Keke Palmer shared her perspective on sexuality and gender when she was honored by the Los Angeles LGBT Center on Saturday.
“I’ve always been my own person. Sexuality and identity for me has always been confusion,” Palmer said at the event, as Variety reported. “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.”
The Nope star received a Vanguard Award during the annual gala. Saturday’s event took place at the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel.
Palmer said she often “leads with masculinity,” but as a woman, she has “always been met with so much disdain.”
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“I think so much of that came from who I thought I had to be to get respect, admiration and love. And I’ve always really wanted to be like my father…to want to be taken seriously and not diminished because I was a woman,” she said. “You know, that’s always been a source of — I guess you would say — pain and resentment.”
Fighting back tears, Palmer questioned why the world defines her by gender.
“Why does my gender get to decide my sexuality?” she said. “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… 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.”
While resenting how the world defines gender, Palmer showed gratitude to her supporters.
“I’m truly so grateful to be seen in this room 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,” she said.
