Pride is a time to celebrate our community, publicly display our love for one another, and continue our protest of equality that stems back to the BlackCat and Stonewall Riots.
It's challenging to find self-love when there's confusion and you're living in a world that's seemingly very binary and black and white.
I'm sober now, but I was partying a lot. Part of it was because gay bars felt like safe spaces... a place where you feel safe and comfortable in your own skin.
I loved having bonfires in the winter with my friends in the backyard.
I feel like Hollywood likes to use gay people to tell either really sad gay stories starring straight actors, or everything's about a struggle. Everything's about coming out. Nothing was about just living and breathing as a human being who happens to be gay.
In just living my life, there's a responsibility to be true to myself, to be a responsible human.
I love when an outfit embodies the fluidity of my gender - it makes me feel the most confident and grounded, especially when attending fashion shows, which can be extremely overwhelming.
I was that gay kid in high school who didn't have a lot of close friends but circulated amongst groups of people when necessary.
It's so important to have a brand as big as UGG celebrating young LGBTQ-plus people and giving them a safe space to feel worthy and loved.
I feel like, almost overnight, and this is weird to say about myself, I've become a queer advocate without even meaning to.
I decided that I was going to stop trying to convince older, more established heads of studios or networks to understand me and get me, and focus more on developing relationships with people who already do.
'13 Reasons Why' includes LGBTQ people and people of color in stories without making it about that. They're just living, breathing, human beings who happen to be different from the white, cis, straight norm.
Being young is hard. Being young and queer is even harder, regardless of how accepting your parents or community are.
This idea that you can 'cure' homosexuality is appalling and simply not true.
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, the youngest of five. There's something about being the youngest and wanting to be seen. You're like, 'I want attention, notice me.'
I'm a people pleaser, and I want to help everyone who DM's me, so I make sure to promote organizations that fans can reach out to if they're struggling.
I do think some older people in the gay community could be better influencers for gay youth, better educators. I made it a point to be that person.
But basically, at the end of the day, I want to do meaningful work that I'm proud of - whether only 3 people see it or 300,000,000.
I try to spend as little time thinking about myself as possible. I find that's not a constructive way to live.
When I heard the news of Waldemar de Carvalho issuing a ruling to approve gay conversion therapy in Brazil, after it was banned for nearly 20 years, my heart broke. So many of my fans and supporters live in Brazil and it pains me to see them not feel legitimized for who they are and who they are attracted to.
