Kit Connor, Queerbaiting, & Coming Out | notcorry

What do you think? Can real people queerbait? Did the video change your mind on anything?

His character’s whole arc in the story is learning that liking girls doesn’t mean you can’t like boys and that you can be bisexual, and yet when he’s seen with a girl people act like he couldn’t possibly be queer

Even if we put aside the bi erasure (which is fucking atrocious, by the way) I still don’t understand why or how fans would interpret him being seen HOLDING HANDS with a girl with him being in a relationship with a girl. This isn’t just bi erasure, it’s heteronormativity and amatornativity. As an aro/ace person I am quite affectionate with my friends with no romance or sex attached, so I have no clue how holding hands shows people’s attraction. The only reason these people assume that is because, despite how they like to believe they care about queer people, their actions are being driven by the same oppressive systems they’re fighting. Because a guy and a girl can’t just be friends, and affection of any kind is reserved for an intimate partner, right?

I love how your Scots accent gets more pronounced the more passionate you are! You never disappoint, your content is always thought provoking.

"stop policing peoples queerness and uplift the community" 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

as someone who is bisexual , the bi erasure of it hurt so bad. this video was so good! thank you for this. it means so much to me seeing how angry you were about it bc i was angry too!

“There’s this idea that if you’re not straight, you HAVE to tell all your family and friends IMMEDIATELY, like you owe it to them. But you don’t. You don’t HAVE to do anything.” — Aled Last, Heartstopper Vol. 3, pg 107 Truly these people could not have missed the point of this story more if they tried. Charlie being outed before the main story is a huge source of pain and trauma for him, leading to the very control issues which manifest in his eating disorder. This video was a really informative explanation of the situation, and actually changed my mind on whether or not real people can queerbait. I was firmly in camp “no they can not” before watching this, but you made a nuanced argument that they can, while acknowledging that there’s still absolutely no justification for harassing someone over it. What happened with Kit disgusts me. The second he opted to not public label his sexuality—despite referring to himself as part of the queer community as early as APRIL, right when the show came out—people took that to mean he was probably straight. People are so goddamn entitled, it’s infuriating. Him being photographed holding hands with a girl apparently gave them the excuse they needed to be louder and more aggressive about it. And the fact that the harassment didn’t stop after he outed himself?? Some of these people are so unbelievably biphobic that they took him labeling himself as bi as an excuse to throw terms like “bihet” at him. Bihet!! Because apparently being bisexual, but looking masculine and MAYBE dating a girl, means he’s not queer enough. Because some random person on Twitter has the right to decide that. Because there’s only one acceptable way to be queer. As if Heartstopper doesn’t show many different ways to be queer—as if the POINT of Nick’s character isn’t that he doesn’t fit expectations (read: STEREOTYPES) and so people make assumptions about him. As if Charlie doesn’t say in the first goddamn episode “masculine guys can be gay, and bisexual people exist”! I know I’m a bit (or perhaps a lot) past the target demographic for this show, but as a bisexual trans guy, Nick Nelson means so much to me. Bisexual rep, and especially male bisexual rep, since we’re not fetishized by straight men the way bi women are, is so limited. And it fucking sucks that people could watch a show that is so good, and so important, and behave this way. Clearly, they only accept Nick’s bisexuality because he ends up with a boy. Also, “more of a simmering bisexual” cracked me up. I do think Nick gets more and more raging as the comic continues and he gets more and more comfortable with himself! Definitely looking forward to THAT in the future seasons of the show! PS: sorry this is so long lol

And for an extra helping of bi erasure, the female co-star Kit was seen holding hands with is ALSO bisexual. She's been out as bi for a while. So much bi erasure there.

I feel like a lot of younger queer people who spend most of their time online don’t truly understand that it can be DANGEROUS to be openly queer. Of course they know that, but they don’t genuinely comprehend it. As someone who’s been out for longer than a lot of these kids have been alive, when I saw this shitshow go down I was genuinely horrified for Kit. We never know what someone’s situation is and I really hope he’s safe.

i’m a tiktok editor, i’ve loved heartstopper since october 2021. i read all the comics and followed all the cast etc. when the show came out i absolutely loved it so i made a few edits of it, and decided to make an edit of kit bc i loved him as nick. it got 110k views i think. i had to delete an alarming amount of comments where people were sexualising kit calling him “daddy” etc. there was loads of comments calling him “my boyfriend” and stuff, so i think people became so obsessed with the idea of dating kit (literally question mark) that they felt they NEEDED to know if they “had a chance”. i’ve deleted all edits of the cast now because the comments are so alarming it makes me actually concerned. loved this video so much thank u for making it !!

What makes me especially mad about this is I also don’t think it would’ve been a problem for me if Kit Connor WAS straight. It only would’ve been a problem for hyper-obsessive fans who’s demands of irl identity comes across as incredibly perverted. Like sure, he plays a queer character. Importantly though, a YOUNG queer character actively struggling with his identity. HOW can we allow Nick to question his sexuality and ultimately realize he’s bi without having the same understanding for ANYONE questioning their sexuality REGARDLESS of what they eventually “decide” to label themselves as, IF they choose to do so at all!! I hate this particular situation especially, because if Kit had said he was straight, he probably would have been “cancelled”. He was backed into a corner, he couldn’t stay unlabeled due to harassment, he couldn’t say he was straight due to potential harassment, he couldn’t say he was young and experimenting, he didn’t have the basic dignity of having an open audience to be honest to. He was backed into a box with pitchforks. He played a fictional character, and people conflated his professional on screen chemistry with irl desires and/or identity. I’m all for giving queer roles to queer actors, but I’m ALSO for giving the right roles to the right actors, and Heartstopper had a LOT of demands for finding the right actor (age, chemistry, appearance, experience…) and I just don’t think anyone should EVER be cancelled or attacked for their sexuality, heterosexuality included. Heartstopper did a lot for the LGBT community. Kit Connor in the role of Nick did a lot for the LGBT community. That wouldn’t have been erased or undone if Kit Connor happened to realize he was heterosexual. An absolutely pointless hypothetical threat that threatens NOTHING in reality other than the interest of the obsessive fanbase (aka $$$). A major point of Heartstopper is sexuality is complicated, difficult, and incredibly personal. How did the fans of that show miss that? I wish time didn’t work the way it did, because we’ve learned this lesson before (*coughs* Dan and Phil…). Real people are not characters, they have lives and feelings that cannot be entirely accurately placed into text. Ugh, thanks for the video Corry, I hope it reaches one or two people who still don’t understand.

Just recently I stopped identifying as bi and am currently unlabeled, I made this decision knowing that I have friends that will respect me no matter what. After realising that I might not be bi after identifying with that label for such a long time I find myself almost grieving the label. I feel so bad for what happened to Kit conner. If he ever identifies as anything other than bi in the future he will get these horrible accusations again.

i saw everything cause i’m on twitter and honestly the “fans” there is still going on about how kit is still queerbaiting. the fans wanted kit to come out and now they’re mad at him cause he came out. it’s honestly very disappointed to see such people come out of a show like heartstopper.

I get this upset concerning transphobia in relationships: saying someone has to be pan to date a trans person, and a gay man with a trans man isn’t gay— etc etc etc. that phobia usually comes from within our own community. I’m not Bi, but I absolutely understand how frustrating this is. It extra sucks when the LGBTQAI community attacks it’s own…

Really interested in your views on this. Personally I think trying to apply queerbaiting on real humans might do more harm than good considering how easily it is already being abused. As long as a person is not actively lying about their identity with malicious intent that can be proven, the term queerbaiting should imo stay in the realm of fiction. Anyways, looking forward it the video!

this was a brilliant essay!!! the problem was never queerbating, it was the fans’ biphobia.

The whole Kit Connor situation makes me incredibly sad. He's a young person that is good at what he does and has a fanbase that should have enough braincells to respect him. A bunch of young girls that liked seeing him kiss another boy hated that he had a girlfriend and demanded that he give them answers. It's absolutely disgusting and really upsetting.

Ranting about biphobia so relatable, when I saw people were so biphobic i couldn’t believe it, just so stupid ( and weird coming from heartstopper fans)

What happened to Kit makes me so mad, heartstopper so accurately portrayed the coming out process and how its ok not to know and/or not want to come out, but these people just ignored that completely. I love Heartstopper so much and I thought the fanbase was as wholesome as the show, but I guess I was wrong.

yeah i totally agree, i’ve always thought it was weird that the internet™️ sees the “real people can/can’t queerbait” debate as so binary. real people can queerbait sure but you really won’t ever know for sure unless they admit it, which no one ever would so there’s no reason to even have the debate in the first place let alone ever directly accuse someone of it. what’s funny to me is the people who keep getting accused of queerbaiting aren’t even doing or saying anything queerbaity they’re literally just existing and getting stereotyped lmao