During a current occasion for the Los Angeles LGBT Center through which she was honored with a Vanguard award (by way of Variety), Keke obtained actual about her personal relationship to gender and sexuality, and the way she resists straightforward labeling.
“I’ve at all times been my very own particular person,” she said in her remarks. “Sexuality and id for me has at all times 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 at all times felt like I used to be a bit little bit of all the pieces.”
Keke went on to say that she “often…leads with masculinity” and that she’s been “met with so much disdain” as a girl. “I feel a lot of that got here from who I assumed I needed to be to get respect, admiration, and love,” she defined.
“And I’ve at all times actually wished to be like my father…to need to be taken critically and never diminish as a result of I used to be a girl. You know, that’s at all times been a supply of — I suppose you’ll say — ache 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 younger age. “You’re presupposed to be as a Black particular person or regardless of the background you’re from… Then these partitions simply attempt to cave you in from each rattling angle, who you’re as a inventive, who you’re as a buddy.”
“I’m truly so grateful to be seen in this room,” she stated, “as a result of I do know I’m surrounded by individuals who know unquestionably what it’s wish to determine to be who you’re in a world that tells you to be all the pieces however your self.”
You can learn Keke’s full remarks right here.
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