Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

About a year ago, I had a Taylor Swift conversion experience.  I had always been vaguely aware of her music, vaguely aware of her, but as a Gen Xer, I was somewhat outside of her fan demographic.  That changed: in early 2024, I acquired all Swift’s music at once, devouring it in one huge gulp, and had only begun to absorb it when the Tortured Poets Department dropped, and suddenly, there were another thirty-one songs to digest.

Along with the delight of discovering wonderful music that everyone had already known about for years, there was the fun of delving into Swiftie fandom, even if this mostly consisted of reading the Wikipedia summaries of her albums and binge-watching scores of YouTube videos.

I came across the Gaylor theory almost right away, particularly reactions to a controversial op-ed piece in the New York Times [1] speculating about Swift’s sexuality [2].  I will admit to an initial reaction of befuddled disbelief.  Then I reconsidered.  I’ve been involved in a number of fandoms over the decades, some very intensely, others at more of a remove, and I’ve yet to encounter one that didn’t include some element of slash (same-sex relationships)—not only in fandoms based around fictitious media, but in real-person fandoms as well.  Given the pervasiveness of e.g., slash fanfic, I would honestly be more surprised if Gaylor didn’t exist.

Anyone spending time down this particular rabbit hole will find compelling arguments both for [3] and against [4] Gaylor theory.  Like all good art, Swift’s work can be examined from a variety of angles, and an LGBTQ interpretation is as valid as any other—regardless of whether one believes Swift self-identifies as LGBTQ [5].  Despite Swift’s public relationships with men, Gaylor theorists point to a multitude of places where the singer appears to be indicating an LGBTQ identity (e.g., allowing her song “Ivy” to be used in the end credits following a sapphic love scene in the TV series Dickinson) [6].  On the other hand, cogent arguments can be made for a heterosexual identity (e.g., Swift’s songs involving themes of forbidden love, secretive romance, and infidelity stem from the years of her infatuation with musician Matty Healy [7], especially during the time when her relationship with actor Joe Alwyn was breaking down [8]).

Putting Gaylor theory on trial and marshaling evidence either for or against it would be exhausting and time-consuming, well beyond the scope of this essay, and indeed, it would be unlikely to persuade fans on either side of the debate.  Instead, my aim here is to drill down into one intriguing data point.

Proponents of Gaylor theory seem to have collectively overlooked an extraordinary song in Swift’s repertoire.  “Tolerate It,” from the album evermore, is narrated from the perspective of a young woman in a relationship with an older man and uncertain of his true feelings for her.  Swift was inspired to write the song after reading Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca (1938) during COVID-19 quarantine in 2020 [9]. 

A cursory Google search doesn’t yield much—“Tolerate It” is included on some fan lists of Swift’s “most queer” songs [10], mainly speculating that the song is about an LGBTQ child seeking approval from a parent [11] or parental figure.  However, the first verse includes the line, “I wake and watch you breathing with your eyes closed,” suggesting a romantic rather than familial relationship.  Other interpretations lean more toward the song being about an abusive relationship [12].

It’s remarkable that there hasn’t been a more extensive Gaylor analysis of this song, the novel it is based on, its author’s ambiguous sexual self-conception [13], and the role of sexuality and gender in her body of work.  Du Maurier’s novel provides fertile terrain for a queer interpretation [14], yet even the most ardent Gaylor theorists have barely scratched its surface.

Rebecca was du Maurier’s fifth novel, which she wrote while her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Browning, was stationed in Alexandria, Egypt [15] in 1937.  Bored and unhappy, longing for the cool, green peace of Cornwall, du Maurier crafted a novel set in a fictitious country estate, Manderley, narrated from the first-person perspective of an unnamed young woman working in Monte Carlo, who meets and marries Maxim de Winter, a mysterious widower twice her age.  From the very beginning, the narrator is stricken with the belief that de Winter is still in love with his late wife, Rebecca, and after the couple returns to England this belief metastasizes into an obsession, fueled by the machinations of the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.  Three-quarters of the way through the novel, a startling revelation shatters the narrator’s beliefs and takes the story in an unexpected direction.  Rebecca often is described as a romance, or a Gothic romance, but du Maurier herself described it as a story about jealousy [16].

“Tolerate It” describes the narrator’s mindset early in the novel, and the song is sprinkled with specific textual references.  The narrator sketches Maxim’s portrait; she hides behind doors in her own home; she feels like her husband is so much “older and wiser,” while she herself is “just a kid.”  There are references to polished silver and tables laid with “the fancy sh**.”  Above all, there is a sense of the narrator obsessively watching her husband: while he’s awake, while he’s asleep, while he’s reading, watching everything he does and doesn’t do, fretting over everything he says or doesn’t say.  Like the young Mrs. de Winter, Swift’s narrator doesn’t feel loved or appreciated, merely tolerated.  There are no mentions of the mansion, the dead first wife, the sinister housekeeper, or young Mrs. de Winter’s overall sense of inadequacy.  Instead, Swift hyper-focuses on the narrator’s mindset, her unshakable conviction that her husband doesn’t truly love her. 

Much has been written about the arguably queer themes in Rebecca [17], particularly in light of du Maurier’s own ambiguous sexuality [18].  Although married to a man and the mother of three children, du Maurier sometimes described herself as “a boy in a box [19].”  As a child, she and her sisters engaged in much imaginative play-acting (their father, Gerald du Maurier, was an actor and theater manager; their mother Muriel Beaumont was an actress; the family were friends of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie), during which young Daphne would take the male roles [15].  She even invented a masculine alter-ego for herself, Eric Avon [15], when acting out these fantasies.  Du Maurier openly discussed her “Venetian tendances [18],” and she became close friends with Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher, and actress Gertrude Lawrence; she is believed to have been in love with both women [20].

Du Maurier’s novels are notable for their frequent explorations and subversion of gender.  Boyishness is associated with freedom: Jamaica Inn’s Mary Yellan wishes she had been a boy and ultimately runs away with scofflaw Jem Merlyn rather than return to the domesticity of her home village.  Dona, the heroine of Frenchman’s Creek, disguises herself as a lad and joins a band of pirates, even referring to herself as “the new cabin-boy.”  In The Parasites, budding actress Maria Delaney eschews a girl's dress for a page-boy's costume.  Masculinity is tacitly presented as superior to femininity in any number of du Maurier's works, e.g., Sophie, the heroine of The Glass-Blowers, laments that her revolutionary sister, Edmé, had not been born a man.  Four of Du Maurier’s novels and many of her short stories are narrated from the perspective of a male character, including “The Birds,” "Monte Verità," My Cousin Rachel, and The House on the Strand.

In Rebecca, these themes are no mere subtext, but at the forefront of the story, embodied particularly in the character of Mrs. Danvers, about whom there is a canonical queer reading [21].  The housekeeper is described in the novel as having been “devoted” to her late mistress, but a convincing argument can be made that Mrs. Danvers was in love—or at least sexually obsessed—with Rebecca.  Indeed, this seems obvious.  In one of the novel’s most skin-crawling scenes, Mrs. Danvers takes the terrified young heroine on a tour of Rebecca’s room, which she keeps as a shrine to the dead woman, a feminine boudoir described as “the most beautiful room in the house.”  Mrs. Danvers shows the narrator Rebecca’s intimate belongings: her bed, her dressing gown and slippers, her nightgown, even her underwear.  One striking detail the reader learns is that after Rebecca’s death, Mrs. Danvers had never laundered Rebecca’s nightgown, so that the scent of her distinctive azalea perfume was still on it.  Later in the novel, Mrs. Danvers reveals that Rebecca had been serially unfaithful to Maxim, and that upon returning home from her sojourns to London, Rebecca would give Mrs. Danvers a detailed account of these trysts, “what [her lovers] had said, and what they’d done.” 

Rebecca’s character also possesses an intriguing duality.  Although an exemplar of traditional femininity—she is described as beautiful, stylish, well-dressed, and an accomplished hostess, the perfect chatelaine of the country manor, Rebecca also exhibits any number of masculine qualities.  She is an expert horsewoman and sailor; she makes models of boats; she planned the gardens around Manderley.  Mrs. Danvers describes her as physically strong and domineering, revealing an anecdote of how she brutalized a horse when she was sixteen.  Even the prophetically-named Je Reviens is masculine-coded, a converted Breton fishing boat, which Rebecca sails with great competence. 

Further, Mrs. Danvers laments that Rebecca was born in a female body.  “She had all the courage and the spirit of a boy.  She ought to have been a boy, I often told her that.”  In turn, Rebecca gave her maid a playful boyish nickname: Danny.  In the pivotal confession scene, de Winter says that Rebecca, “looked like a boy… a boy with a face like a Botticelli angel.”  Earlier in the same scene, the narrator had told de Winter, “I don’t want you to love me…. I’ll be your friend and companion, a sort of boy.”

The novel also hints that Rebecca possibly had a queer identity; in the confession scene, Maxim says of his dead wife, “She was not even normal,” and that during their honeymoon, she had told him, “…things about herself, told me things I shall never repeat to a living soul.”  Late in the novel, in a confrontation with Rebecca’s ne’er-do-well cousin, Jack Favell, Mrs. Danvers corroborates this, telling Favell that Rebecca had not been in love with him.  “She was not in love with you, or with Mr. de Winter….  She despised all men.  She was above all that.”  As if to underscore Rebecca’s “unnatural” personality, the interview with Doctor Baker in the penultimate chapter reveals that Rebecca had been dying of a cancer in her “malformed” uterus.  She would never have been able to bear children, metaphorically stripping her of femininity, of womanliness, rendering her sexless—neuter and barren.

Given this extraordinary trove of potential for sapphic interpretation and gender-role subversion, it’s fascinating that Taylor Swift, in writing “Tolerate It,” chose to focus on the heterosexual marriage between the novel’s lead characters.  While this should not be construed as proof-positive of Swift’s own sexual identity, it nevertheless offers a revealing window into her creative thought processes.  Gaylor theorists have identified purportedly lesbian influences in Swift’s songwriting and stage performances [22], yet none have offered a plausible rationale for why this seeming motherlode of sapphic potential went untapped.

Among possible reasons frequently cited as to why Swift hasn’t openly come out is speculation that she is prohibited from this by her management team or record label [23], and Gaylor theorists likely would present this as an explanation for why she wrote “Tolerate It” about a heterosexual marriage instead of a relationship between two women.  However, this argument doesn’t really track with Swift’s extraordinarily high degree of creative control.  When she switched labels in 2018, she negotiated a deal with Republic Records that gave her “100% creative freedom [24].”  When the master recordings of her first six albums were sold, she responded by re-recording four of those albums, and in 2025, she finally was able to buy back the master recordings [25].  It’s difficult to imagine such a determined businesswoman accepting any record label contract that would set Puritanical restrictions on her personal life.

More tellingly, Swift has already included openly LGBTQ lyrics in her songs (“boys and boys and girls and girls” from 1989’s “Welcome to New York;” “shade never made anybody less gay,” from Lover’s “You Need to Calm Down”), and she has made no secret of her LGBTQ allyship.  In this light, why would she balk at basing a song around the queer subtext in Rebecca?  In addition, Swift is a consummately skilled lyricist who surely could have written a gender-nonspecific song about loss and grief, told from the perspective of a narrator who maintains their beloved’s possessions as a shrine to their memory.  Indeed, the album folklore includes the song “My Tears Ricochet,” widely believed to be about record label executive Scott Borchetta [26], in which Swift sings from the perspective of a ghost attending her own funeral.  Had Swift wanted to write about the relationship between Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca, there are any number of metaphors she could have employed to obfuscate the sapphic details.

An argument can be made that the queer themes in Rebecca have been overlooked because Swift’s core fan base is too young to have much interest in a novel published in 1938.  However, Rebecca is anything but obscure.  It has never been out of print since its initial publication; dozens of editions have been published; the book has been translated into a multitude of languages; it is regularly cited as one of the best and most influential novels of the twentieth century.  The novel has been adapted for the screen four times, including the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock adaptation, which won the Oscar for Best Picture.  A more modernized version of the story aired on Netflix in October 2020, two months before the release of evermore.  The notion that Swift’s fans would never have heard of Rebecca seems unlikely.

Swift’s fans are, moreover, remarkably literate and well-versed in the minutiae of her influences, known for obsessively working to decode the “Easter Eggs” Swift employs to tease upcoming projects.  Swift herself stated in an interview that “Tolerate It” was based on Rebecca.  Finally, her fanbase includes devotees across all age ranges; for example, “Fearless Senior Swifties” is a Facebook group for fans age 55 and over, at least some of whom must be familiar with du Maurier’s body of work.

An interesting contrast can be found in one fan’s interpretation of the song “Carolina,” which Swift wrote for the soundtrack to the movie Where the Crawdads Sing (2022).  This podcaster even described the song as “the most slept-on piece of Gaylor evidence [27],” even though the movie is based on a novel about a reclusive young woman and her relationships with two men.  “Carolina” includes specific references to the events of the story, and although its atmosphere is eerie and haunting, nothing in the song could accurately be described as sapphic.  The song’s title is taken from the story’s setting (North Carolina), which Swift personifies as an omnipotent entity who knows all the narrator’s secrets.  It’s remarkable that a fan could see lesbian content in a song where virtually none exists, while overlooking a song based on a novel fairly bursting with sapphic subtext.

Of course, the possibility remains that Swift herself read Rebecca but did no further exploration, either into critical analyses of the novel, du Maurier’s other works, or the author’s biography, and was therefore unaware of du Maurier’s ambiguous sexual self-identity.  However, if Swift is—as Gaylor theorists assert—highly attuned to lesbian art and culture [22], if she considers herself a member of the LGBTQ community, would she not recognize and identify with the queer themes in Rebecca and use that content in the creation of her own work?  If a convincing argument exists for why Swift overlooked this wealth of lesbian potential, I have yet to find it.

Moreover, many Gaylor theorists assert that Swift’s romances with men are fake, either beards or PR relationships [28].  One key aspect of the plot in du Maurier’s novel is the “farce” of a marriage between Maxim and Rebecca, where they pretended to be loving and devoted, although they in truth loathed each other.  If Swift’s heterosexual relationships are also only for show, would she not have identified with this element and incorporated it into “Tolerate It?”

To conclude, I believe the strongest probability is that even if Swift recognized the sapphic themes in Rebecca, she nevertheless found these less compelling than young Mrs. de Winter’s obsessive brooding over whether Maxim loved her.  Given what’s generally known about the timeline of the dissolution of Swift’s relationship with Joe Alwyn [29], it’s perhaps not surprising that she identified most with this aspect of the novel.  At a time when Swift herself was experiencing romantic turmoil and doubting her partner’s love, Mrs. de Winter’s anxiety spoke to her with greater force than Mrs. Danvers’s fanatical devotion to Rebecca.

The dearth of Gaylor analysis of “Tolerate It,” the lack of questioning why Swift didn’t write this song from a sapphic angle, suggests that fans familiar with queer analyses of du Maurier’s work possibly chose to ignore this song because they couldn’t square the circle—they couldn’t reconcile their belief in a gay Taylor Swift with her heteronormative interpretation of the novel.  “Tolerate It” is the Gaylor dog that didn’t bark.

~Continued in Next Section~

Chapter Text

“So High School”

On August 13, Taylor Swift was a guest on Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast [30], where she announced the release of her twelfth studio album, Life of a Showgirl, and talked for two hours about the new album, the Eras Tour, buying back the rights to her master recordings, and any number of other topics.  In a very unusual move for Swift, she and Travis Kelce also talked openly about their initial meeting, courtship, and subsequent romance.  Two weeks later, on August 26, the pair announced their engagement on Instagram [31].

While some Gaylor theorists congratulated Swift on her engagement and wished the couple well [32], others doubled down on their insistence that the relationship is “lavender” and a PR stunt [33], even suggesting that Travis Kelce is also gay and that his relationship with Swift is a mutual bearding arrangement [28, 34].  Some theorists have embraced the belief that Swift is "doing a performance" of her own life, which they refer to as "performance artlor [42]," citing perceived parallels with the fictional novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo as further evidence of Swift's queer sexual identity.

Perhaps most far-fetched is the assertion that Swift completely lacks agency, that she is in essence a prisoner: of her father, of her record company, of her PR team, any or all of whom forced her into the relationship with Kelce.  Another Gaylor line of argumentation holds that Swift must maintain a conservative public image to appease fans from her country music days [35]; Gaylor theorists continually raise the specter of lesbian artist Chely Wright, who spoke about the difficulties of coming out as queer in the country music industry.

None of this speculation tracks with reality.  Swift is well-known for her high degree of control over her professional life [24, 25].  Moreover, she is a billionaire who owns multiple properties and a private jet; she is a fully emancipated, financially independent adult, not a teenager under the jurisdiction of parents who might disown her if she revealed an LGBTQ identity.  Some Gaylor theorists go so far as to cite the infamous Hays Code as a reason for why Swift has not publicly come out—enforcement of the Hays Code ceased in 1968 [36]—21 years before Swift was born, and 38 years before she released her first album.

Swift’s wealth and enduring popularity provide her with resources unavailable to many other artists.  If her record company, for example, threatened to cancel her contract if she came out as gay, Swift would almost certainly respond by establishing her own record label.  Indeed, other artists have done this as a means of asserting artistic control over their work [37].  E.g., in 1989, Peter Gabriel established Real World Records and the Real World recording studio [38].  It’s entirely possible that Swift, with far greater capital at her disposal, would make a similar move—and founding a record label might well be one of her ambitions for the future.

While some fans might reject Swift if she came out publicly, it’s probable that a majority would still support her, and she might gain new acolytes as well.  Although it is naïve to think she wouldn’t face some degree of negative fallout, her money and immense fan base would likely insulate her from the worst impacts.  More to the point, Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X, and Lady Gaga—to name just a few [39]—have all publicly declared LGBTQ identities and nevertheless are mainstream popular artists who enjoy tremendous commercial success.  At this moment in time, it’s difficult to imagine Swift ever fading into niche obscurity; indeed, given her history with past scandals and conflicts (e.g. “Snakegate” [40]), it seems more likely that she would incorporate her new identity into her brand and turn it to her advantage.  Considering her generally forceful public persona, there’s little chance that a gay Taylor Swift would not be loud and proud about her sexual identity.

Gaylor theorists also frequently cite Swift’s history of lying, describing her as an “unreliable narrator [41],” an article of faith which then becomes a foundation for the assertion that Swift therefore must also be lying about her heterosexual identity.  Obviously Swift sometimes elides the truth in her writing and shrouds some of her creative output in veils of mystery, but a world of difference exists between crafting ambiguous lyrics (e.g., switching between “he/him” and “you” pronouns within the same song) and brazenly “staging” an engagement to one of the most successful professional athletes in the United States.  Another question to consider is what scenario would be more likely to damage Swift’s reputation: a revelation of an honest LGBTQ identity, or a revelation that a very public romantic relationship of two years is nothing more than an elaborate puppet show?

And for all the assertions that the Swift-Kelce romance is so much play-acting, and that Swift herself is gay, no Gaylor theorist has (as of this writing) offered a plausible explanation for why Swift interpreted a subtext-laden novel like Rebecca from a heterosexual perspective.

~Continue to Next Section for References~

Chapter Text

1  “Look what we made Taylor Swift do” (New York Times), by Anna Marks, January 4, 2024.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/opinion/taylor-swift-queer.html

2  “Is Taylor Swift Gay?” (Powered by Rainbows), October 21, 2022.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBtjqjetGM&t=301s

3  “Taylor Swift Loves Women.  And it Matters” (Aerin Moriarty), October 20, 2023.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3M0nfFSiwI&t=233s

4  “Gaylor Theory” (IndigoF), November 18, 2024.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elERo082bzc&t=1611s

5  “Young Adult (2011) with Phil Iscove” (Late to the Party with Nikki & Bri podcast), November 22, 2023.  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/young-adult-2011-with-phil-iscove/id1593848890?i=1000633432220.  Discussion of Taylor Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce and Gaylor is from 39:18 – 43:03, and the Gaylor clip on its own is: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Yr4ZGoM4i-8 .

6  “Taylor Swift approved the use of her song Ivy for end credits of most recent Dickinson episode 33483” (Channel Star), December 21, 2021.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muv3I_pce7I

7  “Deep Dive: The Shocking Timeline of Taylor Swift & Matty Healy” (Swiftologist), June 2, 2024.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l6mSqUIGus&t=1962s

8  “Taylor Swift Historians Decode the Joe Alwyn Breakup Era” (Swiftologist), July 24, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1FGkdk9SI

9  “Midnights: What we Know about Taylor Swift’s Songwriting” (BBC), by Mark Savage, October 19, 2022.  https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63233361

10  “31 Taylor Swift songs, interpreted from a queer perspective” (forevermore;), September 11, 2022.  https://iwanthermidnightz.tumblr.com/post/695122230506635264/31-taylor-swift-songs-interpreted-from-a-queer

11  “Sapphic Themes in evermore” (Sapphic Underground), January 21, 2021.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVA3bMqgEdc

12  “TW: Taylor Swift’s ‘Tolerate It’: A Fan Theory” (Edmonton Scene), April 27, 2021.  https://www.edmontonscene.com/2021/04/27/tw-taylor-swifts-tolerate-it-a-fan-theory/

13  “Life Was Sometimes Lovely and Sometimes Rather Sad: Du Maurier Reconsidered,” (Los Angeles Review of Books) by Alix Ohlin, June 21, 2012.  https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/life-was-sometimes-lovely-and-sometimes-rather-sad-du-maurier-reconsidered/

14  “The Queer Sensibilities of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca” (Medium), by Jack Reid, October 29, 2023.  https://medium.com/@reidjack02/the-queer-sensibilities-of-daphne-du-mauriers-rebecca-f1e256650ff8

15  Daphne du Maurier at Home, Hilary Macaskill, Frances Lincoln Limited Publishers, 2013.

16  “Who Really Inspired Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca?” (Vanity Fair), by Rosemary Counter, October 19, 2020.  https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/rebecca-daphne-du-maurier-movie-netflix-inspiration?srsltid=AfmBOooOB1KNS-kuCNBS4akl3hvw33k8Qsia0_J2a7_ssi5RqYvDRf4W

17  “DuMaurier’s Rebecca and Queer Culture” (Lavendarmenace.org), December 10, 2020.  https://lavendermenace.org.uk/du-mauriers-rebecca-and-queer-culture

18  “Talents beyond the Venetian Tendency” (Herald), by Alan Bold, March 23, 1993.  https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12614716.talents-beyond-the-venetian-tendency/

19  “Daphne du Maurier: the boy in the box” (Taxonomy Domine), March 20, 2021.  https://whatthehellisart.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/daphne-du-maurier-the-boy-in-the-box/

20  “Sex, Jealousy, and Gender: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebeeca 80 years on” (Guardian), by Olivia Laing, February 23, 2018.  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/23/olivia-laing-on-daphne-du-mauriers-rebecca-80-years-on

21  “Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca” (Adapt or Perish podcast, episode 96), July 13, 2021.  https://www.adaptorperishcast.com/podcast/2021/7/13/96-daphne-du-mauriers-rebecca.  Discussion of Mrs. Danvers is 1:01:50 – 1:04:30.

22  “Why I’m a Gaylor” (Aerin Moriarty), March 14, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2eSf6v8S3U&t=2550s  (discussion of possible “flagging” in Swift’s songs, videos, and stage performances, 10:00 – 15:53). Edit: see also A1, below.

23  “Why Hasn’t Taylor Swift Come Out? (2019 Failed Coming Out)” (Aerin Moriarty), June 24, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lccSJ7omJxw&t=968s

24  “Person of the Year: Taylor Swift,” by Sam Lansky (Time magazine), December 25, 2023, pp. 38 - 57.

25  “Taylor Swift buys back her master recordings” (BBC) by Mark Savage, May 30, 2025.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3n799d0v5o

26  “The Haunting Reality Behind the Meaning of ‘My Tears Ricochet’ by Taylor Swift” (American Songwriter: The Craft of Music) by Thom Donovan, February 2, 2024.  https://americansongwriter.com/the-haunting-reality-behind-the-meaning-of-my-tears-ricochet-by-taylor-swift/

27  “Taylor Swift and Queerbaiting” (Can I say Something? podcast)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBFMaizcTnA&t=789s   Discussion of “Carolina,” 10:38 – 13:09.

28  “Taylor + Travis = Performance Art” (Aerin Moriarty), February 12, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQqUWfKQw0&t=1152s

29  “Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn: A Complete Breakup Timeline” (Act&Invest), September 5, 2023.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lOcplVcOqc

Postscript Sources

30  “Taylor Swift on Reclaiming Her Masters, Wrapping The Eras Tour, and The Life of a Showgirl | NHTV” (New Heights Podcast), August 13, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lX9XESvDE&t=57s

31  Taylor Swift Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift/

32  “Gaylors, are we happy for her? I am” (Sophia Spallino), August 27, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8toXcQueQ

33  “The UNHINGED Reactions to Taylor Swift's Engagement” (who is zerrina), September 4, 2025.  https://youtu.be/S9yZWHah9gY?t=397

34  “Gaylor isn’t Dead (Your Media Literacy Is, Tho)” (Aerin Moriarty), August 28, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AejLUO2oh4&t=242s

35  “Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Engaged? Gaylor Thoughts & Synastry Analysis” (Jesse—Popstrology), August 27, 2025.  https://youtu.be/qbNzdJtk_fA?t=360

36  “What is the Hays Code — Hollywood Production Code Explained” (Studio Binder), by Rafael Abreu, May 2, 2021.  https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-the-hays-code-1934/

37  “Musical Artists Who Started Their Own Record Labels” (Medium), by Barry Silverstein, April 22, 2024.  https://barrydsilverstein.medium.com/musical-artists-who-started-their-own-record-labels-d381cee99fb6

38  Real World Records.  https://realworldrecords.com/about/

39  “The 20 Greatest LGBTQ+ Artists in Music History” (Live 365) by Kathryn Milewski, June 8, 2022.  https://live365.com/blog/the-20-greatest-lgbtq-artists-in-music-history/

40  “Taylor Swift Just Won’t Let That National Snake Day Drama Die” (Glamour) by Christopher Rosa, July 18, 2019.  https://www.glamour.com/story/taylor-swift-just-wont-let-that-national-snake-day-drama-die

41  “Taylor Swift is an Unreliable Narrator” (Aerin Moriarty), September 2, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_FHeEQBSQg&t=1005s

42  “Performance Artlor: The Engagement Era Feat. Sabrina Fleetwood” (gasp! the pod), September 10, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N2Iyb-ZTic

Additional Sources

Note: I'll keep adding these as I find them, although they aren't cited in the essay.  All these will start with "A."

A1  “Learn Queer Flagging (With Taylor Swift!)” (Marza Whatever), April 10, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-rloV95m8  (This video does include a mention of "Tolerate It," but not in the context of du Maurier's novel.)

A2  “Gaylors Are FURIOUS Over Taylor Swift’s Engagement | The Parasocial Crisis” (Misha Petrov), September 6, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL0yl94_4ng

A3  “When Parasocial Goes Too Far | The Gaylor Subreddit Meltdown” (Mickey Atkins), September 6, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34XUOiaPJhg&t=994s

A4  “The Gaylor Fandom Is Going Through It | ICYMI Podcast” (Slate), September 6, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWwq_hddhEg&t=2956s

A5  “Let’s unpack the 'Gaylor crashouts'” (Spitfire News), by Kat Tenbarge, August 28, 2025.  https://spitfirenews.com/p/gaylor-subreddit-taylor-swift-gay

A6 “chronically online girl explains Gaylor lore.” (Nicole Rafiee), September 14, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqBQveLbC2c [NSFW: the first few minutes are ads for vibrators; the content begins at about 1:50]

A7 “Why Are Gaylors Like That™?” (Annamarie Forcino), September 26, 2025.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnJ6Qssqbok

A8 “we NEED to talk about the "invasive and UNTRUE" gaylor article” (Swiftologist), January 5, 2024.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pd9KWKKxfE  (This is a rebuttal to the Anna Marks op-ed in the New York Times [1].)

~The End~