People literally pretend to be other races in order to bolster their careers. Look up Rachel Dolezal or Jessica Krug. Hell, half of white America vaguely, casually claims to have some "Native American" ancestry because of a family legend that spices up their lives a little bit. Do you think LGBTQIA+ identity is exempt from this somehow? Beyond that though, there is a difference between the way regular folks deal with identity, and the way that celebrities with carefully managed public personas and PR teams do. If management teams can try to force celebrities to stay in the closet for decades, do you not think they're also capable of pressuring celebrities to lean into queer identity because it will help their careers? Kevin Spacey conveniently came out of the closet right when he was being accused of sexual assault. Harry Styles never *says* he's queer, but he leans into the suggestion that he *might* be because his fans love it and it helps his image. I'm not suggesting that he's not also an ally, because of course he is; the two things can overlap. And again, my point here is not that anyone should be harassed about this, I think it's unequivocally wrong. I'm only suggesting that when some celebrity going through a PR crisis vaguely suggests that their queer, that it's okay to say "hmm, I dunno about that, but I guess we'll see!" rather than ringing the bells and rolling out the red carpet for them.
