Keke Palmer Says She’s Never Felt Straight Enough

During a recent event for the Los Angeles LGBT Center in which she was honored with a Vanguard award (via Variety), Keke got real about her own relationship to gender and sexuality, and how she resists easy labeling.

“I’ve always been my own person,” she said in her remarks. “Sexuality and identity for me has always been confusion.”

“You know, it’s, ‘I never felt straight enough. I never felt gay enough. And I never felt woman enough. I never felt man enough.’ You know, I always felt like I was a little bit of everything.”

Keke went on to say that she “often…leads with masculinity” and that she’s been “met with so much disdain” as a woman. “I think so much of that came from who I thought I had to be to get respect, admiration, and love,” she explained.

“And I’ve always really wanted to be like my father…to want to be taken seriously and not diminish because I was a woman. You know, that’s always been a source of — I guess you would say — pain and resentment.”

“Why did my gender have to define the power I have in the world? And why does my gender get to decide my sexuality?”

Keke went on to say that she “questioned the boxes I was forced to be in” from a young age. “You’re supposed to be as a Black person or whatever the background you are from… Then those walls just try to cave you in from every damn angle, who you are as a creative, who you are as a friend.”

“I’m truly so grateful to be seen in this room,” she said, “because I know I’m surrounded by people who know without a doubt what it’s like to decide to be who you are in a world that tells you to be everything but yourself.”

You can read Keke’s full remarks here.