Before we get into it, some business: Boston's only queer-owned bookstore, All She Wrote Books, has been priced out of their space and is crowdfunding the move to their new home.

"In the past two years, All She Wrote Books's rent has increased by 130%, and in the last four months alone, we have spent about $8,000 on HVAC issues, flooding repair, and more (and that doesn't include rent!)," their crowdfunding campaign reads. "It's clear to us that staying in Assembly is untenable for our small business—one of two local-owned shops on the Row. It's time for us to grow in a new space, one that aligns with our values and will allow us to flourish without fear of displacement."

All She Wrote, and Its owner, Christina, have been hugely supportive of me and of Hail Mary. Christina has cultivated such a robust and necessary community in her store, and I'm glad it will continue to exist. If you can spare anything to help them get settled, I would so greatly appreciate it!

Now, onto the newsletter!

I have a new op-ed up at CNN about the media narrative surrounding the potential relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

In the piece, I critique the way sports media, in particular, latched onto rumors about the two stars dating and ran with it—even before Swift's camp had given any encouragement or confirmation about them: "At the end of the day, whether or not Swift and Kelce are actually dating, the boys and men who consume sports media have ingested some incredibly harmful messaging about entitlement, consent and how to get the girl."

But there's something else incredibly fascinating about how all of this played out that I want to interrogate a little bit—specifically the heteronormativity (and, perhaps, latent homophobia) around who gets what kind of speculation. Let's look at what the media has reported about Swift's personal life over the last few weeks, shall we?

Prior to Swift showing up at Travis Kelce's football game on Sunday, she had given no indication that the two of them could be an item. The conversation about the two of them potentially dating began nearly a month ago when Kelce mentioned on his podcast that he'd attended her Kansas City show and made her a friendship bracelet with his number on it, which he was unable to give to her. He admitted being "butthurt" about not getting to speak with her that night.

From there, sports media went wild with speculation, asking Kelce and his brother Jason about it every chance they got, and when they couldn't ask them directly, theorizing incessantly. Her team appeared to issue several denials of the relationship.

For her part, Swift was photographed out and about in NYC with different female friends nearly every night. She attended the VMAs, where she gushed over every woman in attendance and won nine awards.

Then, last week, Jason Kelce made a (maybe?) joke about the rumors about this relationship being "100% true" and Travis said he invited her to watch him play in Arrowhead Stadium where he'd watched her perform to "see which was more lit" (can you imagine the gall to say that to the woman who is currently on the most successful tour in music history but ok). Swift stepped out with newly-separated-from-Joe-Jonas Sophie Turner, in one of the most brilliant PR moves (on both their parts) I've ever seen. Then, they stepped out together again. And then, sources confirmed that the two women had a "girls' night in" at Taylor's house.

Two days later, Swift shows up at Arrowhead Stadium and fans and the media absolutely lose their mind. The two do a little pap "drive" in a convertible with no plates on it, down a dead-end street looking like something out of the Barbie movie, and Swift's team issues this statement to PEOPLE magazine: “Taylor is very focused on work right now and hanging out with her girlfriends. Travis invited her to the game, and of course she said ‘yes’ … She just thought it was a fantastic way to spend Sunday.”

I obviously do not know whether Swift and Kelce are dating. But I do think it's fascinating which person gets dating speculation and which does not. Because, while we have no way of knowing whether Swift is queer, we have enough evidence to suspect that she could be, from song lyrics to queer flagging to whatever the hell went on between her and Karlie Kloss. And while I understand that Turner is going through a divorce and it's unlikely she's looking to start a new relationship so soon (nor do we know if she is queer or not), that's not really the point I'm trying to make here.

Despite Swift's continued emphasis on spending time with her girlfriends, her repeated outings with women on her arm, and her team's denials and downplaying of whatever is happening with Kelce, there's no mainstream speculation that anything romantic could be happening with women. To do so wouldn't be outing her; it would simply be drawing conclusions based on the evidence presented, the same way people do when men are involved. And yes, perhaps some of those conclusions are wild reaches—but so are the ones people make about Swift's involvement with men.

For example: Matty Healy shows up at the Eras Tour and the two are photographed holding hands while out to dinner: the media says they are dating.

Gigi Hadid shows up at the Eras Tour and the two are photographed holding hands while out to dinner: the media runs stories about the gal pals.

Swift is photographed out to eat and arm-in-arm with Turner; the two get into a car together: look at the friendship!

Swift is photographed attending Kelce's football game and they drive in a car together: they're basically married!

To my mind, there are a couple of reasons for this. The first is heteronormativity—we assume people are straight unless they tell us otherwise, and straight people are incapable of seeing queerness unless it is explicitly spelled out for them. They aren't conditioned to know the signs and they don't even think to consider it.

"In a cisheteronormative world, we are more likely to assume people to be cis and straight until told otherwise than to assume they're trans or queer," Melissa A. Fabello, PhD, a sex and relationships educator, told me when I interviewed her for my Cosmo feature on Camp Gaylore. "That is speculation. To speculate that a person may be queer is not offensive."

The second reason I think people don't speculate about the potential of Swift dating women is homophobia. I think a lot of people worry it would be considered disrespectful to speculate in this way about someone who hasn't outright said that she's queer. But that belief stems from the idea that being queer could be an insult, or could be something offensive to imply about someone. It's only disrespectful or offensive to speculate that someone may be in a queer relationship if you think that being queer is an undesirable or bad thing to be.

"Taylor Swift fans clearly don't have an issue with speculation, so long as that speculation is heteronormative," Fabello told me. "The issue here is that heterosexual relations are inherently seen as safe and pure, whereas queerness is hedonistic and inherently sexual."

I am not implying that Swift and Turner are dating. But it is worth noticing the ways in which behavior that would be seen as romantic in nature between a man and a woman isn't even considered a possibility when it is between two women.

Equal opportunity speculation is all I'm saying.

Anyway, check out my CNN op-ed if you haven't already!