A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - How Love, Simon’s Author was Pushed Out of the Closet

00:00:00.000 hello hello and welcome back to a bit fruity i'm so happy that you're here if you like this show

00:00:07.080 and you would like to support it and also perhaps want more of it you can join our patreon it's now

00:00:15.020 live you are going to get a monthly bonus episode so this first one which will be up by the time

00:00:20.760 this podcast episode is up is about this article that the new york times just published which is a

00:00:27.480 5,000 word speculation on Taylor Swift's sexuality. We're over on Patreon going to be doing

00:00:34.100 a close reading of that and examining the ethics of publishing something like it and put it in

00:00:42.100 the context of these larger conversations around things like queerbaiting, which is also why we're

00:00:48.720 here today. So it'll tie in nicely. And today we are joined by Becky Albertalli, whose maiden name 0.88

00:00:58.360 I recently learned is Becky Goldstein. She's a Jew. She is an author and a former psychologist. 0.99

00:01:06.100 She's best known for writing the 2015 young adult novel, Simon versus the Homo Sapiens,

00:01:13.580 which in 2018 was adapted into the movie that you and I both know, Love, Simon.

00:01:19.520 But then in 2020, the Hulu series spinoff Love, Victor.

00:01:23.700 Love, Simon was the first gay teen rom-com to be released widely by a major film studio.

00:01:30.200 Becky, I am so grateful that you're here today and talking to me, 0.99

00:01:34.800 especially because long ago, you could have written me off as a prickly asshole 0.99

00:01:42.340 and told me to fuck off for reasons that we'll get into soon. 1.00

00:01:47.160 But, you know, welcome to A Bit Fruity. 0.99

00:01:51.620 I am really excited to get into this topic and to talk about it with you.

00:01:57.760 I think we're going to touch upon a lot of stuff that I'd like to talk about.

00:02:02.580 A small part of me was a little nervous going into this episode

00:02:07.840 because I have to do something that, as a stubborn homosexual, is like the most difficult

00:02:17.100 thing for me to do, which is admit that I was wrong about this. And that's also why I think

00:02:24.060 making this episode is important, because I think a lot of other people, and I say this with care

00:02:30.100 and with compassion, but I think a lot of people are wrong about the way that they approach this

00:02:33.940 topic. And the topic is queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is a term that at one point meant something 0.99

00:02:39.840 relatively specific. And in recent years, it just does not mean anything at all. And it also means

00:02:45.460 everything. It's like woke. According to dictionary.com, here's the definition, like the original

00:02:51.660 definition of queerbaiting. It's the practice of implying non-heterosexual relationships or

00:02:56.980 attraction in a TV show, for example, to engage or attract an LGBTQ audience or otherwise generate

00:03:03.200 interest without ever actually depicting such relationships or sexual interactions. So the way

00:03:09.320 I think of queer baiting, it's like, or at least how we originally understood queer baiting was 0.52

00:03:14.360 like, it's when an author or a screenwriter or whoever's making media, they're like dangling a 0.98

00:03:23.020 carrot of queerness in front of, you know, a queer viewer's face, you know, they're baiting 0.64

00:03:31.200 the queer. They're baiting us into seeing ourselves in a certain character or storyline 0.99

00:03:37.540 without ever actually explicitly showing homosexuality or queerness in a way that

00:03:43.440 would alienate the homophobic portion of their audience. There's a precedent for this. So in

00:03:50.340 the 1930s, until the 1960s, there was something called the Hays Code, which was basically a set

00:03:57.620 of industry guidelines for motion pictures that dictated what could and couldn't be shown

00:04:02.960 in film in the U.S. It really limited the ability of screenwriters to depict homosexuality. And so

00:04:11.320 depicting queerness through subtext became like basically the only way that you could do it. We

00:04:17.020 don't live in that time anymore. And so people want more. And a lot of people find subtext to

00:04:23.140 be insufficient. But in recent years, this conversation around queerbaiting has leapt 0.53

00:04:30.540 off the pages of fiction and is now frequently used in cultural discourse to describe real people,

00:04:37.300 not characters. It's used often on social media to refer to celebrities and entertainers who

00:04:43.200 brand themselves with queer aesthetics, you know, like if a popular male celebrity paints their

00:04:49.040 nails or wears dresses, or if a female celebrity is comfortable being physically affectionate with

00:04:55.940 other women, people will accuse said celebrities of queer baiting. You're dangling the idea that

00:05:01.840 you could be queer in front of us to bait us into buying your albums or whatever. I don't even know 1.00

00:05:07.240 exactly how that works. But it's this idea that they're using this marketing tool to profit off

00:05:13.080 of our community. They may not be gay, or at least they might be queer, but they never 0.83

00:05:18.600 come out in a way that's sufficient to the people accusing them of queerbaiting.

00:05:23.840 Popular targets of said discourse include Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato,

00:05:29.100 Kit Conner, Bad Bunny, Cardi B. We will get into all of them. But another popular target of the

00:05:37.560 queerbaiting discourse was Becky Albertalli. Upon the release of Love, Simon, people had a lot to say 0.91

00:05:46.780 about Becky, her sexuality, her ability to tell the story of a young gay boy coming out,

00:05:53.180 especially in a piece of media that would be promoted on a global scale, which

00:05:57.300 is really rare for stories like that still. So before we get into the discussion of, you know,

00:06:04.620 your life up until the point of writing that book, the book becoming a movie, the backlash that

00:06:10.260 ensued, the major life event of yours that followed the backlash, I want to briefly

00:06:16.460 mention how we first communicated when love simon came out in the movies first of all it was like

00:06:23.900 the only thing that anybody was talking about and i was like 19 or 20 and i had just kind of started

00:06:31.560 making content and i was early in college and i had a little bit of a following but you know not

00:06:37.800 much but someone had asked me what i thought about love simon i was an insufferable uppity little

00:06:44.880 twink. Look, maybe you still think I'm insufferable, but I'm not as uppity and annoying as I was then, 0.81

00:06:50.620 if you can believe it. And so on my Instagram story, I responded with something to the effect

00:06:58.860 of like, well, Love, Simon, it's a gay movie for straight people. And I didn't really think

00:07:05.120 anything of it because, you know, like everyone else, I went to the theater and I saw Love,

00:07:09.140 Simon. At that point, I felt very critical of any movie, book, TV show that depicted queerness in a

00:07:21.440 way that I could not immediately identify with, which I think is a big problem. But at the time,

00:07:27.000 I was just annoying. And so I put that on my Instagram story and forgot about it.

00:07:32.040 later on Becky has a major life event which she will describe I know I who's dangling the carrot

00:07:41.020 now it's me and you wrote about all of the backlash that your book and the movie adaptation got

00:07:50.360 and someone commented on your post and they were like yeah I remember when Matt participated in

00:07:58.020 that exact harassment i remember seeing that i was tagged in said comment you responded back and you

00:08:03.980 were like that's so disappointing i loved matt and i was totally horrified and i sat down did

00:08:14.240 some reflecting and then i sent you a long message and i was like hi queen i'm sorry

00:08:19.740 you were kind enough to have allowed me to grow in that moment I want to think that I will hold

00:08:29.360 that grace for other people in the future and and you know this is all to say I'm so

00:08:33.060 again happy and grateful that you're here today oh my gosh yeah you're lovely I remember that

00:08:39.540 message and that message was beautiful I think like you know this discourse is really complicated

00:08:47.280 Because I think in a lot of ways, it was like uncharted territory for a lot of us.

00:08:53.400 My understanding of the landscape, like the media landscape, has shifted significantly, even during the time period when I've been like in the thick of it.

00:09:04.380 I am not very prickly, except for about this one topic.

00:09:08.560 Where does the story of Becky and her relationship with herself and with queer people and with Simon and with the press and the back, like, where does it all begin? Just I'm going to sit back.

00:09:22.340 So I wrote Simon versus the Homo sapiens agenda during this period of time where I had just had my older son.

00:09:32.400 He was finally sleeping through the night somewhat, a little bit.

00:09:37.740 So I was feeling human again.

00:09:40.860 Profitually, I had this little like window of time that I had been gifted by circumstance because I had left my psychology job.

00:09:51.640 when I had my son, but I couldn't go back or find a new job in DC where I was living because we

00:10:00.100 had planned to move to Atlanta where I grew up. You know, it was the first time in my life when I

00:10:07.620 was not working or in school. It was one of those things that I'd always wanted to do. Write a book.

00:10:16.480 I know that's very unusual for people to have that on their bucket list. I figured I would give it

00:10:20.580 one shot. Was Simon your first book? My first book, my first manuscript. Talk about hitting a

00:10:27.460 home run out of the gate, my goodness. I mean, it was very surreal. It was unexpected. You know,

00:10:32.500 I had been doing enough internet research to understand what a long shot this was. So I sort

00:10:40.780 of went in with no expectation that this would ever be a book. But I think I had a vague idea

00:10:48.560 that I'm like well this is the kind of thing my kid ever needs it'll be there on my laptop it got

00:10:55.240 a literary agent very quickly sold to a publisher very quickly you know I've really since come to

00:11:01.360 understand just how unusual that is and it's not because Simon was the best book in the world by

00:11:08.160 any means it just sort of found its way to the right people at the right time when I think about

00:11:13.340 the way Simon overperformed. Was that immediate? No, it like it had a little cult following from

00:11:18.880 the beginning, I would say. But you know, a couple months after it came out, you couldn't find it in

00:11:22.880 stores. Like it never hit the New York Times list. It has never and will never hit the New York

00:11:29.260 Times list. You set out to write this book, this one book that you just is on your bucket list to

00:11:34.620 write a book. Why a teenage coming out story? That was the question, right? When I look back

00:11:40.620 on it, it's ridiculous that I didn't consider the most obvious possible answer to it. But at the

00:11:49.280 time I had this whole logic, almost like a chain of coincidences that I like built into a narrative

00:11:56.480 in my head where it was like, oh, because, you know, the queer community is really important

00:12:02.140 to me. You know, I had and have a lot of friends who are queer, like, you know, that's interesting

00:12:09.380 that you've always been drawn to queer people. And I, as a psychologist, kind of in my previous

00:12:15.300 professional life, I like, I mean, I wrote my dissertation on best practices, basically for

00:12:23.260 affirming therapy with queer clients. I volunteered for like a decade with a group for kind of gender

00:12:32.440 nonconforming kids just ages like five to twelve ish and you go back even further even in high

00:12:39.780 school I did like a whole big final project on like queer themes in anime I don't know made sense

00:12:46.540 of the time for me to be writing Simon because I was like oh yeah because you know oh and I started

00:12:52.440 working with this group because this psychiatrist knew the psychiatrist that I work for the

00:12:58.000 children's you know but it was like my entire life I have very clearly gravitated toward

00:13:05.060 this community and I didn't even think to wonder about that it's very much like I don't know I

00:13:12.920 remember being in high school when gay marriage was being heavily debated and you know it feels 1.00

00:13:19.420 like a joke now but you know I would always really go to bat for like no I think gay marriage should

00:13:23.740 be legal like and i was very passionate about it and whenever you get questioned like well why do

00:13:28.900 you care so much about that you're like well i just i just really like those people i just really

00:13:35.620 like equality i'm just but it's not me it's for you know my friend when i tell you like circa

00:13:42.760 2018 2019 or something i would get myself worked up in defense of closeted authors because that

00:13:51.920 was when i was like kind of in my era of i totally understand why you're asking me that question

00:13:56.880 this is because i'm constantly i was constantly asked like um are you sure are you you know and

00:14:01.780 so i went through a period of being like i actually you know have started to kind of step

00:14:07.580 back a little bit from answering that question because you know i am aware that for some authors

00:14:14.220 out there they may be closet like i really thought i was the champion for these like closeted

00:14:18.840 authors who weren't me I was their ally you didn't think of yourself as a closeted author

00:14:26.280 you thought of yourself as a straight author who was an ally to queer people it evolved but yes

00:14:31.560 yeah definitely that for a while then there was a period of time where I was like I just don't

00:14:36.620 feel like I have the space to even think about it um there was a period of time where I was like

00:14:42.520 if i were gen z i would probably identify as bi

00:14:46.700 i don't know i feel like every young gay kid has that like you know when their parents ask them or

00:14:57.360 when someone at the family asks them at the holiday it's like so any you know any girls

00:15:01.960 you know for the little gay boy and he's like i'm just really focused on school right now

00:15:06.460 you know we've all had that yeah well you know it was tricky like so for me there's this element

00:15:13.960 of not wanting to overstep not wanting to take up space i became aware kind of as simon started

00:15:23.820 getting bigger and simon did especially around 2018 when the movie came out and also like leading

00:15:29.160 And after that, Simon started getting more attention than I felt comfortable with as

00:15:35.620 this outsider who I'm like, I'm not even supposed to be here.

00:15:40.520 And certainly, you know, there were people who felt that way.

00:15:44.020 And there were also people who felt the exact opposite.

00:15:48.740 I really quickly want to just take a minute to give a huge shout out to Blueland for sponsoring

00:15:54.480 this episode and helping make this show possible.

00:15:57.320 When you buy cleaning solutions, you know, your mirror cleaner or multipurpose cleaner

00:16:02.500 or hand soap or dish soap, the main ingredient in any of those things is water.

00:16:07.380 And a lot of what you're paying for is the shipping weight of the water.

00:16:11.120 Blueland is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials

00:16:15.580 that are better for you and the planet.

00:16:17.340 The idea with Blueland is instead of buying bottle after bottle after bottle of your hand

00:16:21.900 soap or your dish soap or any of those spray bottle cleaning solutions, you just buy one

00:16:26.620 of blueland's very chic forever bottles fill it with water pop in a blueland cleaning solution

00:16:32.900 tablet and bam you have your cleaning essential and when you run out instead of having to buy a

00:16:37.300 whole nother bottle you just fill it with water again and pop in another cleaning solution tablet

00:16:41.900 those refill tablets start for as low as two dollars and 25 cents so it's not only eco-friendly

00:16:48.040 but it's uh quite budget friendly as you save money over time right now blueland is offering

00:16:53.780 listeners of A Bit Fruity 15% off their first order. So if you would like to take advantage of

00:16:58.980 that, go check it out at blueland.com slash fruity. Again, that's blueland.com slash fruity.

00:17:06.320 Now back to the show. When did the backlash kind of start? Was it with the movie? Was that when

00:17:14.020 things started like exploding? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, I'm sure there's always been

00:17:19.360 some. It wasn't extreme in the early days. And I think both because the book was so much smaller.

00:17:26.340 People are saying that at this point in like the cultural discourse, they're like,

00:17:30.440 if you're going to write a book about gay people, then you have to publicly identify

00:17:35.280 as gay and like clarify that to people for it to be a legitimate piece of writing.

00:17:41.560 Yeah. I mean, I would say like, okay, so in the early days when it came out,

00:17:45.200 it was a lot more like, oh, that's interesting. So what made you decide to write this book about

00:17:49.620 a gay teen boy? Are you gay? Or, you know, you know, so me in 2015, you know, my allyship looked 0.93

00:17:57.000 like I definitely felt like the ethical thing to do is to kind of be like, I'm straight.

00:18:03.180 Were people then critical, especially as it was, as Simon was growing in popularity,

00:18:07.680 and then with the movie, you know, it exploded, were people critical of you being straight?

00:18:13.200 Yes. Basically, in the early days, it was much more of what I think of as kind of a normal, critical conversation. Made me uncomfortable, but I don't think I would never call it harassment for somebody to be like, I don't know how I feel about a straight woman writing this or it feels like appropriation or whatever. You know, like that was more the kind of stuff I feel like that was the tone of it in the early days.

00:18:40.280 But it turned into harassment.

00:18:42.300 Yeah, it was like, it looked like a couple of different things at once. Definitely a lot of just heavy mockery of just in a sexualized way.

00:18:53.160 How so? 0.63

00:18:53.660 You know, I think part of the narrative is that straight women writing about gay men is a fetish that would quite often sort of work its way into fairly, like, graphic descriptions of, like, Becky Albertalli flicking the beam with one hand while frantically typing about sexy underage gay boys with the other.

00:19:20.680 It's like... 0.51

00:19:21.660 Jesus Christ.

00:19:22.700 oh my like it's just like a million miles away from where i was coming from like they were saying

00:19:30.640 that you were writing this for like your own sexual pleasure as a straight woman and just

00:19:34.960 like you know it was like had all kinds of flavors like i co-wrote a duology with adam

00:19:39.700 silvera you know somebody uh it's like very memorably on i think reddit or something said

00:19:46.540 that what if it's us is basically me masturbating in adam silvera's presence and i'm like that is

00:19:52.160 jesus christ it makes me so viscerally uncomfortable and then of course the usual like 0.98

00:19:58.780 drive-by kill yourself you know like that kind of stuff oh i've i've gotten many times i get

00:20:07.820 kill yourself many times a day i get it to be to be totally clear even though i'm even though i 0.95

00:20:12.980 made a flippant and regrettable remark i never thought that you wrote any of this for your 0.99

00:20:18.080 sexual pleasure. I want to be clear about that. I do feel like there are a lot of people like me

00:20:24.180 who are like, oh, who's this straight woman writing a gay book for straight people?

00:20:27.860 So at the time, particularly as I was sort of questioning or pre-questioning or kind of

00:20:34.820 entering that conversation with myself, like internally, the way that landed for me wouldn't 1.00

00:20:40.960 be like that is offensive and invasive or anything like that at the time it was like queer people are 0.98

00:20:49.860 reading this and they can tell from reading it that I'm straight I know as an ally that I defer 0.99

00:20:56.920 to queer people on issues of queerness so that I mean that is like this real little mind fuck

00:21:05.640 Did you internalize the criticism as like, correct, because it was coming from people you viewed as like an authority on your personal life or something?

00:21:14.220 A hundred percent. Yeah.

00:21:15.780 Yeah. And that's so, I mean, that's so gross. Because you're like a grown woman who, you know, as you tell it now, it has these unresolved, inconclusive feelings about her own sexuality. And you're just being told by people like, no, you're a straight woman.

00:21:30.140 Yeah. And, you know, and to be clear, I think there's a difference probably. It's hard to know, but I would say there's probably a difference between like opening a book, reading it and being like, oh, I can tell a straight woman wrote this versus you've heard an interview. I have said that I'm straight. Right. You know, you're finally getting around to reading Simon before the movie or something.

00:21:51.400 and with the knowledge in the back of your mind that i'm straight as you're reading it you're like

00:21:57.600 oh that could only have been written by a straight woman to me that was actually the biggest like

00:22:05.700 knot that i had to untangle did you feel like in telling people that you were straight that you

00:22:12.500 like tangled the knot yourself for sure yeah and also too i internalize a lot of like by just

00:22:20.040 straight up biphobia from the discourse too where it just felt like what does it matter i'm not like

00:22:24.720 a real queer even if i were queer you know it's like you wrote in an essay uh when you would later

00:22:30.980 go on to describe this you wrote and holy shit did people discuss to me it felt like there was 0.79

00:22:36.280 never a break in the discourse and it was often searingly personal i was frequently mentioned by 0.85

00:22:41.340 name held up again and again as the quintessential example of alo cishet inauthenticity i was a 0.51

00:22:47.740 straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights, profiting off of communities I had no 0.90

00:22:52.740 connection to. Because the thing is, I was straight. At least I was straight if you round it up. 0.99

00:22:58.600 All of this, you know, harassment and discourse around you and your ability to be making this book

00:23:04.940 and your ability to be making money off of this book and this movie, all of this is going on.

00:23:10.380 And in 2020, you write an essay. You know, when you look back at the timeline of everything,

00:23:16.280 you know 2018 the movie comes out 2020 is when love victor came out um came out in june it was

00:23:24.940 just like a revival of the same discourse it was everything all over again she's straight

00:23:33.180 like why did she get to profit off of this this is for straight people yeah um and the difference

00:23:38.500 is by 2020. I was pretty sure I wasn't. So I wrote an essay over the summer of 2020. And it walks

00:23:49.520 through kind of my experience, a just missing all of the neon, like the brightest neon signs

00:23:58.380 throughout my entire childhood and adolescence, you know, that I was not the straight woman who I

00:24:08.160 thought I was and said I was. And I talked about what it was like figuring that out and kind of

00:24:15.960 putting all of these clues together. Well, in the public eye, in the midst of this discourse,

00:24:22.520 at times, it felt like I was at the center of the discourse. It was inextricable from my

00:24:29.880 questioning period, my coming out, I can't really tell one story without the other.

00:24:38.280 Yeah, you wrote in the essay, quote, I'm pretty sure I've had crushes on boys and girls for most

00:24:43.820 of my life. I just didn't realize the girl crushes were crushes. Every so often, I'd feel

00:24:49.120 this sort of pull towards some girl I vaguely knew from school or camp or after school dance

00:24:53.840 classes. I'd be a little preoccupied for a few weeks with how cool or cute or interesting she

00:24:59.000 was, and how much I wanted to be her friend. It just never occurred to me that these feelings

00:25:03.740 were attraction. And so was that all stuff that you started to realize while you're receiving

00:25:10.560 this harassment about being a straight woman who wrote a gay book? Yeah, yeah, it was wild. It was,

00:25:17.060 it's tricky, because I really felt by the time that I was questioning, I felt like that I was 0.96

00:25:24.740 a piece of shit for having written that book I would have in a heartbeat gone back in time and

00:25:29.880 not published it and um I don't feel that way now yeah you shouldn't thank you no I did for a long 0.99

00:25:36.700 time I and I felt like I was I was in the middle of it and I think kind of I I can be a little bit

00:25:41.920 more objective about it now um do I think that like Simon versus is the reason why we have more

00:25:49.940 queer representation now. No, I think we need diverse books and a number of other kind of

00:25:56.740 community factors gave Simon a huge boost. And that momentum continued in a way that has created

00:26:03.960 really visible change in the industry. However, I do not think that Simon being successful caused

00:26:12.380 fewer BYU books to be published. Is that something that people accused you of?

00:26:19.060 They still do.

00:26:20.120 Yeah, because it's like you're taking a spot.

00:26:22.000 So you, for years at this point, had been accused of being a straight woman profiting off of the community. 1.00

00:26:29.700 You were, you know, you're a straight culture vulture, yada, yada, yada.

00:26:33.300 And then you write this essay being like, I'm bisexual.

00:26:37.620 Surprise, I'm bisexual.

00:26:39.480 Are you happy now?

00:26:40.580 And the tone of the essay, I think rightfully so, there's a little bit of bitterness there that you weren't able to do this in the privacy of your own home and your own brain, but in the public sphere of all these people accusing you of making an inauthentic piece of work and taking up an inauthentic space in a community that you weren't a part of.

00:27:03.880 And so now it's out there. Now you're like, okay, well, you wanted it, you have it. How did people react to that?

00:27:10.580 Was there a seismic shift where people were just like, oh, no, well, I, you know, I've always supported you and I've always and I would, you know, did people immediately leap from one side to the other?

00:27:21.340 Like I did.

00:27:23.520 No, it was, I would say like, yes, and yes, and yes, it was everything.

00:27:27.740 It was, I mean, it was so overwhelming.

00:27:31.520 I am not somebody who is naturally a good fit for having any kind of public figure role.

00:27:40.160 I should like start with that like I have a debilitating anxiety disorder and you know I am

00:27:46.480 like a carpal mom and stuff and I am like I do care a lot about hurting people and I care what 0.53

00:27:54.320 people think of me and I care if I'm like saying the wrong thing it was just this like wave of

00:28:01.320 feedback and looking back as subjectively as possible it was overwhelmingly supportive you

00:28:08.760 know some of my author friends here in Atlanta this is like I will never forget this so Kelly

00:28:17.920 Quinlan Julian Winters Nick Stone and Rachel freaking Allen are all local here this is like

00:28:27.340 in the thick of COVID Rachel bakes this like bi-colored Oreo cake they had they had like

00:28:35.700 planned all of this and plotted it together it had like a little cake topper with like

00:28:40.120 Justin Timberlake and the bye-bye-bye you know and like um oh bye-bye-bye yeah delivered it to

00:28:48.000 my doorstep when I like didn't even know what time of day it was you know it was just um like

00:28:55.700 it was in the immediate aftermath and I think about that all the time a lot of people say

00:29:01.280 that I was um forced out I would definitely say that I was pressured out um I was in a situation

00:29:10.180 where I felt like it would never stop and it was so painful that you know and and like all of the

00:29:17.620 bad discourse that happened after my essay I knew it would happen what what kind of bad discourse

00:29:22.940 there was significant backlash it wasn't the majority of people but you definitely had a lot

00:29:30.120 of people speculating that I was lying or it was just very convenient. People were saying that you

00:29:37.880 were coming out as bisexual to make the backlash stop. Yeah. I mean, in a way, I mean, I knew it 0.99

00:29:43.100 wouldn't stop. I mean, I guess in a way you did come out to make the backlash stop, but it doesn't,

00:29:49.780 but they were saying that you were faking it so that the backlash would stop. You were like,

00:29:54.040 you know, here, you want it? Fine. I'm bisexual. Leave me alone. But like you actually were

00:29:58.260 bisexual leave me alone oh my god i'm just like all of y'all who think i'm faking it like if y'all 0.67

00:30:04.300 saw my for you page tiktok algorithm at the time like my god like it's like many women in 2020

00:30:13.020 so i'm just like i don't know what to tell you but like yeah you know there there are definitely

00:30:20.200 a lot of people who've been hurt before um who have felt exploited by public figures before

00:30:28.140 who did not find my description of experience to be compelling it didn't seem like like a

00:30:34.700 legitimate queer experience kind of measuring it up against their own maybe this brings me

00:30:39.960 back around though to like that was my i mean that was my thing when i saw love simon personally

00:30:46.140 was i was like this is not a story because okay when i saw love simon my reaction was the coming

00:30:54.300 out narrative that is his in the book and in the movie is quote unquote easier you know than mine

00:31:03.440 was when I was in high school and so I was like well no this this is illegitimate because it's

00:31:10.680 not something that I can identify with and I think as queer people we do that way too often

00:31:18.020 where we're so sensitive and rightfully so to like our own pain and the pain that we carry

00:31:24.960 from our own experiences with coming out with being rejected with being marginalized that we

00:31:30.240 anytime we see something a story of a queer person that we don't immediately relate to 0.98

00:31:34.680 and especially one that is better than our own and that's why we don't relate to it 0.88

00:31:38.420 we're like well no that's not the right one that's that that that you know that was written

00:31:43.040 by Becky Albertalli a straight woman you know who doesn't get it and I think that's wrong

00:31:47.800 And, like, what's troubling about the whole, like, this is a gay thing for straight people or, you know, this is a glossy gay story that straight people can watch without feeling responsible for any, like, homophobia or, you know, anything that makes the material lives of gay people difficult is, like, we should have enough of, we should have happy gay stories.

00:32:13.560 frankly i think i was just immature and thought that if if a story about a gay person didn't

00:32:20.360 reflect my own pain then i couldn't see myself in it because i thought that to be queer was to

00:32:28.140 identify with the pain of being queer and that's why i think sometimes i see twitter discourse i

00:32:35.260 see people argue about whether or not asexuality is part of the lgbtq spectrum uh which i think is

00:32:43.280 silly because who cares? I don't care about gatekeeping. But something that people will say

00:32:49.780 in that discourse is like, well, what bigotry do asexuals receive? I've gotten gay bashed. I've 0.98

00:32:55.880 gotten this. I've gotten that. What do asexuals get? And I'm like, what do we gain? Or more

00:33:00.920 importantly, what do we lose when we define queerness by suffering? I think I identified

00:33:06.140 so closely with my suffering and i viewed it as the quintessential experience of being queer that

00:33:14.600 when i saw love simon and there wasn't that suffering or at least not the extent that i 0.52

00:33:18.640 felt was in my own life i was like well this is fake which you know i really like i understand

00:33:26.560 where that comes from and i think kind of what's behind that is we don't have enough

00:33:31.980 queer media and it's so much better now than it was um and it's still nowhere near where it should

00:33:38.500 be and so every single piece of queer media that like crosses that finish line and actually 0.79

00:33:45.800 you know makes it out there you know having to like love simon was expected to carry more

00:33:52.140 than the average rom-com i can see why the personal stakes are a little bit higher

00:33:58.860 and i also don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing love simon or just not liking it like

00:34:06.680 that that's another thing another piece of it too is like anybody listening you have my permission

00:34:14.340 to not like love simon to not vibe with it or to find it problematic or whatever i think for me

00:34:20.840 the line is invalidating the sexualities of the people involved in creating it you know when you

00:34:29.180 when people like kind of use the phrase and this phrase is really common you still see it all the

00:34:34.340 time it doesn't just get applied to love simon um but gay media for straight people it's just

00:34:40.180 for me it's like a like a red flag in the discourse kind of where i'm like where you start

00:34:46.960 to see the like gay media for straight people I have never once ever seen like a comment section

00:34:56.840 or something where that was in it that didn't also include somebody and it's a pretty like it's a

00:35:02.760 small specific group of people it is usually specifically mislabeling or misgendering or both

00:35:09.480 one or several queer creators so it's usually me Alice Oseman Casey McQuiston um I see a lot of

00:35:16.380 people kind of just erasing like Keenan Monsdale people involved in gay media for straight people

00:35:22.460 um we've all been pressured out of the closet but there's also like pretty extensive collateral

00:35:28.860 damage I feel like to that conversation so after I came out I heard from like I want to it was like

00:35:37.240 over a hundred people in my industry authors but not just authors like people like in publishing

00:35:42.740 agents um and readers and bloggers just people who i knew um to varying degrees reaching out

00:35:51.840 and telling me that they you know they had gone through that that they came the reason they came

00:35:57.380 out is because they saw the way people talked about simon for all those years and so they knew

00:36:03.940 that like when they got their book deal they knew they had sealed their fate you know that they had

00:36:08.580 to like do it they had to come out that they had to come out so as not to face the harassment that

00:36:16.080 you did because they knew that people were going to accuse them of the same thing that people

00:36:19.560 accused you of and so they were like well the closet is not a safe place to be anymore yeah

00:36:24.540 no it was like this is it's time to start having these conversations with my family and you know

00:36:30.360 like i want to kind of have the agency to do this on my own terms to the extent that i can with this

00:36:36.880 pub date in mind, you know? Yeah. So there are also a lot of people who are, yeah, people who

00:36:41.920 are avoiding engaging with queerness in their work. So, you know, a lot of queer people who

00:36:49.060 just cannot be out for whatever reason or don't want to be out, you know, are deliberately choosing 0.97

00:36:56.100 not to go anywhere near that in their work, which is fine. Which is fine, but you're saying that

00:37:02.480 they're not going anywhere near it for the sake of not like being accused of being queer or of 0.77

00:37:08.200 being a straight person trying to be queer yeah to be clear it is fine to make that choice for

00:37:12.920 yourself as an author it is not fine that they feel like that is the choice they have to make

00:37:20.340 broadening this more widely into the way that we see it used again it's you know relentlessly on

00:37:26.420 social media people speculating around certain people's sexualities to you know speculating that

00:37:33.480 they're decidedly heterosexual and profiting off of the community only for them to later come out

00:37:38.400 as queer i was going down a list of different you know recent examples of you know targets of queer

00:37:46.000 baiting discourse and i want to mention a few so harry styles has been like kind of a subject in

00:37:54.740 this discourse for like jesus over a decade i feel like since he was in one direction um and

00:38:02.860 the people who are on tumblr back in the early 2010s are going to know exactly what i'm referring

00:38:06.740 to but there was a an enormous conspiracy theory called larry people who subscribe to this

00:38:13.420 conspiracy theory were called larry's which was that harry okay i was never a one direction person

00:38:19.940 harry and i think louis tomlinson who's another one direction guy that they were romantically

00:38:27.240 involved um and the conspiracy theory i think was that because one direction was trapped in

00:38:33.020 this record deal and and the record label like wouldn't let them express their love

00:38:36.960 and so like fanfic writers would go wild being like harry and louis you know they're it's real 0.71

00:38:43.460 it's real it's real they would like at the time this is like queer baiting in reverse like they

00:38:47.360 or insisting that he was gay.

00:38:49.960 But now it's sort of a little bit of the opposite.

00:38:53.120 In the last couple of years, Harry Styles has started to,

00:38:57.560 you know, now he's in his solo career.

00:38:59.160 Obviously, he's one of the biggest musicians in the world.

00:39:01.640 And he dresses very androgynously

00:39:05.060 and, you know, in outfits that frequently become memes

00:39:09.100 because, you know, sometimes they're great

00:39:11.240 and sometimes there's, you know, there's questionable ones too.

00:39:14.160 But androgynous no less.

00:39:16.100 and people have basically demanded repeatedly that he announce his sexuality they think that

00:39:26.080 he's you know again another one of these like straight culture vultures because he has like

00:39:30.680 a nail polish line or whatever Demi Lovato ever since cool for the summer came out which um 0.69

00:39:36.340 had a music well I mean the cool for the summer was a pretty queer song right it was about like

00:39:41.460 you know tell me if you like you know i think it was about like hooking up with a woman

00:39:47.140 which is interesting that she was accused of queer baiting when that song came out because

00:39:53.140 to me it's just pretty transparently about being queer like i you know i think speculation too much

00:40:02.440 on either end is wrong but i think you can listen to that song like my first reaction to hearing a

00:40:09.000 song about a woman hooking up with another woman at the time Demi Lovato identified as publicly as

00:40:14.840 a woman I wouldn't be like they're lying you know I would be like wait a minute is there something 0.62

00:40:19.200 here and you know then Demi Lovato turns out to be queer they also as of a couple years ago started 0.99

00:40:26.040 using they them pronouns and that obviously raises a ton of bigotry with you know right-wing assholes 0.79

00:40:34.240 who are like they them what's a they them that's referring to multiple people like whatever we

00:40:38.860 don't have time but that also raised flags within the queer community about like well demi lovato

00:40:47.120 is not really non-binary or they would be this this or that and that intensified when last year

00:40:54.860 demi said that she's fine using she her pronouns in addition to they them pronouns and people were

00:41:00.760 like look you know see i told you she's not really non-binary she's just profiting off of being

00:41:08.520 non-binary which is so funny like what is there to profit off of non-binary identity is not an

00:41:16.720 extremely profitable thing at the moment that example to me and first of all a lot of people

00:41:23.360 mistake this demi lovato still goes by they or she pronouns which is why i use both when i talk

00:41:30.020 about her but it's also just like this idea that you have to get it right the first time or you're

00:41:37.920 lying is so antithetical to what it actually means to be queer and also to be human. I've

00:41:46.860 had so many thoughts about like my gender over the years. I can't imagine being as famous as

00:41:56.100 someone like Demi Lovato, being in your 20s, publicly navigating your identity while everyone

00:42:02.460 is telling you what you are and what you have always been and what you'll always be. Exploration

00:42:08.080 of gender and sexuality and pronouns and whatever, like that should just be part of life. And it is

00:42:15.540 for a lot of people. And I don't care if Demi Lovato changes their pronouns six more times and

00:42:22.720 identifies as a lesbian and then identifies as straight and then marries a man and then marries

00:42:26.320 I don't care. That's their journey. And this impulse that we have to categorize everyone so 0.95

00:42:37.680 neatly for our own understanding, it's just at odds with what it means to experience

00:42:45.560 queerness and experience being alive. Kit Conner, which I'm sure you know Kit Conner's story,

00:42:52.720 Because frankly, it's a lot like yours, Becky.

00:42:55.080 You know, for you, the listener, in case you don't know, Kit Conner is, he starred in Heartstopper, which was a newer Netflix, like LGBT Netflix series, where I believe he played a bisexual character.

00:43:09.640 And then afterwards, he was photographed by a paparazzi holding hands with a woman.

00:43:15.260 Mind you, he's 18 at the time.

00:43:17.780 After that photograph went public,

00:43:19.740 he was like totally obliterated all over the internet 0.91

00:43:22.720 by these people who were like, he's queer baiting. 0.98

00:43:25.080 Like, see, he's actually straight. 0.84

00:43:26.620 Which first of all, holding hands with a woman 0.78

00:43:30.240 is included in bisexuality. 0.91

00:43:32.160 So this was entirely consistent

00:43:34.860 with what people might've already thought about him

00:43:36.720 based on his character.

00:43:38.740 But that led to him deleting his Twitter account.

00:43:43.540 And then a month later, he came back on Twitter

00:43:45.600 and wrote one tweet which is back for a minute i'm by congrats for forcing an 18 year old to

00:43:52.600 out himself i think some of you missed the point of the show bye and then this just happened again

00:43:58.560 billy eilish a couple years ago she released a song called lost cause uh and she made a music

00:44:04.380 video for it where she was basically having a sleepover with a bunch of girls and just like

00:44:10.540 singing the song around them and like having like pillow fights and whatnot. And, you know,

00:44:15.660 being physically affectionate with these girls. She posted a screenshot of the video on Instagram

00:44:21.480 to promote it with the caption, I love girls. And people were like, she's queer baiting. Like she's, 0.99

00:44:27.480 she's pretending to be lesbian for the, you know, for the sex appeal and for the this and that, 0.99

00:44:32.400 that. And I have admitted today to being wrong about some things. This was one that I was right 0.53

00:44:39.760 about, may I just say? And I was totally crucified for it at the time. I brought up my old tweet from

00:44:45.520 2021 when this happened. I tweeted, and I don't even agree with how I wrote this. Like, I don't

00:44:51.720 think I needed to be so cunty about it. But I wrote, my only thoughts on Billie Eilish queer 1.00

00:44:57.080 baiting is that more than 100 anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures this

00:45:01.440 year. And they are all infinitely more harmful than a 19 year old publicly exploring her sexuality 0.62

00:45:06.620 without labels i at this point am kind of against the whole whataboutism thing but my statement

00:45:13.040 stands and anyway last month she came out and she wrote on instagram i like boys and girls leave me

00:45:19.240 alone cardi b who's an openly bisexual woman like being out didn't even prevent her from getting

00:45:26.540 caught up in this discourse someone on twitter made a collage of celebrities with her in it where

00:45:31.820 they wrote celebrities that came out as bisexual but have never dated someone of the same gender 0.98

00:45:37.120 to which cardi b responded on twitter in my opinion brilliantly writing quote i ate bitches 0.97

00:45:44.740 out before you was born sorry i don't have razor phone pics to prove it to you 0.95

00:45:49.480 i bring all of this up because these stories are they are all a little different but

00:45:57.660 they all resemble yours in some way. So my experience, I think, is the reason why I

00:46:05.360 absolutely hyper fixate on these kinds of stories. I was familiar with literally every

00:46:11.380 single thing you just mentioned. I can picture the tweets. I've seen all of this. I spend a lot

00:46:18.780 of time thinking about this stuff. It definitely hits really close to home sometimes. I cry,

00:46:25.780 Like, reading Kit Conner's tweet, it's so frustrating that it happens so many times and everything.

00:46:33.000 Like, also, that's just a fraction of them.

00:46:35.580 Like, God bless Kit freaking Conner.

00:46:38.240 You know, he should never, never have had to do that.

00:46:43.560 You know, I do think, at least in the corners of the Internet that I occupy, I finally started to see a bit of a shift in the discourse.

00:46:51.040 And I give him quite a bit of credit.

00:46:53.320 Which is wild because he was 18. I can't wrap my head around yelling at an 18 year old to be like, give me your proof of sexuality. Like, I can't wrap my head around them doing it to you in your 30s. And I really struggle. Because like, I don't know. When I was 18, I couldn't have definitively told anyone anything about anything. And they're yelling at these people for their, you know, dating and hookup histories. It's, it's ridiculous.

00:47:20.740 this it makes me want to fight like it is like i i really like i go into like mama bear mode like

00:47:29.200 just like kit connor billy get behind me everyone like you know it's slayed and and i do think um

00:47:35.440 yeah there is a part of me that gets real mama bear about these like teens but i also think it's

00:47:40.300 it is a bad thing to do to you know full-grown adults as well it's really tricky and it's hard

00:47:49.000 to explain to anybody who hasn't experienced it. And I also think we're really talking about two

00:47:56.520 different discourses that are kind of flip sides of a coin. One is you're not queer. Why are you, 0.61

00:48:05.340 you know, doing these like queer things like in your music videos? Why are you engaging with queer 1.00

00:48:11.360 art? Why are you profiting? You're not queer. And then the other side of it, and Harry has like

00:48:18.820 really gotten to experience both of these, but the other side is the just very close focus on,

00:48:26.740 you know, these celebrities and their personal lives. The dynamics that are created by each of

00:48:34.280 these conversations are a little bit different. And I also think that like where it starts to

00:48:40.740 get harmful is like for example with you know the galers i think it's really beautiful 0.91

00:48:47.560 to kind of do like this literary analysis of her lyrics and find queer themes like that's

00:48:54.780 lovely and fascinating you know yeah yeah um and i give the galers credit too for

00:49:01.280 this idea of the possibility of queerness i think it is actually a really good thing to

00:49:07.740 when you are engaging with media and if you choose to think about the creators who are involved with

00:49:15.020 it, which is fine to think about that and wonder. There's something to be said for making space for

00:49:21.480 the possibility of queerness. Where I think it crosses the line is when you start to feel 0.91

00:49:30.460 entitled to any kind of certainty or you start to look for evidence getting really into the weeds 0.69

00:49:39.680 with these are the reasons why I know that this person is queer or these are the reasons why I

00:49:47.580 know this person is not queer it kind of all comes from this similar place of needing to categorize

00:49:54.640 kind of to go back to what you were saying before I you know I think there's this like discomfort

00:49:59.440 with the idea that we don't always know the context surrounding this media and the way it

00:50:05.740 engages with queerness. We won't always know and we can't always know. And that is uncomfortable

00:50:12.100 for many reasons. And it can be, you know, it can be scary too. Like there are legitimate reasons

00:50:20.140 why kind of depending on your headspace at the time or your situation, you may choose not to

00:50:26.620 engage with media created by somebody who is not openly queer right but i think we need to

00:50:32.420 get a lot more comfortable with we will not know we do not know we are not entitled to know

00:50:38.940 and um the possibility of queerness to me doesn't mean that we need to like

00:50:46.260 start searching for confirmation or confirmation in the opposite direction i want to wrap up this

00:50:53.060 discussion with like this isn't just about Harry Styles or you know some rich and famous people

00:51:01.240 I think like the effects of it trickle down to to all of us normals really because it's saying

00:51:08.940 first of all that the idea that everyone is straight until proven otherwise

00:51:13.360 to me is it's heteronormativity with like a progressive bow on it it backs everyone in

00:51:22.880 to this impossible corner where they have to if they're going to experiment with the way that they

00:51:30.960 express themselves they have to come out and they have to be ready to come out and they have to i

00:51:36.040 mean they have to first of all be queer they have to know exactly exactly what type of queerness you

00:51:41.280 know they embody and they have to be ready to come out uh if they want to express themselves and like

00:51:47.240 i said earlier you know they have to get it right the first time i think like you said i mean we

00:51:51.900 should leave people the possibility of queerness but you know we don't have to speculate one way

00:51:57.720 or another and frankly like Harry Styles can keep wearing nail polish and questionable dresses

00:52:04.660 until the end of time if he's heterosexual and people think that he's profiting off of that

00:52:10.780 then like I don't know I would rather that than have anyone ever get outed because we decided

00:52:19.040 that there are these like rigid structures in place

00:52:21.000 for who's allowed to be queer

00:52:22.060 and who's allowed to wear what. 1.00

00:52:23.680 I would rather be queer baited. 0.94

00:52:25.640 No, me too. 0.86

00:52:26.280 And also you never need to personally

00:52:28.720 give any of your money to Harry Styles

00:52:31.480 if that helps.

00:52:33.840 But I will continue to give my money to Harry Styles

00:52:36.900 because I love him.

00:52:39.520 As is your right.

00:52:40.760 The broad effect,

00:52:42.180 the like collateral damage of this kind of,

00:52:46.720 like when the discourse crosses the line, right?

00:52:48.640 It creates this environment where people internalize that this is something that they owe people, that this is the cost of entry to being queer.

00:53:02.560 I know that what happened to me was traumatic, not just for me, but it was sincerely traumatic for a lot of people, people who I don't even know, people who are not going to ever pursue anything creative because, you know, they watched me go through when they imagine kind of going through that with their particular circumstances.

00:53:32.560 which in many cases are not going to be cushioned in the way that mine was in a whole bunch of

00:53:40.460 different ways, right? Even if you believe that somebody with a certain amount of money is

00:53:48.240 untouchable, at the very least, you have to consider the people who are watching this play

00:53:52.820 out who are deeply not untouchable. And that's who, those are the people who are always on my

00:54:00.300 mind every time i ever talk about this is everyone who's watching from the sidelines being like okay

00:54:06.740 well if i come out i better be exactly sure about who i am and you know who i'm gonna be and the

00:54:13.320 type of work that i can make and the type of clothes that i can wear or not wear or should

00:54:16.160 wear how i'm signaling to people this or that like i have to be confident on exactly all of those

00:54:21.180 things if people are going to take me seriously as a queer person mind you these are a lot of

00:54:25.380 a lot of people who are watching this stuff play out with someone like kit connor these are people

00:54:29.260 who have never had a sexual experience in their lives not that that's what queerness necessarily

00:54:33.720 comes down to but it's like these are young people you do not have to have it figured out

00:54:38.560 to like paint your nails or hold hands with someone or you know post an instagram picture

00:54:45.420 like you don't have to have it figured out you don't have to have it figured out by the time 0.78

00:54:49.200 you're 15 or 18 or 30 or 50 it doesn't matter like there's no timeline for these things queer 0.93

00:54:55.360 The whole queerbaiting discourse is an attempt to make these things neater than they ever will be. 0.98

00:55:03.280 I think it comes from a place of wanting authentic representation that we've been denied for so long, and in many cases still are, and of being hurt by corporations who want our money and nothing else. 1.00

00:55:17.360 And I think it comes from these natural places.

00:55:19.720 But the way that it plays out materially hurts people.

00:55:24.660 And I think that should take priority.

00:55:27.380 That, and I guess the only thing I would add to that is like, if you have been a part of this discourse in the past, it is, first of all, not too late to recalibrate on that.

00:55:37.780 But also like kind of give yourself a little grace and go a little easy on yourself because the discourse has its own norms and it kind of reinforces those norms within itself.

00:55:48.440 and um you are not a bad person if you know you participated in some of this discourse in a way

00:55:55.700 that like you eventually come to regret or even you know if you haven't unpacked it but like you've

00:56:02.920 been called out for it or something like i don't think you're a bad person i don't know there's

00:56:07.240 like five of you out there who i think are a bad person but i doubt you listen to this podcast

00:56:11.180 Becky where can people find you where can people support your work

00:56:20.060 um thank you so I am on Instagram the Instagram is the only one that I run myself

00:56:26.280 um it's Becky Albertalli I have a bunch of books out if you are interested in any of the stuff we

00:56:33.700 talked about though the one to read is Imogen obviously which is my um my latest one and it is

00:56:41.040 all of this in book form basically oh becky look at that you bargained for one book and

00:56:48.300 you've now written a lot more than one book so congratulations thank you

00:56:56.880 um i'm so happy that you were here i'm so happy that um you know i'm not happy that you went

00:57:04.660 through what you went through but i'm happy that you can speak about it with some clarity now and

00:57:07.980 I know a lot of people are going to really benefit from it thank you the listener for being here

00:57:13.920 today I hope that you know maybe you learned something maybe you have been forced to challenge 0.97

00:57:20.940 yourself as I was in that moment a bunch of years ago where I was called out for being an idiot on

00:57:27.360 Instagram basically I love you again if you want more a bit fruity the Patreon link will be in the 0.96

00:57:34.520 description. And until next time, stay fruity.

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - March 12, 2024

How Love, Simon’s Author was Pushed Out of the Closet

Episode Stats

Transcript