Queer Fans Feel Betrayed by Taylor Swift’s Literal Embrace of Brittany Mahomes

This story first appeared in Them

Taylor Swift may have tried to brand herself as an ally in the past, but some of her LGBTQ+ fans are now voicing disappointment with the company she keeps.

After Swift and Brittany Mahomes sat in different suites at the Kansas City Chiefs home opener on September 5, speculation ensued that the pair might be experiencing a rift in their friendship. But this past weekend, Swift and Mahomes, who are both in relationships with members of the NFL team — Swift with tight end Travis Kelce and Mahomes with quarterback Patrick Mahomes — were photographed hugging and smiling at the U.S. Open in New York City.

This would be fairly unremarkable celebrity gossip were it not for the fact that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump thanked Brittany Mahomes for “so strongly defending” him on social media last week.

Mahomes, a former soccer player who wed her husband Patrick in 2022, caught flack last month for liking a post on Trump’s Instagram page that outlined the 2024 GOP platform, which includes promises to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” “keep men OUT of women’s sports,” and “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”

Though Mahomes appears to have since un-liked the post, Buzzfeed reported in late August that Mahomes seemed to doubled down on her support after she was publicly criticized, writing on her Instagram story, “I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult, you have to have some deep rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”

Naturally, many LGBTQ+ Taylor Swift fans are feeling betrayed, especially because the singer has styled herself as an ally in public statements, songs, and even music videos like 2019’s “You Need to Calm Down.” She publicly endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time during the 2020 election cycle when she threw her support behind Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and openly spoke out against the dangers of a second Trump presidency as well.

But with less than 60 days until the 2024 election, the “Karma” singer has yet to endorse a candidate. What’s more, at the end of August, Trump shared several AI-generated photos of supposed “Swifties for Trump,” as well as an AI-generated photo of Swift in the style of a Uncle Sam recruitment poster reading “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump,” per CBS News. In light of Swift’s lack of public comment on the fake Trump endorsement, and her literal embrace of Mahomes, many LGBTQ+ fans are pointing out Swift’s supposed hypocrisy.

In particular, many have been calling attention to Swift’s 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, which features a clip of her arguing with her team about speaking out against Trump.

One Swift stan account posted to X, “i’m a trans person whose life will be impacted by the policies trump wants to impose as president so i’m sorry if seeing taylor swift interact with someone who endorses those policies makes me a little upset lmao.”

Other X users and Swift enthusiasts pointed out that embracing Mahomes is a particularly bad look for someone who has openly criticized Trump before. One account wrote, “taylor should be MORTIFIED to have fox news writing a headline like this about her.”

While it seems highly unlikely that Swift herself would endorse or vote for Trump given her past political statements, her silence itself is proving to be increasingly conspicuous.