New mom Keke Palmer is keeping it all the way real about her fluidity with navigating her sexuality and gender identity.
The Nope star was at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Gala on Saturday to accept the Vanguard Award. She spoke candidly about her journey to identify and categorize her sexuality and gender, Variety reports.
“Sexuality and identity for me has always been confusion,” Palmer told the audience. “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,” she added.
Palmer, who just welcomed her first child, son Leodis “Leo” Andrellton, with boyfriend Darius Jackson in February, explained her reservations with embracing the masculinity that’s come so naturally to her.
“So often, I lead with masculinity. And as a woman, I’ve always been met with so much disdain,” she explained. “I think so much of that came from who I thought I had to be to get respect, admiration, and love.”
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 continued.
“That’s always been a source of pain and resentment.”
The Akeelah and the Bee star became emotional while sharing the questions she’s struggled to answer throughout her life.
“Why did my gender have to define the power I have in the world? And why does my gender get to decide my sexuality?” she asked.
And her journey to identify her sexuality and gender has been something she’s battled with since childhood.
“I always questioned the boxes I was forced to be in and it starts with who you’re supposed to be as a child,” she recalled.
“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.”
Palmer reflected on the night and expressed her gratitude to be honored by her peers in a heartfelt Instagram post.
“It was such a gift to be in a room, being celebrated for being exactly who I am,” she wrote in the caption.
“I am so grateful you guys to be living in this time, where yes there is still so much work to do, but dammit we doing it!”