Taylor Swift's re-recorded 2014 album 1989 has dropped just in time for diehard fans to enjoy a weekend filled with nostalgia. The album marks an era when the star transitioned from country to pop muic, and saw her bag a Grammy for Album of the Year. Alongside her impressive spanning career in the limelight, comes trash talk. More specifically, years of misogynistic "slut shaming" surrounding Swift's dating history. Subsequently, Swift took a break from dating for two and a half years – which meant she naturally spent more time with her female friends. From doing so, baseless online rumours were birthed about her sexuality. Now, in a letter written for the re-release of the album, Swift shared her inspiration behind writing 1989, and in doing so, thanked fans for not leaning into claims online. "The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman? I wanted to silence them," the star wrote. "You see – in the years preceding this, I had become the target of slut shaming – the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticized and called out if it happened today. The jokes about my amount of boyfriends. The trivialization of my songwriting as if it were a predatory act of boy-crazy psychopath. The media co-signing of this narrative. I had to make it stop because it was starting to really hurt." Swift continued: "It became clear to me that for me there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with. If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys, dating, flirting, or anything that could be weaponized against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era." She went on to say that she assumed she "could fix this" by changing her behaviour. "I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships," she explained. "If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that – right? I would learn later on that people could and people would." Swift went on to thank fans who didn't buy into spiralling rumours online and who "knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood." How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis prepares to announce his official bid for president of the United States, Americans are getting a taste of what a future under Mr DeSantis could look like. For months, Mr DeSantis, 44, has been called a possible frontrunner for the GOP nomination in the media because of his reputation for passing conservative legislation and comfortable re-election to the governor’s mansion. From passing a six-week abortion ban to eliminating concealed carry permits, Mr DeSantis has proven he is willing to pass controversial legislation in the name of uniting the state under right-leaning values. And the Florida governor seems to be hoping for the same if he were to become US president. Here’s what Mr DeSantis has said about the future of the US and what he thinks of certain policies. On abortions Mr DeSantis is anti-abortion, believing “The right to life is the most foundational of our God-given rights.” In April, Mr DeSantis quietly signed Senate Bill 300, known as the “Heartbeat Protection Act”, which prohibits abortions after six weeks of gestation with the exceptions to save a woman’s life, a fatal fetal abnormality or in the event of rape or incest so long as the woman can provide documentation such as a police report. The six-week ban will only go into effect 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court rules on a challenge to the state’s current 15-week ban under House Bill 5 which Mr DeSantis signed into law last year. Should SB 300 go into effect, it would make Florida one of the most restrictive states for women to access reproductive healthcare like abortions. On the Supreme Court While giving a speech at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in May, Mr DeSantis advocated for the Supreme Court to become more conservative by replacing moderate or left-leaning justices with conservative jurists. Citing Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as “the gold standard for jurisprudence”, Mr DeSantis said in the future the court should “fortify” itself with the addition of two like-minded Justices. “It is possible that in those eight years we would have the opportunity to fortify Justices Alito and Thomas, as well as actually make improvements with those others,” Mr DeSantis said. “If you were able to do that then you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century, so this is big stuff.” On gun control Mr DeSantis is against gun control, having received an A+, the highest rating, from the National Rifle Association (NRA) “Ron DeSantis vigorously opposes gun, magazine and ammunition bans,” the NRA said. In April, Mr DeSantis signed House Bill 543 into law, eliminating the requirement for permits to carry concealed weapons. On LGBT+ Rights The Humans Right Campaign, one of the state’s largest LGBT+ rights advocacy groups, and Equality Florida issued a traveling warning to those in the LGBTQ+ community in May. “While not a blanket recommendation against travel nor a call for boycott, the travel advisory outlines the devastating impacts of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community, restrict access to reproductive health care, repeal gun safety policies, foment racial prejudice, and attack public education by banning books and censoring curriculum in order that prospective travelers or residents can make the best decisions for themselves and their families,” the press release said. One of Mr DeSantis’ most controversial legislation, House Bill 1557, involves restricting LGBT+ rights in education. The legislation, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, prohibits classroom education or instruction involving gender identity or sexual orientation. Mr DeSantis has also signed legislation that prohibits transgender people from using public facilities that align with their gender identity and one that prohibits children from attending “adult live performances” like drag shows. On Covid restrictions The Florida governor first made headlines during the pandemic when he emerged as a leader who vehemently opposed Covid-19 protocols like mask mandates, social distancing and vaccine requirements. “Federal vaccine mandates and restrictions were never about protecting Americans from a virus, they were exercising control at the expense of the American economy and the American way of life,” Mr DeSantis said in a press release. Mr DeSantis received harsh criticism from the public for refusing to implement restrictions that were proven to stop the spread of the virus. 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