Harry Styles made history as the first solo male on the cover of Vogue. The "Golden" singer shined in a periwinkle Gucci gown for the December 2020 issue. As a result, everyone from outspoken conservatives to fierce drag queen shared their thoughts on the debut.
Not all praise the Vouge cover
While many celebrate the magazine cover as "a joyful expression of male femininity," others such as Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro tweeted their contrasting views on the magazine’s cover choice.
Particularly, Owens calls for society to “Bring back manly men."
Our fave queens share their thoughts
On the other hand, drag queen Monét X Change discussed the Vogue cover on her Yahoo series, "The X Change Rate." She praises fashion magazine for its efforts to normalize gender non-conforming covers.
"It's fierce," the video host said. "This is such a major victory for people under the LGBTQI+ umbrella."
Monet continued to express her disappointment in far right ideologies on traditional gender roles.
“I just don’t understand why they immediately jump to the feminization of men being a negative thing,” she reacts to conservative comments. “Men being feminine is not the problem, men should be allowed to be feminine.”
Her guests and fellow drag queen alum BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon also gave input on the Vogue backlash.
“If you were well-versed in the world of fashion, then you would know that it used to be masculine to dress in forms that we would now refer to as feminine,” said Monsoon. “[Conservative straight people] don’t have any concept of how gender expression has evolved throughout the generations… to be where we are now, where men are confined to suits.”
Equally, BenDeLaCreme added, “The flip side of making the kind of progress that we’re making is that we have to listen to these idiots comment on it.” She notes that outlets like the December 2020 Vogue cover is, “ultimately, what’s going to get us towards where we need to go.”
Acknowledging future representation
Later in the episode, Monsoon references an Instagram post she came across on the very topic. In short, the poster, Alok Menon argues trans individuals of color do not receive similar praise or recognition.
For that reason, the queer community is allowed to feel both ways about the conversation, Monsoon argues.
“We’re allowed to be happy that this is happening and that someone of such prominence is breaking down gender boundaries and binaries in such a big way," she said. "We’re also allowed to feel disappointed that it’s not a trans femme queer person of color on the cover of Vogue. Because [they] have been breaking down these boundaries and binaries for a lot longer than Harry Styles has.”