Accusing someone of queer baiting is not the call for representation the community needs

Young British actor, Kit Connor, has recently come out as bisexual following accusations of queer baiting. In September, the 18 years-old star from Netflix’s hit LGBTQ+ series, Heartstopper, came under fire again after a video of Kit holding hands with actress Maia Reficco went viral on twitter. Escaping the online harassment, the actor decided to quit Twitter earlier with a message, “this is a silly silly app. bit bored of it now, deleting twitter :)”, only to return on November 1 to silence the queer baiting allegations once and for all.

back for a minute. i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself. i think some of you missed the point of the show. bye

— Kit Connor (@kit_connor) October 31, 2022

Earlier this year, on the Reign With Josh Smith podcast, Kit had touched on the pressure to reveal his sexuality saying, “We’re still all so young, to start sort of speculating about our sexualities and maybe pressuring us to come out when maybe we’re not ready… for me, I just feel perfectly confident and comfortable with my sexuality. I’m not too big on labels and things like that.”

Unfortunately, the interview made the actor a target of queer baiting accusations, which ultimately led to his untimely coming out. Kit touched upon the irony of the whole situation in that last tweet six days ago: While Heartstopper has been praised within the community for sending an empowering and comforting message to LGBTQ youths, the teenager actor behind one of the main characters did not get to come out on his own terms.

Image: Courtesy of Netflix

Hopefully, Kit’s story will be a cautionary tale, especially in terms of speculating on young people’s sexuality. Alice Oseman, as the creator of Heartstopper, came to Kit’s support, tweeting “I truly don’t understand how people can watch Heartstopper and then gleefully spend their time speculating about sexualities and judging based on stereotypes. I hope all those people are embarrassed as F***. Kit you are amazing”