Demi Lovato is embracing their truth after coming out as non-binary a few weeks ago. The “Confident” singer explained in a new interview what prevented them from coming out sooner.
Speaking with actress Jane Fonda on her Fire Drill Fridays livestream, Lovato explained that they first had to realize that fulfilling gender roles and religious expectations was not a requirement to find happiness.
The Grammy nominee, who is also pansexual, touched upon the “norms that were already pushed onto me when it came to sexuality and gender” while growing up Christian in Dallas, Texas.
Lovato said they struggled inside of those molds “for as long as I can remember,” saying their attraction to both men and women led to “confusing” moments in their life, such as “being 10-years-old [and] attracted to women and not knowing what that meant as a Christian.”
The “Anyone” singer says they had to realize that they were put “in a box” where they were told “You are a female, this is what you’re supposed to like, this is what you’re supposed to do, don’t dream bigger and don’t speak louder.”
Says Lovato, those were “the ways that the patriarchy has been holding me back,” and adds their near fatal overdose in 2018 force them to “wake up and start living my life for me.”
“When I strip myself of the norms that society has pushed on me… I have become the most complete and authentic version of myself,” they said.
“If I had listened to the patriarchy my life would have never changed,” the 28-year-old singer noted. “My gender, my pronouns would have never changed. I probably would have been married to a man with kids doing the thing that I was raised to believe I should do.”
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