Every June, millions from the queer community gather to celebrate pride month, a celebration of love and being out and proud. Every year, celebrities tend to be more open about accepting queer communities too, a pride flag post to an Instagram story is essential to maintaining face and keeping off homophobic allegations. Recently brands have strayed away from rebranding their logos on social media to a “rainbowfied” version, as push back against only celebrating queer communities in June has shifted how corporations view pride month.
However, this pride month felt held back in the sense that it has been filled with controversy. 2025’s Pride Month felt like every other month in the pop-culture world. Often this month social media users responded to a controversy on TikTok with the comment: “Seriously, during pride month?” What could have happened in June that offended so many people into feeling like pride just wasting prideful? The answer is simple: men.
It is not that men themselves could have ruined pride month. It is the fact that many queer women came out as bisexual this month. Taking most of the heat is Jojo Siwa, who has received enormous amounts of hate for publicly dating Chris Hughes, after meeting on TV show, Celebrity Big Brother UK.
Siwa had previously said she wanted to create a new genre of music called gay pop. Siwa has publicly dated multiple women, and labeled herself as lesbian when coming out in 2021. When Jojo Siwa entered the Big Brother House in April, she was in a public relationship with Kath Ebbs – who uses they/them pronouns – and was mostly supported by the queer community when fellow housemate, Mickey Rourke made homophobic remarks to her. Rourke claimed that he “could make Siwa straight,” which left Siwa in tears as she remarked about her wonderful partner at home.
However as the season went on, viewers noticed Siwa and Hughes growing closer .This was followed by a and eventually confirmation that Siwa and Hughes were in fact dating. In response, one TikTok user stated, “Jojo Siwa is disturbing because what do you mean she went on national TV and cheated on her partner, came out as not being a lesbian and immediately dumped them.” This video alone has received over two hundred thousand likes. Despite concerns about Siwa and Hughes’ age gap of 10 years, most criticism has come in the form of an attack against Siwa’s queerness. How could a lesbian be dating a man? The answer is simple, Siwa’s sexuality is none of your business.
Biphobia is the false assumption that people who identify as bisexual, are not as queer as others in the community. Bisexual members of the LGBTQ+ community have historically been invalidated as not gay enough. Bisexual people may receive hate for being in “straight passing” relationships. Bisexual women are they aren’t truly gay if they are dating a man.
Since when is it a competition to be the most gay? In an interview with Daily Mail, Siwa admitted that she felt pressured into coming out as lesbian, “But then I kind of boxed myself in and I said: ‘I’m a lesbian.’ And I think I did that because of pressure,” Siwa said. Siwa herself is 22, why is it so surprising that someone at her age would still be discovering herself and sexuality? Most members of the queer community have the opportunity to discover their sexuality, away from a live TV show where cameras are rolling 24/7. However, Siwa’s childhood fame, from Dance Moms, has caused her to grow up and make mistakes in the spotlight. At the end of Pride Month, Siwa has continued to post videos with Hughes, seemingly confirming that she is happy despite the haters.
Siwa’s straight passing relationship does not make her a loss for the queer community. Instead, she should be an example for everyone to understand how fluid sexuality can be. Siwa wasn’t the only singer to come out as not being lesbian this June. Singer-songwriter Fletcher released her song Boy on June 5th, a love song where she sings about finding happiness with her partner. The only problem to her fans? Fletcher was in love with a boy, despite her fans claiming that she had created a brand that was “inherently lesbian.” One user, who supported Fletcher’s choice to open up about dating a man despite the feedback, commented on how Fletcher’s fanbase would feel let down by her, “ I also get where the frustration is coming from because for years Fletcher built her platform by leaning into a lesbian identify and profiting from a queer fanbase.”
Fletcher addresses feeling nervous about her fans knowing she is dating a man in the lyrics,
“And I know it’s not what you wanted to hear
And it wasn’t on your bingo card this year
Well, it wasn’t on mine
I fell in love
And it wasn’t with who I thought it would be
And I’m scared to think of what you’ll think of me
His lips were soft
I had no choice, I kissed a boy”
TikTok has deemed Fletcher’s sexuality the “Fletcher controversy,” or the “Fletcher discourse.” One user stated that Fletcher, “choose the first Pride Month of the Trump administration to announce that she had ‘found her real self’ by dating a man and do a complete rebrand while remaining virtually silent on the threats facing our community.” Another user expressed that the pushback on the song is not biphobia: “The hate is not biphobic. Fletcher’s choices invalidate lesbians.”
Biphobia often shows up in the belief that young women are not gay, they just need to find the right man to fall in love with. It seems that the internet believes that Fletcher is playing into this stereotype and fueling this belief. However, by claiming that Fletcher is playing into this stereotype, is to believe in the stereotype yourself. If you believe that bisexual people are truly bisexual, then it should not be a shock to see a woman dating a man and still calling herself queer. In an interview with Rolling Stone about her upcoming album, Fletcher said, “I’m a queer woman. I’ve always been queer. I will always be queer. My identity is not shifting and it’s not changing. My community is not changing. But I’ve had these new experiences that I wanted to let people in on and give them a chance to know me now.”
Perhaps this Pride Month should not be documented as the month when “all the lesbians started dating men” but as the month where the fluidity of sexuality was on display. Confining these women, and other members of the queer community is harmful. The reality is biphobia is still a big part of the pushback many face. Someone’s queerness does not need to look how you want it to. One’s sexuality is theirs alone. To believe that being queer has to look a certain way is damaging to the community that has worked so hard over the years to come together to fight homophobia.
For more information on Biphobia, click here.
