Taylor Swift made a surprise appearance at NYC’s Stonewall Inn on Friday night, singing her hit song “Shake It Off” after an introduction from Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who also joined in on a few verses.
The performance came in the wake of the release of Swift’s new single “You Need to Calm Down,” seen by many as an anti-homophobia anthem. The track, which calls out haters and gives a shout-out to GLAAD, prompted a surge in donations to the LGBTQ rights group.
In recent weeks, Swift, lobbied Senator Lamar Alexander for passage of the Equality Act, and made a massive unsolicited $113,000 donation to the Tennessee Equality Project, an LGBTQ rights group working to overturn discriminatory legislation in the state.
Wrote Swift in the letter to Alexander: “I personally reject the President’s stance that his administration, ‘supports equal treatment of all,’ but that the Equality Act, ‘in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.’ No. One cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath as going against ‘conscience’ or ‘parental rights.’ That statement implies that there is something morally wrong with being anything other than heterosexual and cisgender, which is an incredibly harmful message to send to a nation full of healthy and loving families with same-sex, non-binary or transgender parents, sons or daughters.”
