Queerbaiting

the rainbow tag and other ways of lgbt+ misrepresentations

by Jemma Vázquez

brainstorming
● Queerbaiting: A marketing technique used to attract queer viewers
that involves creating romantic or sexual tension between two same-sex
characters but never making it canon or evolving on it
● Compulsory heterosexuality: “Compulsory” is the opposite of
“optional”. “Compulsory heterosexuality” is exactly what it sounds like -
being straight is something our culture tries to force on us.
● LGBT+ employment discrimination: About half of LGBTQ people in
the U.S. – 52% – live in states where they could be fired, nixed for a
promotion, refused training or harassed at their jobs, all because of their
gender identity and sexual orientation. Yet straight actors/actresses are
chosen to play queer characters
● Queer erasure through history: Many people in the LGBTQIA+
community feel disconnected from their history or hard to find evidence
of it, largely due to this erasure. In most cases, personal diaries and art
are all we have to go off for proof of queer people in history. However a
lot of this is often rewritten and the queer elements erased. People quite
often choose to reinterpret queer writing as platonic or a “very close
friendship”, claiming there is a lack of evidence to support they were gay
as they never explicitly said so.
● “tHe gAys aRe JuSt tRyinG tO sHovE iT dOwN oThEr’S tHrOaT”:
What’s worse is that aside from denying or leaving these situations
ambiguous, when fans bring up the notion that two characters may be in
a relationship, they get ridiculed as “trying to see the gay in everything.”
● “wHaT aBoUt tHe KiDs?”: Hungary's ruling nationalist party has
submitted legislation to ban LGBT+ content to minors. The proposal is
included in a government bill that punishes paedophilia. It says
youngsters under 18 cannot be shown pornographic content, or any
content that encourages gender change or homosexuality.
● LGBT+ love being fetishized on Media (wlw, mom and trans
relationships): These seemingly harmless and normalized forms of
sexualization don’t don’t stand alone; they reflect on the larger issue of
sexual violence and harassment against queer people. LGBTQ+ students
in general are more likely to be sexually harassed or assaulted on
campus than their straight peers.
● Gatekeeping: the lack of representation outside the L and the G:
Gatekeeping is essentially exclusionism and when I’m talking about
gatekeeping in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, I mean exclusionism in what is
 supposed to be a safe space.Oftentimes, gatekeeping overlaps with bi
and ace-phobia, as well as erasure of the respective identities.
● Double discrimination: “Bisexual people face double discrimination in
multiple settings — bisexual people are often invisible, rejected,
invalidated [and] stigmatized in the heterosexual community as well as
the traditional LGBTQ communities,” Same happens to asexual people
● Respectability politics aka “JuSt dOn’T mAkE bEiNg gAy yOuR
wHoLe pErSonALitY”: Respectability narratives are representations of
marginalized individuals meant to depict them as sharing similar traits,
values, and morals that align with the dominant group’s definition of
respectability. It is a set of beliefs holding that conformity to prescribed
mainstream standards of appearance and behavior will protect a person
who is part of a marginalized group.
● Performative bisexuality and the male gaze: I saw women kissing
each other for publicity, for shock value, for their boyfriend's approval,
but never out of romance. From that, I concluded that if I wanted to be
with a woman, I had to make it palatable for a man. What gets to me
about images of performed bisexuality is how they reinforce bisexuality
as something that can be faked for the purpose of heterosexual
seduction.
● The rainbow tax: Throwing rainbows at everything is really supporting
the LGBTQ+ community or just fulfilling a brand purpose? It effectively
erases the importance of Pride month and the reason June is an
important month for the LGBTQ+ community, which is because the
Stonewall riots occurred at the end of June 1969 in Manhattan, and
instead makes it about selling something. Companies who ignore the
political aspect of Pride in favour of an easy marketing campaign are not
representing what it’s all about. Similarly, those brands who claim to
support the LGBTQ+ community and yet don’t have policies in place
that actually practice what they preach should steer clear of any form of
advertising that takes advantage of Pride.
● The shades of homophobia: "Homophobia: The fear of feeling of love
for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings
in others... the belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving
and thereby its right to dominance." Audre Lorde. While the term
homophobia itself sounds like the fear of homosexuality or those who
identify as LGBTQ+, it's more indicative of people who have an aversion
to others who belong to the gay community.

resources
~https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1I6qGAzzibnRJFin_c8U2OBm0
588M-V0NmfobQnRii44/mobilebasic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios
_app&utm_name=iossmf#h.nrpgl48zyjhx
~https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=queerbaiting
~https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/08/lgbt-employme
nt-discrimination-half-of-states-offer-no-protections/3837244002/
~https://comicsyouth.co.uk/youthtakeover/2020/7/1/junior-activism-7-quee
r-erasure-in-history
~https://scholar.utc.edu/honors-theses/128/
~http://www.pantherbanter.com/theartsandentertainment/2020/10/14/quee
rbaiting-vs-representation-media-today
~https://youtu.be/riKVQjZK1z8
~https://youtu.be/3umRD7SOUNw
~https://www.glaad.org/amp/lgbtq-women-on-campus-revamp
~https://sovlpvnk.com/2020/10/20/ace-rep-3-lgbtq-gatekeeping-bisexual-an
d-asexual-erasure/
~https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/double-discrimination-loneline
ss-contribute-bisexual-health-disparities-study-says-n798071
~https://www.studioatao.org/post/understanding-respectability-politics
~https://lgbpsychology.org/html/prej_defn.html
~https://uh.edu/lgbtq/resources/_files/homophobia.pdf
~https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-homophobia-5077409
~https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a47076/how-i-learned-to-
stop-performing-bisexuality-and-start-actually-living-it/
~https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/visibility-performing-bisexuality-katy-per
ry-lowndes-music-feminism
~https://www.smartinsights.com/marketing-planning/pride-marketing-probl
ems/
~Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
~Straight korean female fans and their gay fantasies, Jungmin Kwon