Billy Porter Quotes

Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South.

The perpetuation of family and cultural pressures to conform to prescribed masculine behaviors is what creates social isolation and distress in many young gay and trans people of color.

I don't want to be white. I don't want to be straight. I don't want to blend in.

I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

When you're a young kid and you're gay, you're out there on your own. And you're trying to figure this thing out. And your parents typically aren't gay.

Growing up in the Bible Belt of Texas, I thought for sure there was no way - if I'm 100 percent true to myself and come out as a gay, African-American person in 2015 - that people are going to be able to accept that and understand it.

If people think I am gay, yeah, hey that doesn't bother me. Not at all. What would people think? To me I am such a heterosexual guy. It doesn't even, I don't even think about it.

I don't believe being gay is something you can change, no more than you can change the color of your hair or your eyes. Well, I dye my hair, so maybe that's not the best example. But your eyes!

Is there something about the gay experience, being gay and the gay experience, that pushes us even more than other people toward competition?

I was raised thinking I'd burn in hell for being gay, but I didn't have a choice. It's just who I am.

We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are.

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

I know growing up as a young gay person how much you hate yourself, how much you already think you're different.

When I was I younger I didn't want to be gay. Not because I was scared of the sexual thing; I didn't want to be a clone. Now this was in the late '70s.

As a gay person, my life has been marginalized.

I always knew I was gay. I always knew that somehow it would work out.

It's just that I've always been a tomboy, so being thrown into the hot nerd category and the glam thing has been very interesting for me to swallow.

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

I know that some people, when they are growing up and they - as a person of color in a majority community - that they may feel as if they are left out, or they feel a bit strange.

I was a gay kid who didn't know I was a gay kid, which was really challenging because you think there is something wrong with you until you understand what it is.

I guess I'm a black woman with a mouth.

I don't want to shut the door and only be thought of as the dark girl.

I have the advantage of many perspectives as someone who has lived in different kinds of communities: as a woman, as someone who previously identified as a lesbian, as someone who is a person of color. I've had a lot of life, so that informs what I do.

Southern black gay and bi men are suffering from a self-esteem issue.

I'm still me, no matter if I'm gay or straight or whatever.