Lena Waithe doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for who she is, how she loves or why she cut her famous locs last month; but the writer, actress and producer graciously gave one to Vanity Fair’s cameras while on the red carpet for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Grants Banquet on Thursday night.
After joking that she’s “gotten gayer” since cutting her locs in mid-July, she went on to explain exactly why her “big chop”—which she’d been contemplating for a while—was ultimately a liberating statement about her security with who she is.
I felt like I was holding onto a piece of femininity that would make the world feel comfortable with who I am. ... and I said, “Oh, I gotta put that down, [because] that’s something that is outside of me”...
If people call me a butch, or say “she’s stud” or call me “Sir” out in the world, so what? So be it. And I’m here with a Prada suit on, not a stitch of makeup and a haircut; I feel like, why can’t I exist in the world in that way?
This is, of course, just another in a series of deeply profound statements from Waithe, ranging from her Emmy award-winning episode of Master of None to her poignant tribute to Paris Is Burning while accepting the “Trailblazer” award at the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards. But her statements to Vanity Fair are perhaps her most personal to date, as she rejects the need to perform the traditional trappings of gender—and in the process, creates space to simply be herself.