Identity Pressure Quotes

People - especially white people - they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

White people don't have that problem, they get to go through life never having to fit into a box, and it's really more so true for white men because even just being a woman, you sort of have to walk around other people's assumptions of you and it's so exhausting and there's a sense, especially among young people of wanting to just live your life, not having to wear the weight of that pressure - pressure that people of color feel, that gay people of color feel, that women of color feel.

A lot of child actors think they need to re-invent themselves, especially young women. Usually what they do is they adopt a sort of overt sexuality. It's fine if they want to do that, but a lot of times I think they feel obliged to do that, and that is something that I don't think anybody should feel obliged to express.

Having been an actor in Hollywood for a certain amount of time, I always felt a pressure to be sort of a neutral person. 'Don't do anything to your hair. Don't tell them your age. Don't tell them you're gay. Don't tell them anything that could limit you, specify you as a person.' I always hated that, actually moved out of L.A. because of that.

If you're always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.

You could fly under the radar a little bit. You could be a weird kid without defaulting to gay, without everyone assuming you must be gay - that was literally the last place many people went.

I find it a huge strain to be responsible for my tastes and be known and defined by them.

Sometimes, when I was the only person of color in a room, you had to defend all the people of color everywhere.

I don’t feel like a gay icon. I don’t feel like an icon at all. Every single interview was always, ‘What’s it like to play a gay character?’ It would be nice if I was never asked that again. Why isn’t anyone asking the other girls what it’s like to kiss a boy?

The homosexual community wants me to be gay. The heterosexual community wants me to be straight. Every writer thinks, I'm the journalist who's going to make him talk. I pray for them. I pray that they get a life and stop living mine!

I often find myself in situations where I am the token black person. It can feel like this enormous weight.

I definitely carry a little bit of a burden with me, being a gay athlete going to the Olympics. I think that there's pressure on me... It presents an amazing opportunity, and I think that it kind of gives us a chance to shed people's misconceptions and just kind of, like, break down barriers.

I don't want to go and play a cliched Indian girl.

Some people wanted me to be the Latino quarterback. Some people wanted me to be the USC quarterback who happens to be Latino.

At least be a nice lesbian or you're going to give the rest a bad rap.

That was very difficult for me on 'American Idol' to feel like I had to be a certain way. It wasn't that the producers were saying that you shouldn't be gay or whatever, but there was this unspoken energy around saying you have to appeal to Middle America, and Middle America at that point was not ready for all that.

That's what being nervous and sort of out of your comfort zone does. It's the same in "The Office" when a black guy comes to the office and all he thinks is 'I better show this guy I'm not a racist.' So what does he do? Only talks about black issues.