"I'm not dragging Harry Styles, but he is the one you're going to try and use to represent this new conversation? He doesn't care, he's just doing it because it's the thing to do," Porter said in the interview. "This is politics for me. This is my life."
Advertisement
On "The Late Show," Porter clarified that he doesn't believe Styles is the root of the issue.
"The conversation is actually deeper than that, it is about the systems of oppression and erasure of people of color who contribute to the culture," he said.
"Now, that's a lot to unpack," he continued. "I'm willing to unpack it sans the dragging and cancel culture of the internet because I do not now, nor will I ever, adjudicate my life or humanity in sound bites on social media."
Porter concluded by offering Styles another apology.
"I didn't mean no harm," he said. "I'm a gay man. We like Harry, he's cute."
While plenty of fans celebrated his photo shoot as a milestone for breaking down aesthetic gender norms, others questioned the magazine's decision to center a white, cisgender man in a movement largely founded by transgender people of color.
Many critics were more skeptical of Vogue than of Styles himself, calling for the magazine - and the fashion industry at large - to embrace trans and non-binary people with the same enthusiasm.
{{}}
NewsletterSIMPLY PUT - where we join the dots to inform and inspire you. Sign up for a weekly brief collating many news items into one untangled thought delivered straight to your mailbox.