This week, in line with previous evidence suggesting that literally everybody is gay (such as Taylor Swift changing the pronouns in “Trouble,” Janelle Monae and MC Lyte rocking each other’s bodies and Kristen Stewart and Alicia Cargile holding hands while wearing sunglasses), serial cultural appropriator, millennial tongue icon, enthusiastic pop performer and furry-advocate Miley Cyrus has revealed to the AP that not all her past relationships have been ‘straight, heterosexual’ ones. She did not reveal which of her past relationships were not straight or heterosexual, but I think we can safely assume she means her past relationships with women. (If you are one of the women she is referring to, please e-mail Gothip Girl at stef [at] autostraddle [dot] com with pictures.)
However, just last week she was swapping spit with model Frankie Rayder. They’re not in a relationship, I just thought you might wonder whether they’re drinking Kendall-Jackson or Sutter Home, because I sure am! I keep looking at the wine label but can’t figure it out. :-(
Cheese & Wine Pairing
This revelation comes as no surprise from a girl who, queer or not, has been very into queerness, kissing girls and looking gay for quite some time now.
Practicing Miley Cyrus face
Sharing candy
Trading gum
Sharing invisalign
Tasting tank tops
Appreciating female beauty
Posing for different selfies
Just what I always wanted, a nice girl who won’t call me out for twerking
Remember that time we ran into Miley Cyrus at Dinah Shore and she took a picture with Kip and Jess!?!?!
Apparently, until recently, Miley Cyrus had been dating Mr. Freeze’s son Patrick Schwarzenegger, who looks kinda like Jason from Pretty Little Liars. They were together for five months, so that worked out pretty well, it sounds like.
Normcore
More importantly, Miley did the interview at an event for her new charity, The Happy Hippie Foundation, which aims to “fight the injustices faced by homeless youth, LGBT youth and other vulnerable populations.” In a strange move from The Daily Mail — a publication that regularly passes off “news” that is completely fabricated as fact — the writer of this particular piece on Miley Cyrus chose to include skeptical language regarding Miley’s statement on the plight of homeless LGBT youth, declaring that Miley “claims” there is a huge intersection between LGBT youth and the homeless. How dare she claim such a thing! Furthermore, they write that “while the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates there are 1.6 million young people living on the streets in the United States, Cyrus insists two in five of them are LGBT.” That’s right, Cyrus “insists” that two in five of them are LGBT, and she does so in a clause presented as contradictory to the previous clause, as if both things could not be true. Seriously, The Daily Mail has reported with more confidence on the imaginary relationship between Ellen Page and Eric from True Blood than on the actual facts about LGBT homelessness. Anyhow!
Exclusive photo of Miley Cyrus at World Pride
Miley Cyrus is raising money for her non-profit through means including promoting exclusive “Backyard Session” videos on Facebook, featuring new songs with musicians including Ariana Grande, out trans musician Laura Jane Grace, and bisexual rock star Joan Jett. Her song with Joan Jett, “Different,” dropped yesterday, and encourages viewers to donate if they like the song.
Cyrus also did an exclusive interview with OUT about the foundation, and, according to that interview, Miley has “spent a lot of time struggling with traditional gender expectations.” She told the magazine, “I didn’t want to be a boy. I kind of wanted to be nothing. I don’t relate to what people would say defines a girl or a boy, and I think that’s what I had to understand: Being a girl isn’t what I hate, it’s the box that I get put into.” Some seem eager to classify this as Miley coming out as genderqueer, but that feels like a pretty generous leap for a young woman expressing a relatively common struggle with the boxes women get put into. Miley declared her dedication to a label-free existence on instagram, screenshotting The Daily Dot‘s article about her and declaring “NOTHING can/will define me! Free to be EVERYTHING!”
https://instagram.com/p/2WJAqmwzOQ/?taken-by=mileycyrus
Miley also told Out magazine that she’s been “haunted by the murders of transgender women and the suicide of trans teenager Leelah Alcorn,” reflecting a relatively impressive level of awareness around a very important issue in the LGBTQ community. Cyrus has long been an advocate for LGBTQ rights, much to the delight of many queers and the chagrin of many others. She also has a gay haircut.
Additionally, Miley Cyrus recently posed on the red carpet at the Met Gala with Zoe Kravitz. Kravitz dropped a new music video yesterday with her band Lolawolf, which features Miley Cyrus and Zoe looking at each other’s butts, playing with toy guns and playing cards in their underwear. Last I checked, that’s a relationship, so.
Gothip Girl, our traditional reporter on breaking celebrity news, was unable to write this article today because of a fire at her place of employment, but she told me exclusively: “We’ve always suspected Miley Cyrus was a “friendly “girl, but the news that she’s had a number of anonymous gal pals in the past gives us all hope. Personally, I suspect if she ever decided to come to A-Camp, she’d make a TON of friends. I mean, I’d be her friend.”
If you wanna ask Miley questions about her charity or invite her to A-Camp, hit up Happy Hippie’s facebook page at 3PM!
In conclusion, women are irresistible and pretty much everybody is figuring that out, including other women.
Hey, it took me coming out of the closet to buckle down into social justice and feminism, so hopefully the more involved she gets, the more aware she’ll be of intersectional feminism. (i.e. stop the really bad fetishization of black bodies and misappropriation)
You are such a good egg.
I feel significantly more cynical about this turn of events.
But would I consent to playing cards with Miley in my underwear and looking at her butt? PROBABLY.
I guess this is a good way of looking at it. I was so conflicted because none of this makes up for her racism or those really rape culturey comments she made last year BUT her charity sounds fantastic and it’s awesome that she’s using her privilege to bring attention to an issue which Hollywood basically never talks about. So maybe this is just her growing up and she will eventually learn more and apologize. After all, I definitely had a lot of fuck ups when I first got into feminism/social justice, but thankfully it wasn’t like my whole life was on camera and online for everyone to see like hers was…
Hopefully she’s doing the same kind of learning we all did…just a LOT more publically. (Thank god Tumblr/Facebook was not a thing when I was growing out of second wave throwback feminism and internalized homophobia.)
I watched that “Different” video this morning and did not expect to be crazy about it, but her chemistry with Joan Jett is legitimately adorable. I could watch them sing and dance around all day. (Plus, what a pair of voices!)
I remember coming out to my parents and during the craziness that ensued after listening to Hanna Montana’s “The Climb” was quite soothing.
Also before I came out I was really into LGBT issues and feminism.
Ahah this is me as well. I used to think I was SUCH a good straight ally. Welp, not so much straight after all !
I listened to “The Climb” many times while preparing to come out to my parents!
miley cyrus and i are both single at the same time. coincidence? i think not. what does the tarot say about this?
To make a grand gesture towards her?
I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m thrilled. She’s started a charity for homeless LGBT youth, which is a huge step! And I’m sure for many young girls her coming out is a good thing and I’d love for her to be an inspiration.
On the other hand… she’s got a history of cultural appropriation and ableism and other general messiness.
But props to her, anyway. (I always thought she was hot, esp. with short hair)
omg all these pictures just made me a a little weirded out. like what if strangers had grabbed pics of me every time i kissed a girl as i was figuring out my sexuality? that would be….
wait that would be amazing. THAT WOULD BE SO MANY PICTURES
ok new thought: we all have our paths.
F*CK THE DAILY MAIL
the daily mail did caption a picture of miley with this amazing bit:
Friendly: The singer, who seen here hand in hand with Rita Ora at the same event, did not elaborate on when or who these relationships were with.
“Friendly.” i love them.
Me and a friend once ceremoniously burned a copy of the daily mail for scaremongering about girls kissing girls at sleepovers because of pop culture. It was a beautiful moment in our friendship. Fuck the daily mail indeed.
I don’t.understand the whole thing with her tongue residing outside of her mouth. I mean, she can do what ever she wants with it but does she not fear she’ll catch flies or other insects? Is she not worried about her makeup? How can one be so fearless with their tongue? I don’t understand.
she must have a really good tongue scraper
i love a good tongue scraper
One of these days she’all come home from a night on the town and her tongue will look like a used lint roller and she’ll regret that decision. I want better for her. I want better for everyone
I think this was an early misguided attempt to demonstrate her interest in women. She’s *really* proud of that tongue and she really wants you to know.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who though this, be it in jest or not.
If she ever dates Cara Delevingne it’s gonna be Tonguemageddon.
I wish I could do that but I’ve got a geographical tongue (thank you, grad school!) and I’m too ashamed of it to pop it out in front of a camera :(
I feel like “not heterosexual” is definitely a cool, valid-as-fuck label.
In and of itself, it’s sufficient to describe my situation, and a lot of other people’s. Knowing that a lot of arrogant-ass douches will ask you to justify your existence if you use super-hard-to-understand words like “bisexual”, “pansexual”, “queer”, “fluid” or “flexible”, I feel as if “not heterosexual” might solve quite a few issues, and bring some next level clarity. Straight people would be able to understand us better, finally!
-AH! You mean that you are a hetero, too, except not at all? I legit get it now, fellow human being!
You have more faith in straight people than I do.
Well, it is a very cool label, but I think some people might misinterpret it. The dictionary definition of heterosexual is “attracted to members of the opposite sex”, not ” exclusively attracted to members of the opposite sex”. So, strictly speaking, “not heterosexual” would be a Kinsey 6.
In fact, a Kinsey 3 is literally defined as “Equally heterosexual and homosexual”. http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html
But that’s because bisexuality is traditionally viewed as “half gay, half straight” rather than “fully attracted to people of more than one gender” and this results in a lot of the “bisexuals are always promiscuous adulterers” stereotypes/biphobia/misconceptions.
Generally I’m really uncomfortable with the “dictionary definition” of queer terms, because they tend to be both outdated and written by not queer people, and therefore don’t capture the shifting nuances of the words we use. (shout out to Autostraddle’s more than words series, that was a great way to explore the historical and modern complexities of language associated with queer people)
Any language you use to describe yourself will be misinterpreted by someone- I’ve seen friends of mine gleeful mention that they’re gay/queer, and people assume they’re joking/using the old definition, because they’re ‘normal looking’ and/or not visibly depressed over their awful fate in life- and so as long as the people she’s trying to communicate with understand what she’s saying, it doesn’t really matter if some others don’t. If what she’s comfortable with right now is not heterosexual, that’s fine. Every young, vaguely to very liberal person I know would understand that she’s using the more common “attracted exclusively to people of the other binary gender” definition of heterosexual, and I doubt Miley is overly concerned at this point with the confusion of the middle aged or conservative.
Just now recognizing that I don’t consider middle age as beginning until ~45, and then generation older than that are the baby boomers who… struggle with effective long term governing, and oh god, do we have any responsible adults in this country?
Ironically, though, the reason that the meaning of the word is misunderstood (or has shifted) is in part because people don’t understand or accept bisexuality. In a world where everyone is either gay or straight, heterosexual and straight mean the same thing.
I basically identified as “not straight” for a long ass time before I was comfortable accepting queer, and then later, bisexual labels.
I am thinking so many things about this right now but I’m just going to keep my negativity to myself today. I think I’m just completely burned out on celebrity news as a whole these days.
OMG a Dead Like Me icon <3
Oooo I am interested.
While Miley is far from perfect, I kind of love her. She seems to be a more passionate advocate than a lot of celebrities. I follow a ton of celebs on instagram and while so many of them have something to say when there’s something about marriage equality in the news, she’s usually the only cis celebrity I ever see talking about trans issues (and this was even before Bruce Jenner). Also, I think there’s something really appealing about how she appears to be such a mess to most heteronormative, “respectable” folks. She’s just like this big, sloppy ball of humanity and it weirds people out, which is rad.
But yeah, she has a lot of work to do before she is a perfect advocate, but who among us can say we don’t have more work to do?
yeah I feel like I am supposed to dislike her… but i don’t! i really just don’t. i think she’s cool and she fucks up a lot but so did I at her age. so do i now! i’ve said lots of problematic things in the past. she lives in a bubble surrounded by people who affirm her choices, it’s kinda weird how we expect women who live in universes that bear no resemblance to our own to be not only good at speaking to our issues, but better at it than everybody else is.
I gave up keeping up with which celebrities I’m supposed to like or dislike, personally. Too much work. I just maintain an attitude of good-natured indifference. It’s way easier!
on the one hand, i get what you’re saying. on the other, i think it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s sort of different to be a white person (and I’m talking to Riese here, I don’t know the original commenter and I’m not making assumptions) who is looking past miley’s history of appropriation of black culture vs. a person of color who is doing that (not that i’m saying all PoC do or should feel one way about miley cyrus!). i’ve noticed in a lot of conversations with people who are white and cis when the racist or transphobic actions of another individual come up, they are often quick to disagree with a person’s actions but call for understanding and patience for them. which they can partially do because they view it as a faux-pas and not cool, as opposed to something that is personally damaging (i mean, it also is contributing to a system that is insidious and damaging to a whole community). like the person who said the thing/did the thing gets a lot of chances to fuck up, and it falls on the member of the marginalized community to sort of put up with it and deal with the damage it causes in isolation, or at least in tidy, manageable reactions that don’t rock the boat.
so as far as i’m concerned, sure, she’s young and lives in a bubble (and also under a microscope? she’s in a little teeny bubble on a slide in some lab somewhere is i guess what i’m saying. anyway), and the ways in which she is scrutinized and criticized are often gendered and gross, but she’s also white and very privileged and doesn’t get a free pass on the shitty things she’s done that impact marginalized communities. if people from the communities that she’s appropriated from don’t feel that degree of lattitude/forgiveness towards her, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Part of my coming out process MAY OR MAY NOT have involved wistfully watching the Wrecking Ball video… over and over again. That song’s releasing date also MAY OR MAY NOT BE how I identify the time at which I started to come out to myself.
I’M JUST SAYIN
her best friend leslie was quoted as saying, “she’s just being miley.”
One of the greatest pop lyrics of all time.
regardless of your view on Miley her coming out is so important. Like her fans who may be working this stuff out may feel helped by this and thats enough for me to say its a good thing.
I find it messed up when people completely write someone off because they’ve done problematic things. Human beings are complicated! Messy! We fuck up sometimes! We also do amazing stuff sometimes!
It’s kind of like how I don’t support Roman Polanski what with the raping children thing but still think Chinatown is a good film.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage celebrities on these issues, of course. But the scorched earth, all-or-nothing attitude seems… counterproductive.
In theory, I completely agree. Like I can forgive somebody who once said something extremely problematic and is apologetic for it and learned a lesson. But their are certain things that are an absolute deal breaker for me. Having a history of repeated violence against women is one thing. And I definitely draw a fucking line in the sand over the rape of minors so you will never see me have a kind word to say Roman Polanski or Hollywood’s constant need to martyr him. Are his movies good? Sure. But he’s still a rapist who deserves ounce of shit thrown his way.
As for Miley, she has never done anything nearly as reprehensible and alot of her good deeds outway the bad. Still, I’m starting to be over celebrity culture in general. But good for her on the charity front.
Well said. I only watched Chinatown because it was in a film class in university. I doubt I’ll ever watch it again, because just no.
I’m not really into Miley/celeb culture in general but I also am really tired of people heaping shit on folks, especially women/afab people.
And I think even more important (in my opinion), with her, is the fact that she has shown progressive improvement over time. Her racism/appropriation has kind of waned since We Can’t Stop, I think, and she’s certainly improved by leaps and bounds regarding how she relates to topics of gender/trans issues. It’s one thing to be like “Everyone makes mistakes!!~~**~*~*~*~” but isn’t it the entire point of our criticism for the person in question to learn from their past transgressions and work to improve themselves?
“isn’t it the entire point of our criticism for the person in question to learn from their past transgressions and work to improve themselves?”
yup yup yup!
>>It’s one thing to be like “Everyone makes mistakes!!~~**~*~*~*~” but isn’t it the entire point of our criticism for the person in question to learn from their past transgressions and work to improve themselves?>>
Exactly! And I think it’s where the “all-or-nothing” mentality really fails us. It’s not helpful to decry anyone who criticises someone, just as it’s not helpful to write them off entirely. It’s about balance and praising the good/penalising the bad.
I like Miley (though I think she’s done some problematic things, and that the criticism of her cultural appropriation is totally valid). I agree that an all-or-nothing attitude is counterproductive. I also think that twerking and child rape are such drastically different offenses that it’s kind of ridiculous to compare the two. Raping a 13 year old is more than a few steps beyond “problematic”.
It wasn’t my intention to place those as equal, although I can see how people see it that way now!
So, I totally get why Miley coming out as whatever is super important for the youth and all, complete with all the pics of her being hot and making out with girls.
I just wish… that the way this news was covered here and elsewhere was with headlines “Miley Cyrus starting charity for LGBT homeless youth” or “Miley Cyrus Moved to Change by Leelah Alcorn’s Death” with her reveal about previous relationships buried past the lede, instead of the other way around — I mean, this news came about as an interview she was doing for the charity, right?
It’s great with celebrities come out, but they should really be spotlighted in LGBTQ media when they come out AND use their visibility for advocacy.
you know, i thought about that when i was writing this, and you’re totally right, but two things:
1. whenever we’re writing a post about somebody ‘coming out’, we use the same format for the headline: “[person] is [sexuality]: maybe something else here.” and um, i liked the headline i made too much to add anything else to it
2. it would’ve gotten maybe 25% as many clicks
“Miley Cyrus, Not Heterosexual Human, Helps Other Not Heterosexual Humans”
“Miley Cyrus Put Her Tongue on Other Girls’ Faces, and Wants to put LGBT Youth in Safe Warm Places”
1. ok do you want to work here because those are really good headlines and we are running out of good headline energy in general
2. but they don’t fit with the formula we use for every coming out post! that’s what i’d tell you if you worked here
3. heather said my headline was perfect
1. Sure, sign me up! – I think “making up rando headlines” is about the limit of what I could do.
2. “Miley Cyrus is Not Heterosexual: Miley Cyrus Kissed Not Boys, and Dyes Not Head Hair for LGBT Homeless Youth”
“Miley Cyrus is Not Heterosexual: Miley Cyrus Reveals Big Gay Past, Works Towards Happier, Hippier LGBT Future”
:P
3. Well, why didn’t you say so from the beginning? Obvi, Heather is always right.
I read that as Wanted to put her tongue… in safe warm places. I need another coffee I’ll show myself out.
I’m noddin’ my head like yeah
Movin’ my hips like yeah
SO I PUT MY HANDS UP THEY PLAYIN MY SONG
It’s most definately Kedall-Jackson. looks like a Pinot ;)
Well I for one am about 100% sure she started that charity to get people to forget that she’s a massive racist – which no, is not the same thing as having “a few” “problematic” “opinions”, stop downplaying racism like that.
Not to mention that her foundation is really not transparent and their website has no information about how much money they’ve raised, exactly where the money is going, how much money is spent directly on support services for homeless youth and how much is lost on administrative costs etc. They don’t even make public who actually runs the foundation? If you want to donate to organizations that help homeless youth please consider donating directly to shelters, your money will actually go towards helping homeless youth.
Meh…
I’ve just been having a conversation about how people can be both idiots and do awesome things and they should both be criticised for the stupid stuff and celebrated for the good stuff. This is a pretty perfect example. Miley seems to know her shit in certain areas and be absolutely f-ing clueless in others. Hurray!
Can’t say I’ve really forgiven her for the rampant cultural appropriation. Maybe she’ll pick up a thing or two about intersectionality on this big journey or whatever.
Go Miley! And I would twerk for her anytime, except probably not after midnight cause I’m old. “Cultural appropriation” nonsense be damned!
She’s TWENTY TWO. And was a child star. I give her until she’s like 45 to have her shit figured out. At her age I was finishing up college and still saying dumb stuff like “aren’t bisexuals just greedy? why can’t they pick?” (um, hello, bisexual here!) and wearing a bindi because it was cool. If cameras were following me around at that time I’d look dumber than Miley in my mistakes.
So good for her. Hopefully by the time she’s a grownup she’ll have figured things out and have a little more poise in her platform.
I have nothing interesting to add except that her tongue makes me uncomfortable
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