Three years after Harry Styles became the first solo male cover star of Vogue, fashion icon Billy Porter is still frustrated about the magazine featuring the “white” and “straight” star wearing a floor-length gown. “That’s why he’s on the cover. Non-binary blah blah blah blah. No. It doesn’t feel good to me. You’re using my community—or your people are using my community—to elevate you. You haven’t had to sacrifice anything,” Porter told The Telegraph. But, he clarified that he’s not trying to put Styles on blast. “It’s not Harry Styles’s fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way,” Porter said. “I call out the gatekeepers.” While Porter doesn’t claim to be “the first” man to defy gender roles, he has previously taken some credit for having “changed the whole game” of male fashion. What was more irritating about the situation, however, was a conversation Porter had with editor-in-chief Anna Wintour just months before the Styles cover. “That bitch said to me at the end, ‘How can we do better?’ And I was so taken off guard that I didn’t say what I should have said,” he said. Porter added that he should’ve told her: “Use your power as Vogue to uplift the voices of the leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement.”
