The singer recently came out as a lesbian on their Instagram Live, saying, "You wanna know what’s new about me? I finally know I’m a lesbian!”
Now, in a new interview with Advocate, Kehlani reflected on the “cisgender-presenting, straight-presenting” privilege they have in an incredibly straight world.
“I think a lot of artists who we talk about and say, ‘Oh, they had to come out or they had to do this,’ a lot of them can’t hide it," she said. "A lot of it is very [much] in how they present. It’s tougher for them. It’s tougher for trans artists. It’s tougher for Black gay men. It’s tougher for Black masculine gay women.”
“I didn’t even really have to come out in my private life,” she continued. “I don’t walk down the street and have people look at me and go, 'Oh, I bet she’s queer. Or I bet that she’s into women,' or anything like that because of the way I present. That’s all privilege."
"I think that there are quite a few artists who were truly at the forefront but weren’t able to make the strides that I was able to make being 100% myself — because of the way they present, and the biases and the phobias of the American public and the world. I’ve been lucky, super lucky.”
Well, if Twitter is anything to go by, people have been loving Kehlani's openness: