:32
lot of different queer articles. This is probably one of the most
22:34
heavily documented things kind of like about queer culture, but
22:39
a lot of the there's a lot of themes in The Wizard of Oz that
22:44
are very sapphic and and very queer and very gay and just
22:49
everything. This is from Daniel Harris's The
22:53
Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, but made this movie connect with
22:56
so many gay people and what made this term come about right.
23:01
There's the rainbow, the song somewhere over the rainbow,
23:04
which obviously the rainbow is the gay flag.
23:07
Her wish is that somewhere over the rainbow, the dreams that you
23:11
dare to dream really do come true quote and that obviously
23:16
really resonates with LGBT culture.
23:18
There's these common themes that queer people experience and when
23:23
you say it out loud, oh, anyone could experience that that's a
23:27
lot of people say those are things everyone experiences but
23:32
always if not always is experienced by a queer person.
23:37
These themes of feeling different from everyone else,
23:41
like hope for a future where you are accepted, right?
23:46
Being on the outside, being hidden, like covering up a mask,
23:52
masqueraded, being in the closet, like.
23:55
So these themes are very quintessentially queer.
23:59
And a lot of these themes occur in the movie.
24:03
The skipping down the yellow brick road while wearing Ruby
24:06
slippers is a part of Dorothy's dream.
24:09
And the song come out, come out wherever you are, where Glenn to
24:12
the good witch sings after Dorothy lands in Oz.
24:15
And that's kind of like come out of the closet, come out, come
24:18
out. Obviously there's like queer
24:21
jokes that's passed around, like the culture and I guess there
24:25
was like a huge queer joke that people that gay people would use
24:29
in the 1930s and the 1940s that would say like to drop a house
24:35
on somebody. And I guess that's gay folk
24:38
speech for getting even with like an offensive person, which
24:42
I think is so fucking funny that like in the 30s and 40s, they're
24:45
like drop a house on somebody and like that's them being like,
24:51
bitch, that's so funny. Like you read him.
24:54
But their version is like drop a house with somebody.
24:58
So obviously in the Wizard of Oz there's a house that's dropped
25:02
on bad witch. So that's pretty on the nose.
25:07
And then the character the Cowardly Lion was, I guess a lot
25:12
of people were like, he seems effeminate or stereotypically
25:16
gay. So that was a character that
25:18
like got gay people attached themselves with.
25:21
And that's kind of how the phrase, are you a friend of
25:23
Dorothy? The Lion was a friend of
25:25
Dorothy. So are you also a friend of
25:27
Dorothy? Are you gay?
25:28
The Cowardly Lion remarks, quotes any friend of Dorothy
25:32
must be our friend as well, love.
25:36
So that's kind of the whole Wizard of Oz lore and how these
25:41
certain pop and like art references and like pieces of
25:47
art have all of this queer language in it.
25:50
But to the straight people, there's nothing there.
25:53
It's just a line. It's just a house and it's just
25:56
a rainbow. And it's all these things that
25:58
independently don't really have any value to it to a straight
26:02
person, but to a gay person, it paints a whole picture.
26:07
And like, you can really connect with that as a queer person.
26:11
When I just think about this so much with Taylor Swift, Sabrina
26:15
Carpenter, Harry Styles, whether these pop icons have so many gay
26:21
Katy Perry, like have so many gay fans.
26:24
And it's not for no reason. It's because there's these queer
26:28
themes in it that to a straight eye would be nothing, but to a
26:32
gay eye is literally like gay culture.
26:35
I wanted to talk about some current pop culture references
26:39
of Friend of Dorothy. If you haven't listened to
26:42
Taylor Swift's song Dorothea, pretty interesting.
26:47
She doesn't know anyone named Dorothea and she has a mash up
26:50
of her song It's Nice to have a friend and she matches it up
26:55
with Dorothea and she sang this on the airs to her and she's
26:58
saying quote, it's nice to have Dorothea AKA like friends of
27:02
Dorothea. And this came after Gaylors, we
27:08
started calling ourselves Friends of Dorothea, and then
27:12
Taylor Swift pretty much confirmed that by singing a mash
27:14
up of it. So to straight people that's
27:17
like irrelevant and she's just mashing up two of her songs.
27:22
And to gay people, that is unequivocally her being gay,
27:28
right? Or at least knowing that.
27:30
And like leading gay people on, there's only those two choices.
27:34
Taylor Swift continuing with her.
27:36
Her Karma music video depicts her as Dorothy on a yellow brick
27:40
road. And also Taylor Swift's rumoured
27:43
ex Karlie Kloss dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween.
27:47
There's all of these Ruby red slippers references and Taylor's
27:51
work. Moving on to another reference.
27:53
Have you guys ever watched A League of Their Own?
27:57
It's ATV series about the first women's baseball team in like
28:02
the 1940s. It was also a movie, obvious if
28:05
you got. Obviously you guys have all seen
28:06
that, but they made it into a show and the show, Oh my God, I
28:14
cannot, I cannot stress this enough.
28:18
If you have, if you're going to listen to anything or watch
28:22
anything, please watch this show.
28:24
It is so well done. I think it's so amazing and
28:28
like, beautiful to see queer people in like 1940s clothing
28:35
and 'cause think about all the good baseball players were
28:39
lesbians back then. And it makes sense that the
28:43
entire team was made out of like lesbians and like seeing Butch
28:46
lesbians and seeing femme lesbians.
28:47
Like it's really, really just so well made.
28:51
But a lot of the characters in the show are gay and also gay in
28:54
real life. And they go to this gay bar,
28:57
which back then would not have been publicly a gay bar.
29:01
It would have been kind of like in Prohibition, like you're
29:04
going to this like secret room because you are illegal, which
29:09
is wild. These bars would ask you before
29:12
coming in, like are you a friend of Dorothy?
29:14
And in the show, 1 of the characters has no idea what he's
29:17
talking about. And so like, obviously it seems
29:20
like she's straight, but she's not.
29:22
She just doesn't know this lingo.
29:23
But like this is kind of how this how queer flagging was used
29:30
to keep people safe and this like secret language between
29:33
queer people that literally straight people didn't know.
29:36
So it makes sense why straight people don't know it now 'cause
29:40
this entire language was not to be known by straight people.
29:45
It's a secret code they quite literally were not taught.
29:50
But it's important if we want to be a society that like, accepts
29:53
and understands queer people now.
29:55
And like, if we don't want to be in a society where people are
29:57
still in the closet and acting like this, then we should all be
30:00
aware of like the influence that this has had, like on American
30:04
Society and like global society. A lot of these references are
30:08
American, so I apologize for the international listeners.
30:11
Elton John's famous song Goodbye Yellow Brick Road from 1973 also
30:17
obviously has like Wizard of Oz references with the yellow brick
30:20
road and like the queer themes in that song.
30:22
So that's another example of the Wizard of Oz and friend of
30:25
Dorothy. Let's move on to the phrase
30:29
dropping hairpins, all these different types of flagging.
30:32
Some are using phrases, some is like, some flagging is like
30:37
physically on your body. All of these things though, are
30:41
just systems of code. So either they're systems of
30:44
words or phrases, or they're systems of like colours, or
30:50
they're systems of like physical, like fashion, right?
30:55
Stuff like that. So anyways, this is another
30:58
phrase that is a queer flag dropping hairpins.
31:05
And what's so notable about this phrase is that it got a lot of
31:12
fame because after the Stonewall riots, there was kind of like
31:17
what's known as the most accurate account or like the
31:19
account of the Stonewall riots. It's entitled Hairpin Drop heard
31:23
around the world, written by Dick Leish that kind of took the
31:27
term and took it to a point of legitimacy where people are
31:31
tying that term with queer people, right?
31:36
For example, when Taylor Swift says dropping hairpins and
31:40
people say, oh, that has nothing to do with queer people.
31:44
It's like she performed at the Stonewall Inn.
31:47
She would know the Stonewall history and she would not use
31:52
that term in a straight way because it's like quite
31:55
literally the most famous account of Stonewall.
31:57
Dropping hairpins pretty much means to reveal 1's gay sexual
32:02
preferences by dropping broad hints and keeping your hairpins
32:09
up pretty much meant like to keep up a mask.
32:12
So if you're dropping your hairpins, you are being you're
32:17
using queer flagging in order to tell someone what your real
32:24
identity is. And if you're keeping your hair
32:27
up, you're keeping your mask on and also just kind of using that
32:31
phrase and of itself is also a queer flag.
32:34
So it's a queer flag to explain queer flag.
32:38
Also, I'm getting ahead of myself and my edible is hitting.
32:41
If it's not obvious, the phrase is used when one has made an
32:45
outright admission of homosexuality as well, which for
32:49
the gaylors listening, it's not just to signal that you're queer
32:55
that you might be queer. It is saying I am queer to if
32:59
you're dropping hairpins, it's pretty much saying you were
33:02
admitting to be homosexual. It's not that people would like
33:05
literally take hairpins out. It's just being like explaining
33:11
what happens when you're using code and you're kind of like
33:14
letting it out slowly into code that you are queer, that you're
33:18
like dropping hairpins. OK, 'cause I guess there's a lot
33:21
of people on the Internet that were very confused by that.
33:23
Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Brian Luscious, that was a very
33:28
niche reference. But if you follow Brian Luscious
33:30
on Tiktok, he's my bestie. I love it right where you left
33:35
me in Taylor Swift's song quote and I quote, I swear you could
33:41
hear a hairpin drop. Right when I felt the moment
33:44
stop, I swear you could hear a hairpin drop.
33:50
Got come on, That's so blatant. Glass shattered on the white
33:57
cloth. Everybody moved on.
33:58
Then she says I stayed there. Dust collected on my pinned up
34:02
hair. That's two references.
34:05
Remember from the definition, she looked up the definition of
34:07
hairpin drop and then wrote a song about it, 'cause it's quite
34:10
literally so clear, she says. Dust collected on my pinned up
34:15
hair in the definition. This it says quote keeping your
34:21
hairpins up is to maintain a normal mask.
34:24
Oh my God she's literally saying that I'm closeted and dust cut
34:29
has collected on this because I have not let my hair down
34:34
because I have not come out yet. I swear you could hear a hairpin
34:38
drop. When she says that, she's pretty
34:41
much saying like, I swear, you literally just came out to me
34:50
and then now we're going to move on.
34:52
Crazy. OK.
34:53
She also references hairpin in the Great War.
34:58
She says it turned into something bigger.
35:00
Somewhere in the haze. Got a sense I've been betrayed.
35:03
Your finger on my hairpin triggers.
35:05
I mean, guys, the amount of references to these niche, not
35:10
only nichely but irrefutably queer references in her songs.
35:16
And we know that she's like, well read, right?
35:19
She says to be the world's greatest ally.
35:22
It like if she's just an ally. So she knows this shit, She
35:26
knows what this means. And the queer people in her life
35:30
have if, if they haven't already have, and we have on the
35:35
Internet have noted that she's using this queer language and
35:40
she continues to do it. So if she is not queer, I think
35:43
that's fucking insane to do. And I don't, I really don't
35:47
believe a sane person would do that.
35:49
And I know she's insane. I don't think she's that insane.
35:52
OK, let's talk about queer flagging through dress and
35:55
outfits, because modern flagging today is not necessarily like
36:01
like anyone listening this. If you're really unfamiliar with
36:05
queer culture, I don't want you to think that you're gonna go on
36:07
the street and wear a certain color bandana.
36:09
People are gonna know what the fuck you are, right?
36:12
Queer flagging has warped and has changed throughout the
36:17
decades and like throughout like the queer movement.
36:20
So it's obviously gonna change based on the decade 'cause it's
36:23
like a part of that culture and like the culture of like the
36:28
2000 twenties, right? Oh my God, I can't believe it's
36:31
the two thousand 20s. I'm having a crisis right now.
36:36
I can't believe it's 2024. We're in the 20s moving on.
36:40
But the culture of today is the gay culture of today is going to
36:44
be different than the gay culture from 10 years ago,
36:47
right? So here's some things that I
36:51
wanted to talk about that are like also queer flags, queer
36:53
flagging. We do it all the time as queer
36:56
people on carabiners. I mentioned this before, but
37:00
carabiners are literally like if you are straight, I think that's
37:07
literally so insane if you wear a Caribbean.
37:09
I mean like I'm sure there's some like cool straight girls
37:12
that wear carabiners, but the carabiner is such a granola
37:16
sapphic lesbian like trope and also stereotype.
37:21
And so guys, I'm not coming from this just as like a professional
37:24
guy. I'm also coming as someone who
37:26
has a degree in gender sexuality studies and like how much it is
37:32
important for us to strip away the shame of saying that
37:38
something is gay. The only way we're going to move
37:41
forward as a culture is if we stop using the word gay as a
37:47
harmful thing. So if someone says that looks
37:49
gay as a carabiner, like that carabiner is gay, right?
37:55
It's not bad to say that. And if you genuinely think it's
37:58
bad to say that you are viewing the word gay is a harmful thing.
38:04
If you are queer and you that's harmful to you.
38:09
I think genuinely it's coming from a place of insecurity.
38:15
Like I remember when I didn't want to be viewed as gay, it
38:19
took me a lot of work to get through that and I didn't even
38:22
really realize how much I had internalized homophobia.
38:25
So really trying to unpack that. But you are straight and you
38:28
think saying something is gay is bad.
38:31
That is absolutely wrong. I won't even have a conversation
38:34
with you about it because you need to do research.
38:39
Like I'll have a conversation with you about it.
38:40
I will. But like the point is, is like
38:43
you can't have a different opinion, right?
38:45
Like straight, straight people don't get to set the narrative
38:49
around what is OK when talking about sexuality.
38:53
This is for gay people to set the tone on how we want like the
39:00
future to be right. Like we have to figure it out.
39:02
It what was I saying? See, this is what happens when I
39:05
take an animal carabiners. So what I was saying is that
39:09
it's normal to say that a carabiner is getting into
39:12
various, but it's associated with like masked lesbian, Butch
39:16
lesbians, like tops, whatever. And obviously like anyone who
39:21
can can wear a carabiner, like femmes, bottoms, whatever.
39:24
Anyone can wear a carabiner. But that's kind of like what
39:26
this is associated with, right? High femme outfits.
39:29
I love dressing high femme and only Saphix.
39:34
See, This is why it's a code, right?
39:36
Dressing high femme gets me more attention from men because men
39:41
associate and the patriarchy associates femininity with your
39:45
sexuality and who you are as a person.
39:50
Femininity in kind of like the lipstick lesbian community.
39:53
And I don't really like the term like lipstick lesbian.
39:55
I think it's reductive, but it's primarily like used for femmes
40:01
to express their queerness through their femininity.
40:06
And only people who are like immersed in lesbian culture and
40:11
sapphic culture can like see that and read that as gay.
40:15
Like I will see the most. Feminine looking women.
40:19
And I will say Sabrina Carpenter, you're so feminine.
40:21
It's like it's gay. It's like, I don't know how to
40:23
explain. It's not performative, but it's
40:25
high fem, right? So that's another example of
40:29
flagging through dress, gender bending, wearing something that
40:34
like, even if you aren't like non binary, wearing something
40:37
that is not like associated with your stereotypical gender dress,
40:43
not dress as like dress, but like your outfit, right.
40:46
So like that's also a code to to tell other gay people you were a
40:51
guy, right Jewelry. I also love the idea that like
40:56
and sometimes I do this to look gayer as a femme.
41:00
I like wear a lot of jewelry, like there's something witchy
41:05
and sapphic about that. And then also of course,
41:08
flagging through the literal different pride flags, right?
41:12
So like wearing a colored shirt that's like blue, purple and
41:18
pink as a bye girl, like that's so gay.
41:24
And I would know that gay people would know that I'm bi, right?
41:27
Tattoos of the flag, like tattoos of like frogs, like
41:32
queer women know that frogs are gay.
41:36
And I sound literally like that crazy conservative that's like
41:41
you're turning the frogs gay. But frogs are gay not because
41:46
they're like the actual frogs are gay, but like frog imagery
41:50
for some reason is so lesbian. I don't know how to explain it.
41:52
But like lesbians know that frogs are gay and normal
41:55
straight people will be like, what do you mean?
41:57
Right, Because it it's tied with the culture of our current
42:01
decade and like the, the culture of our collective humor in this
42:06
moment as like sapphics in 2024. You know what I mean?
42:10
So that's like gay code. I think Billy, we should have a
42:16
whole episode on Billy Eilish, I think honestly and her queer
42:19
coming out and everything about it.
42:21
But she has a quote from like I think this year when she came
42:24
out and she said, I thought I made it obvious she was known
42:29
for wearing baggy masculine mask clothes.
42:33
Like, let's be real, she looks like a mask lesbian.
42:38
And there were so many queer people that were saying this,
42:42
like, is she gay? She looks gay.
42:45
And so many straight people thinking that they were coming
42:49
to Billie Eilish's defense. And let's remember straight
42:53
people, you don't need to protect gay people from gay
42:58
people, OK? So you don't need to help us
43:02
from us, the gay person having issue with all of the other gay
43:07
people, it's probably you. So anyways, or we just need to
43:13
work through that. And like, I've been there.
43:15
I get it. It is not wrong to think someone
43:18
is gay and to say that she looks masked.
43:21
And then she came out and she was like, you guys should have
43:24
thought I was gay. And the gay people are like,
43:27
exactly. And also it's proving the point
43:30
of like, she doesn't care that gay people thought she was gay.
43:33
That's why she dressed that way to make it obvious.
43:38
I digress. Flagging through colours of the
43:41
pride flag. Harry Styles performed and sang
43:46
with a pride flag. He's gay.
43:49
OK yes he could have been an ally, but it's fair to assume
43:56
he's bi from that right? Album covers and themes
44:00
dedicated to the colours of a flag.
44:02
Like Taylor Swift's Lover album is literally pink, purple and
44:06
blue. That's queer flagging, flagging
44:10
through themes of isolation, coming out, being closeted and
44:13
being different. So this is what I was saying.
44:16
Kind of like about like Elton John and stuff.
44:19
But these themes that technically everyone
44:22
experiences, right are very specific to the experience of
44:28
gay people. And by the way guys, when I say
44:30
gay, I don't mean gay men and I don't even mean 100% gay people.
44:35
I use gay always. I always use this as an umbrella
44:39
term to mean like you. Even 1% of you is attracted to
44:44
the same gender, same sex, part of you is gay, then you are gay.
44:49
Emotions almost every queer person experiences.
44:53
These are used through songs, art and like poetry.
45:00
And that's also a way of queer flagging.
45:03
So I use these examples. Taylor Swift singing about
45:05
quote, pull you into the closet and I'm going to get you back
45:08
and quote closets like Cedar and Peter.
45:13
She's talking about being closeted.
45:15
Like that's queer flagging Shelley Wright, which if the if
45:20
the like deep gaylors know Shelley Wright is like deep
45:26
Gaylord lore. We can get into that.
45:28
But pretty much Shelley Wright came out and she worked a lot
45:30
with Taylor Swift early in her career.
45:32
Shelley Wright wrote quote, I can't walk straight.
45:35
I can't talk straight. OK, that's good.
45:37
Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees. I found this out today when
45:40
doing research for this up Tyler, who I honestly got got
45:45
honestly, I did not know his name.
45:49
He's the lead singer from Neon Trees.
45:50
He sings, everybody talks. Apparently he's gay with love
45:56
and the song he wrote it to talk about rumors of him being gay,
46:02
which I love. Like this idea of like people
46:05
talking rumors about you. Another example, George Michael
46:09
and anything he writes ever is very much like you gotta have
46:13
faith and you got to push through all the hard times of
46:17
it's so hard. It's so hard to be me.
46:18
It's like you're gay artists singing you or we instead of he
46:24
or she. Flagging through a lack of
46:28
pronouns is a huge thing used in like music and art, and I don't
46:33
really think we talk about that enough.
46:35
And like we need to remember, like using queer flagging or
46:38
accidentally using queer flagging is not necessarily
46:42
saying you are gay, right? Like just because you are
46:47
singing a song without like using he or she doesn't mean and
46:51
you're just saying you doesn't mean you are gay or doing
46:55
something wrong. The point is that like all of
46:57
these things together are used to signal to queer people with
47:01
this system and all these systems and all these clues that
47:04
you are like them. So George Michael singing a
47:08
bunch of these songs like you, you, you and us, and never like
47:13
she, she, she, you're a woman. And Taylor Swift saying you,
47:17
you, you, you, me, and also changing up the pronouns and
47:21
being like he wants this from you.
47:22
So I like that's signaling with the ambiguousness and big
47:29
ambiguity with the ambiguity of who the muse is, is also a huge
47:36
queer flag and has been used through decades, if not hundreds
47:39
of years of art and poetry. So in conclusion, I'm very high
47:47
and I hope you learned something today 'cause I literally did.
47:52
Like, so there was so much I learned having a degree in
47:57
gender sexuality studies, but there's so many things that
48:01
like, like there's so much queer history and there's so much to
48:06
pull from. There's so much to learn about
48:08
and it's just so interesting. And I wish everyone like learned
48:12
stuff like this. Like this is historical culture
48:16
and it's not really well documented.
48:18
So someone needs to fix that, but it's not going to be me.
48:22
Should, does it have to be me? I can't do that this decade.
48:28
That's the end of this episode. Thanks for tuning in.
48:32
I wish I could say I'm going to go to sleep but I have to fold
48:36
on my laundry, take this equipment down and take a shower
48:39
and pack. So I'm going to go see my
48:43
girlfriend tomorrow. Love you guys.
48:46
Thank you so much for listening and please please, please
48:50
subscribe. But actually though, because I
48:53
would love to keep doing this but I've had if I have 0
48:55
subscribers, I can't do it for long.
48:59
OK. Love you guys.