Queerbaiting has been on our tongues for a while now. But over the past 12 months, the term has erupted into our lives with some vigour. From questions surrounding Harry Styles‘ sexuality to calling out movies for their almost-depictions of queer characters, the trailer for Wakanda Forever, and the recent Doctor Who storyline springs to mind.
Queerbaiting is an accusatory term that brings into question the validity of someone’s sexual identity. As a bisexual person, I find the term hard to reconcile with, for a myriad of reasons. My main issue is that the premise of queerbaiting stands to question sexuality loudly by demanding proof and making people feel they need to justify their presence in queer spaces. In this context, it feels inherently biphobic, transphobic, homophobic, and ultimately wrong.
Heartstopper actor Kit Connor — who plays Nick Nelson in the Netflix show — is the latest in a string of people in the public eye who have been forced to come out because they’ve been accused of queerbaiting. In a recent tweet, the 18-year-old actor said; « Back for a minute. i’m [sic] bi. congrats on forcing an 18 year old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye. »
This comes after mounting pressure from fans for clarity on his sexual identity, amongst accusations of queerbaiting.
What is queerbaiting?
« Queerbaiting » is used to describe the actions of a writer, director, or producer, or those in entertainment marketing, who give a character or storyline traits that appear to be promising of queer interactions, with no « payoff. » You might remember it happening between characters Okoye and Ayo in Black Panther, to Beca and Chloe in Pitch Perfect.
The internet has, as it usually does, co-opted the term. Now, some people use « queerbaiting » to describe the actions of an actual person who doesn’t (openly) identify with the LGBTQ community but displays queer tendencies through the way they dress, their body language, or their reluctance to answer questions about their sexuality, or to give themselves a label. Sometimes celebrities are accused of capitalising on queer culture, with the likes of Harry Styles and Billie Eilish coming under fire.
The issue is that by calling them queerbaiters, we’re also telling other people who haven’t found a label, or who may not identify with a label, that their expression of sexuality is wrong. Sexuality, like gender, is fluid and only ours to understand and express. It’s deeply personal and often more complicated than fitting the binary of being heterosexual or homosexual.
This demand for everyone to be « out » and visible is problematic.
This demand for everyone to be « out » and visible is problematic. Nobody, not even celebrities, owe us their sexuality. Placing expectations on someone in a way that is designed to try and force them to come out, or to examine their identity in such a public forum is abusive. Not just affecting the person under accusation, but people outside the spotlight too who are side-eyeing the conversations.
Why is it bad to question someone’s sexuality?
When you question someone’s sexuality, you’re also questioning someone’s understanding of themselves. It’s invasive, to say the least.
« Questioning someone’s sexuality or the way that they arrive at their identity is harmful because it erases their experiences. »
« Questioning someone’s sexuality or the way that they arrive at their identity is harmful because it erases their experiences and undermines the struggles that that person may have gone through, or is going through, » Gigi Engle, ACS, certified sex educator at dating app 3Fun and author of All The F*cking Mistakes: a guide to sex, love, and life, tells me. « The impact of that on someone’s mental health can be hugely damaging. »
Being open and honest about identity and sex comes with a heavy price because we unequivocally do not live in an equal, equitable, or accepting society. Often, living as an out person comes with consequences of violence, discrimination, and ostracisation, meaning that the vast majority of the world’s LGBTQ population stays firmly behind closet doors, where it is seemingly safer to exist.
According to a report by LGBTQ rights organisation Stonewall, only half (46 percent) of lesbian, gay, and bi people and trans people (47 percent) feel able to be open about their sexual orientation or gender identity to everyone in their family. The same study found that two thirds (64 percent) of LGBTQ people had experienced anti-LGBTQ violence or abuse. So, it’s no wonder that queer folk are more likely to experience mental health issues and addiction than heterosexual people. Being forced to choose between your true self and presenting as another is a huge mental burden to carry, one that is not deserving of interrogation.
This is not to say that LGBTQ people are predisposed to mental illness because of their sexual identity, but rather that society inflicts a predisposition on them because of their inherent marginalisation. Add to that an unwillingness to unlearn conscious and unconscious bias from inside and outside the LGBTQ community, plus torrid misinformation about who the LGBTQ community are across all intersections of society, and you’ve got yourself a disastrous mixing pot.
Forcing someone to come out when they haven’t fully figured things out can cause serious, lasting trauma. Actor Rebel Wilson was forced to take her coming out journey out of the hands of the Sydney Morning Herald, who threatened to leak her same-sex relationship status before she has even had a chance to speak with her family and friends. The columnist, Andrew Hornery, who gave Wilson only two days « notice » to compile a statement, was so enraged by her coming out publicly ahead of his article, that he wrote an entire (now deleted) article about her bad behaviour. The audacity. Wilson recently spoke about her experiences in a statement to The Australian, explaining that it had caused an immense amount of upset. « I just thought it was kind of grubby behaviour, » she said, « Basically, with the situation where a journalist is threatening to out you, you’ve got to hurry, and some people we didn’t get a chance to tell before it came out publicly. And that’s not ideal. »
What some may not realise is that forcing someone to come to a conclusion on their sexuality before they’re ready can affect a person’s personal safety, both mentally and physically. Using a term like queerbaiting to describe someone who may have a more fluid expression of sex and identity places them firmly in harm’s way. While celebrities might face whiplash-inducing backlash from trolls, peers, and fans, regular folk may find themselves faced with violence, disownment from family, homelessness, and persecution. Equally, when we openly discuss and project sexual identity onto people, those around us play witness to the fallout.
Should queerbaiting be scrapped for a more representative term?
Some have argued that using the term queerbaiting is fine, in certain situations. Like calling out a film or TV trailer for depicting what appears to be a queer storyline and then not providing one. The rationale is that they have duped or fooled queer people into being emotionally invested in a queer-friendly romantic storyline, getting them to part with their hard-earned cash, only for them to be disappointed. This causes a wave of understandable anger. Queer people are not here to be fetishised as a titillation technique for audiences, queer people do not exist to propel a storyline into tick-box territory either. These criticisms are valid, particularly when a company seeks to make money or attract audiences through performative queerness.
When it comes to accusing human beings of queerbaiting, calling for proof and pay-off just feels icky. We also need to remember that not addressing queer feelings or living openly is a very real and sad side of the LGBTQ experience for a lot of people, even in the UK. This is because of historic persecution dating back to 1553, when Henry VIII’s government began persecuting MSM (men who have sex with men) under The Buggery Act. If found guilty, it was punishable by death. This law remained in effect until 1861.
Two decades later, in 1885, an amendment was brought into law that meant any sexual act between men could be prosecuted under « gross indecency. » The only reason that lesbianism wasn’t included in the amendment, was that legislators didn’t think it possible for women to behave in such a way. Even in a more modern Britain, unconscious bias and overt homophobia still stigmatises LGBTQ folk as sexually deviant and predatory, in part thanks to the criminalisation of homosexuality, which lasted until 1968 in England and Wales, and 1980 in Scotland. Later in 1988, during Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s tenure, a piece of legislation called Section 28 was passed, which prohibited councils and schools from « promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. » This led to an influx of « educational » (read: problematic propaganda) videos showing gay men, specifically, as predatory, and paedophilic. Here, it bears repeating that there is not one single connection between homosexuality and paedophilia. None whatsoever. There never ever has been. However, the legacy of that misinformation lives on, even today.
This is why I can sympathise with my community for wanting the « queerbaiting » presented in TV and film to end, but at the same time, I feel so inwardly conflicted about using a term that pathologises a behaviour, even if it doesn’t mean to. We desperately want and need representation, but we are not owed it by anyone other than those writing the media we consume. While queerbating is supposed to mean this very thing, the way it has been co-opted feels as though it has evolved to mean something persecutory. I’m not sure how we reconcile that.
This is why you’ll often find LGBTQ people using queerbaiting to call out appropriation when it arises to sell movie tickets. And, fair enough. Commodifying or appropriating LGBTQ coding (originally a way for LGBTQ people to signal their sexuality subtly to other community members without being outed and persecuted, now a way to say characters are LGBTQ without overtly saying so), and caricatures in non-LGBTQ characters and storylines is equally as rotten, especially when history is filled with people being persecuted and executed for displaying those same characteristics being fetishised as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge ploy. Even now, across the world, LGBTQ people face that same level of dehumanisation and threat to life.
So, no matter the context, I have to ask: What are we really saying when we use the term « queerbaiting »? « It’s a term that people use to devalue queerness, » Engle says, « It’s just fucked up to say. We don’t say anything is heterobaiting. »
The phrase queerbaiting erases a massive part of the queer experience we don’t talk about enough, which is that you do not need to prove sexuality in any which way to be deserving of community, support, and love. The word is problematic. Maybe it’s time to use a new one?
