Thousands Petition ‘Vogue’ for Allegedly Suggesting Cara Delevingne’s Going Through A Lesbian “Phase”
Cara Delevingne on the July cover of Vogue. Photography by Patrick Demarchelier for Vogue
Cara Delevingne’s complicated — that much is undeniable. The 22-year-old socialite-turned-model-turned-actress recently opened up to Vogue’s Rob Haskell about her struggles with mental illness, her mother’s heroin addiction, her career moves and, most notably, her new relationship. The Paper Towns star was long-rumored to be dating Annie Clark (stage name, St. Vincent), and confirmed the ongoing relationship in the July issue of the magazine. But the author’s now getting skewered in an online petition for suggesting that Delevingne’s “only dating women due to a troubled relationship to her mother,” and urging her to “trust men.”
Julie Rodriguez, a bisexual woman who created a Care2.com petition urging editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to issue an apology for the article, asserts that Haskell’s “dismissive and demeaning language” is harmful and should’ve been caught by Vogue’s editorial staff. “The idea that queer women only form relationships with other women as a result of childhood trauma is a harmful (and false) stereotype that lesbian and bisexual women have been combating for decades,” she describes as her reasoning for raising issue with the article. “People are quick to assume queer women’s identities are a ‘phase’ and to refuse to recognize the important relationships in their lives — an attitude which can cause depression, result in families rejecting their daughters (or forcing them into abusive conversion “therapy”), and even put young women at risk of suicide.” She insists that a publication of Vogue’s stature should “be applauding Cara for coming out as queer, and being open about her relationships with men and women" as opposed to falling into familiar traps.
The petition is near its goal of 12,000 signatures. “It’s amazing that so many people still believe that being LGBT is just a lifestyle choice and is not who these people really are,” Bill McCoy commented alongside adding his support. “Why can’t we just allow everyone to be their own person, so long as no one is harmed?” Marc Beschler added, “I’m not sure what the author thought this editorializing was adding to the article, but all it really added was a sense that his notion of human sexuality is exceptionally outdated.”
Many agree with Rodriguez. If only many actually read the whole story. Haskell’s offending sentence—”Her parents seem to think girls are just a phase for Cara, and they may be correct.”—is within a paragraph in which Delevingne herself says she’s confused (her words). She says it took her a long time to come to terms with falling in love with a woman, then says she only has erotic dreams about men, and then circles back and says she’s only been hurt by women. So Haskell’s phrase, “they may be correct” clearly refers to the model’s own confusion—confusion, by the way, that is perfectly normal.
It’s Delevingne’s parents who suggest it’s a phase and she agrees that it just may be. But if we started filing petitions against all the parents who think their kids are going through a phase, well, you can’t print the paper fast enough.
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