Kehlani says she has had “a lot of privilege” as a “cisgender-presenting, straight-presenting” person – an advantage some other queer music artists have not had.
“I don’t walk down the street and 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,” the 25-year-old singer told The Advocate.
"That’s all privilege and 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 percent 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.”
Kehlani, who publicly identified herself as queer in a 2018 tweet and uses both she and they pronouns, declared during an Instagram Live this past weekend: “I finally know I’m a lesbian.”
Kehlani earned a Grammy nomination for her 2015 mixtape You Should Be Here and has released two studio albums, including last year’s It Was Good Until It Wasn’t.