Keke Palmer Receives Vanguard Award + Talks About Sexuality/Gender

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On Saturday, Keke was awarded the Vanguard Award by the Los Angeles LGBT Center alongside Pamela Anderson and Leslie Jordan for their continuous support for the community. 

During her acceptance, Keke provided the following statements about her own identity: 

“I’m so grateful to be here today to be embraced by a community that I’ve always felt accepted by and a part of,” Keke stated. “I’ve always been my own person. 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.”

“So often, I lead with masculinity. And as a woman, I’ve always been met with so much disdain, you know what I mean?” Palmer said. “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 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?” she asked. “You know, 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.”

She added, “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.”

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TLDR; Keke is still navigating her own identity when it comes to gender and sexuality and is glad that the gheys have given her the space to explore that