In a new Seventeen cover
interview, actor Amandla Stenberg says she was afraid to come out
lesbian.
The 19-year-old Stenberg is best known
for playing Rue in The Hunger Games and Madeline Whittier in
Everything, Everything.
She came out as bisexual in 2016. In
June, she told Wonderland that she has a “romantic love for
women.”
She told Seventeen that
“internalized homophobia” kept her from understanding her sexual
orientation.
“Gender and sexuality are so fluid –
it’s okay to change your mind a million times and figure out what
works for you,” Stenberg said. “It’s okay to take your time…
I’d been out as bisexual, and people have known I’m queer for a
long time. I saw some comments that made me chuckle, like, 'Girl, we
been knew!' But I wanted to make it very clear that I have romantic
love for women. I realized I had so much internalized homophobia and
so much discomfort around hooking up with dudes. I always knew that
when I hooked up with girls, it was the happiest I’d been in any
sexual dynamic.”
“I love that we have this umbrella
term of queer, and so many things can exist underneath it, but I
realized that part of my journey was hiding underneath that umbrella,
because I was scared – on a personal and a public level – to
confront what I was. It was easier for me to say 'I’m bi' or 'I’m
pan' as I was figuring it out. But I came to a place where I felt
really proud of my sexuality, and I decided I wanted to share that
pride,” she
added.
Stenberg's latest project, The
Darkest Minds, opened last month.