Keke Palmer Opens Up About Experiencing ‘Confusion’ About Her Sexuality: ‘I’ve Always Been My Own Person’

usmagazine.com:

Speaking her truth. Keke Palmer opened up about her personal journey with gender and sexuality while accepting an award at the Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala.“I’ve always been my own person, and sexuality and identity, for me, it’s always been confusion,” the Nope star, 29, said as she received the Vanguard Award — which was also presented to Pamela Anderson and the late Leslie Jordan — on Saturday, April 22. “I never felt straight enough; I never felt gay enough; I never felt woman enough; I never felt man enough.

I always felt like I was a little bit of everything.”The Nickelodeon alum — who was introduced by Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown at the event — went on to describe how she always wanted to be like her father, Larry Palmer.

However, Keke noted that she also felt “pain and resentment” after using masculinity in order to be “taken seriously and not diminish because I was a woman.”She continued: “Why did my gender have to define the power I have in the world?

And why does my gender get to decide my sexuality? Since I was younger, I always questioned the boxes I was forced to be in and it starts with who you’re supposed to be as a child, you’re supposed to be as a Black person, or whatever the background you are from. … Those walls just try to cave you in from every damn angle — who you are as a creative, who you are as a friend.”Going on to thank the ceremony’s attendees — noting that they “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” — the Scream Queens alum concluded her speech on an empowering note. “There is no greater masterpiece than living your truth,” she added.Keke was honored on Saturday night for her commitment to LGBTQ+ activism.