songbird878

They just—took away an entire population’s valid IDs. With a stroke of a pen. No grace period. No chance for anyone to get their IDs “fixed” in time, not that they should have had to in the first place. They even made it illegal for people to drive themselves to the DMV to get a new ID. That’s insane y’all. That is dystopian level madness. It is petty and cruel and literally dehumanizing.

They have also invalidated their birth certificates, thus jeopardizing their ability to prove citizenship and vote. It’s voter suppression on top of everything else.

They wanted to make an entire population into criminals with a stroke of a pen and that’s what they did.

And the rest of the country just… hasn’t noticed. No one cares. There’s no headlines. Nothing on the news. Because it’s Kansas. Because it’s trans people.

With her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift stepped fully into the archetype of the poet: the truth-teller, the confessor, the one who bleeds their heart across the page. It was an era of introspection and dissection, dressed in grayscale and candlelight, where the stage was a study and the lyrics were the centerpiece.

Now, with her twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, she takes on an entirely different mantle: the showgirl. A figure of glitter and discipline, a master of spectacle who knows just how to command every eye in the room.

If the poet turns inward, the showgirl turns outward. Put them together, and you get the two Taylors at the heart of her artistry:

The Poet- who writes her truth, holds the audience close, and offers the intimacy of confession.

The Showgirl- who takes the stage, owns the moment, and turns vulnerability into theatre.

In truth, she has toyed with both aesthetics all along. Swift has always balanced the writer in the wings with the star under the lights. But these last two eras are different. In TTPD and TLOASG, she is not merely borrowing their costumes, she is claiming the archetypes. She can hold a room in the hush of confession or the roar of applause, and knows exactly when to turn one into the other. Having bled all over the page for Tortured Poets, she brings us into a colorful era of performance and art.

The showgirl’s arc is as familiar as any Broadway libretto: an ascent, a reign, a reckoning, and a legacy. And like any great role, it’s ripe for reinvention... especially in the hands of someone who just spent an era proving she can master the poet’s pen.

The Four Acts of a Showgirl

The “Four Acts” isn’t an official handbook, it’s the arc that emerges again and again in the stories of women who’ve built their lives in sequins and spotlight. Across vaudeville stages, Parisian revues, Vegas showrooms, and Hollywood musicals, the showgirl’s life almost always follows the same beats: a dazzling entrance, a reign at the top, an inevitable turning point, and a legacy that lingers long after the curtain falls.

Act I: The Ascent — Becoming the Spectacle

The Archetype: The ascent begins with arrival. It's the transformation from relative obscurity into a vision under the lights. Costume, makeup, and stagecraft turn her into something heightened and almost mythic. She stands taller beneath her headdress, shines brighter in the spotlight, and becomes untouchable in her sequins.

Historical Figures:

Billie Dove (1903–1997) began her career in the early 1920s as a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, chosen for her beauty and poise rather than extensive stage experience. Within just a few years she transitioned into Hollywood and became one of the silent era’s most bankable stars, her face on movie posters, fashion spreads, and cigarette cards. Behind the glamour, there were whispers of romantic relationships with women, as there were for other Follies names like Lilyan Tashman (1896–1934) and Marion Davies (1897–1961).

These stories remain whispers for a reason. In the early 20th century, same-sex relationships were both stigmatized and criminalized. For women whose careers depended on projecting an idealized image to the public, exposure could mean instant career ruin. Queer relationships, if they existed, were hidden behind “close friendships,” shared homes, or coded language in gossip columns. In the Follies world, rumor could form from real observation, from wishful thinking in queer audiences, or from moralistic attempts to tarnish women who defied convention. Whatever their origin, these rumors became part of the showgirl legacy — a parallel history running alongside the glitter and choreography.

Taylor’s Implications:

Taylor’s own beginning mirrors Dove’s in its speed and inevitability. She was plucked from a small-town stage and placed under a national spotlight while still a teenager. Like the early showgirls, she had to navigate a carefully managed image while finding ways to layer her own truth beneath it. Now, with The Life of a Showgirl, she is staging a deliberate re-ascent. This time, she arrives in a costume she has chosen, on a staircase she has built, with actors she has cast.

Through a Gaylor lens, the parallels deepen: the showgirl’s ascent has always been about performance as both mask and mirror, a space where the truth could glint just beneath the sequins. The poet planted the words; the showgirl sets them to music and motion.

Act II: The Zenith — Owning the Stage

The Archetype: The zenith is the showgirl at her peak. She is the main event, the name that fills seats and the image splashed across posters. Her style sets trends, her movements inspire imitation, and her presence is as much a part of the city’s identity as its skyline. Yet behind the sparkle, she balances grueling schedules, backstage politics, and the constant pressure to outshine herself.

Historical Figure:

Josephine Baker (1906–1975) reached her zenith in the 1920s and ’30s as an expatriate in Paris, where she starred at the Folies Bergère and became one of the most celebrated entertainers in the world. Known for her iconic banana skirt and magnetic stage presence, Baker was more than a performer. She was a cultural phenomenon who challenged racial barriers and redefined sensuality on stage. Offstage, she lived openly enough to have documented relationships with women, including fellow performer Clara Smith and writer Colette. In a time when such relationships were taboo in most public spheres, Baker’s fame, expatriate life, and the more permissive Parisian artistic circles gave her unusual freedom. She was a showgirl who didn’t just command the stage, she controlled her image and embraced a personal life that defied convention.

Taylor’s Implications:

Taylor is firmly in her own zenith. She is both the spectacle and the architect, controlling not only her performances but the machinery around them. Like Baker, she operates with a keen awareness of her cultural capital and uses it to shape her narrative. By stepping into the showgirl archetype at this stage of her career, she is leaning into the full command that comes with the zenith: the ability to own the performance, dictate the framing, and blur the line between public persona and personal truth. In poet mode, she wrote the story. In showgirl mode, she performs it, translating the ink into image without losing the subtext.

Through a Gaylor lens, the comparison to Baker is potent, both as women who have built empires in industries that often wanted to contain them, and as artists whose stagecraft invites layered readings about identity, desire, and control.

Act III: The Descent — Burnout or Breakaway

The Archetype: The descent comes when the relentless demands of performance, shifting public taste, or the industry’s fixation on youth begin to press in. For many showgirls, it meant fading into obscurity, taking smaller roles, or leaving the stage entirely. Others used the moment as a pivot point, transforming themselves into something new and rewriting what longevity could look like.

Historical Figure:

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) became an international star in the early 1930s, known for her sultry voice, androgynous style, and magnetic screen presence. While she was never a chorus-line showgirl in the Ziegfeld sense, her late-career cabaret performances embodied the showgirl’s ability to reinvent. In the 1950s and ’60s, long after Hollywood would have preferred her to retire, Dietrich took to the stage in form-fitting gowns and tuxedos, merging glamour with subversion. Her tailored suits, famously worn both on and offstage, became a queer style touchstone, openly signaling her relationships with women while still captivating mainstream audiences. Dietrich didn’t descend quietly — she reshaped the arc, turning the so-called twilight years into a period of bold self-definition.

Taylor’s Implications:

Taylor has not entered her descent, but in invoking the showgirl archetype she signals awareness of the industry’s script for women in pop: that their reign is temporary, and their replacement inevitable. Like Dietrich, Swift has the cultural capital to defy that script entirely. She can change the stage, the costume, and the rules on her own terms. The poet edits the script; the showgirl rewrites the ending in rhinestones. The mirrored imagery is telling. Dietrich in her white shirt and black trousers, Swift decades later in an almost identical pose.

Through a Gaylor lens, Dietrich’s unapologetic mix of glamour, artifice, and queer-coded presentation offers Swift a blueprint for her eventual Act III. The descent need not be an exit; it can be a deliberate shift into an even bolder form.

Act IV: The Defiance — Rewriting the Ending

The Archetype: Defiance is the refusal to accept the narrative that a woman’s time in the spotlight is finite. It’s the stage reclaimed not out of necessity, but out of desire, discipline, and sheer audacity. In the showgirl tradition, Act IV belongs to those who work past the limits the industry prescribes, proving that mastery can transcend age, trend, and even expectation itself.

Historical Figure:

Dorothy Dale Kloss (1923–2020) spent decades as a professional dancer before becoming the oldest working showgirl in Las Vegas history. Well into her 80s and 90s, she was still high-kicking alongside women less than half her age in Folies Bergère productions at the Tropicana. Kloss defied the logic of burnout and expiration by making performance her lifelong practice. Her defiance wasn’t about denying age, it was about claiming the stage as an enduring part of her identity, long after the world would have assumed she’d step away. While the Kloss arc leans into longevity and autonomy, more than sexuality, I think the significance stands for itself.

Taylor’s Implications:

If Taylor’s career follows a traditional arc, her zenith will eventually give way to withdrawal. But Act IV offers a different possibility: one where she extends her presence indefinitely, not by clinging to past formulas but by evolving with full control over how and where she appears. For Swift, defiance could mean moving fluidly between music, film, and live performance; curating rare, era-defining appearances; or leaning into projects that deliberately blur the line between art and autobiography.

It’s the poet’s final flourish, the truth buried in plain sight, performed through the showgirl’s eternal spotlight and for those prone to spotting conspiratorial glitter in the corners, the fact that Act IV belongs to a showgirl named Dorothy Dale Kloss, is the kind of coincidence that could send a committed Kaylor spiraling into a bulletin-board-and-red-string weekend. It’s the kind of detail that lives somewhere between trivia and fate, the kind of wink that makes the showgirl’s curtain call feel less like an ending and more like an inside joke with history.

Through a Gaylor lens, the defiant showgirl is the ultimate reclamation of narrative. It’s a statement that identity, including queer identity, does not expire or fade into invisibility with time. If Swift steps into this role, she could close the loop of the showgirl archetype not with a bow-out, but with a reentry. Is this the final act that declares she has been in control all along?

Final Bow

The life of a showgirl is written in acts, but the great ones know the story doesn’t end when the curtain falls. Swift has always been both poet and spectacle, crafting eras that stand alone yet fit into one deliberate arc. The Life of a Showgirl is not just her next costume change. It is an era of control, choreography, and knowing exactly when to step into the light.

The announcement might come through her public boyfriend’s podcast and the headlines will likely fixate on their chemistry, or the lack of it. The focus should be on the art. This is chapter twelve in a career already shaping modern pop history. This is not filler before the next masterpiece. The Life of a Showgirl will be its own high-wire act. It's a rare chance to see her at the height of her power, shaping every beat of her myth in real time. If Tortured Poets was about excavation, this era is about construction: building the legend in sequins, step by deliberate step. And if you are counting, you know what comes after twelve: thirteen. The number she has built an entire mythology on. The one almost certain to be seismic.

Taylor, my girl, Swift. Changing the world one day at a time.

You belong with me. 💚💛💜❤️🩵🖤

We love you, Taylor

Tonight's surprise songs are:

i Did Something Bad 🎸

THE MIC IS ON

a few hours after I posted @lyricstoojesus submission that began with:

*taps mic* Is this thing on? IS IT?!

"Going Anon's" last message had one too! Was "Going Anon" telling us they were listening?!

🫵🧏‍♀️

She loves us - She REALLY LOVES US!!!

noticed lots of people from twitter hopping over here to tumblr, some for the first time, some for the first time in a long time, and i noticed people are writing intros in the kaylor tag and i just wanted to make a post tagged kaylor in order to say hiii 👋 happy to have you all here 🥰 shame about twitter these days but i hope you can make yourself at home here 🫶

yes, welcome to tumblr, we’ve been waiting for you! 😘

hope you find it as a safe space (especially for lgbettys) to gather and share all the happenings with each other! theres a lot of great people here, and we hope to see you around!

Taylor's intro speech for PAPER RINGS