Words by Katie Baskerville
Design by Chyna Sudbury

“I just realised, silver jewellery is gay, and gold jewellery is straight,” reads the overlay text on @pierogiprincess23's TikTok video, which has amassed an impressive 84.9k likes. Nevertheless, this take, if you like, is apparently rather divisive, if comments are anything to go by. 

The same sentiment is shared by user @theahallow, who tells her followers that "silver just feels more cunty and gay."

In fact, many sapphic people are taking to the social media platform to talk about silver jewellery specifically, and its adjacency to sapphic culture and dressing.

Before you get your knickers in a twist, neither I nor anyone, for that matter, is telling you that if you wear gold jewellery, you're banned from the Gay Club. Neither is it possible to look “gay”. C’mon, we’re all old enough and ugly enough to know where the nuance lies, I hope. And that, actually, what videos like these show us is that there is both a desire to be seen and hidden in wider society.

So, where is the line between queer-coded and the limitations of pejorative categorisation?