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I was black growing up in an all-white neighborhood, so I felt like I just didn't fit in. Like I wasn't as good as everybody else, or as smart, or whatever.

Personally speaking, growing up as a gay man before it was as socially acceptable as it is now, I knew what it was to feel different, to feel alienated and to feel not like everyone else. But the very same thing that made me monstrous to some people also empowered me and made me who I was.

I felt black. I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better musicians, they were better athletes, they were not uptight about sex, and they knew how to enjoy life better than most people.

For my own part, once I became a teenager, I experienced severe and violent racism.

Racism built me into a person that was set up to be self-destructive.

I never felt that I was supposed to be white. Or black, either. My parents just wanted to let me be who I needed to be.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.

I became stereotyped.

I was bullied and picked on because I was so different to everyone else, and I definitely didn't believe or even know I was fabulous back then. But those hard times made me everything I am today. It's all water under the bridge now, but being bullied and going through adversity definitely made me stronger.