Miley Cyrus is coming in like a
Wrecking Ball in Variety's Power of Women L.A. issue. And the cover star is
hitting on the restrictive way our culture treats gender and sexuality.
For Cyrus, who never felt
particularly feminine or masculine and never felt the "bisexual"
label came close to capturing her sexuality, navigating her identity was
difficult. And it wasn't until the Crisis in Six Scenes actress tapped into the
LGBT community in Los Angeles that she was able to tap into her truth.
"I went to the LGBTQ center
here in L.A., and I started hearing these stories," says Cyrus, who has
since become a leading activist in the LGBT movement through her Happy Hippie
Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources to LGBT youth,
homeless citizens and other vulnerable communities.
"I saw one human in particular
who didn’t identify as male or female," she continued. "Looking at
them, they were both: beautiful and sexy and tough but vulnerable and feminine
but masculine. And I related to that person more than I related to anyone in my
life. Even though I may seem very different, people may not see me as neutral
as I feel. But I feel very neutral. I think that was the first gender-neutral
person I’d ever met. Once I understood my gender more, which was unassigned,
then I understood my sexuality more. I was like, 'Oh that’s why I don’t feel
straight and I don’t feel gay. It’s because I’m not.'"
Even still, Cyrus says coming out as
pansexual to her religious Southern family was a fraught experience. But
"the universe has always given me the power to know I’ll be OK," she
says. "Even at that time, when my parents didn’t understand, I just felt
that one day they are going to understand."
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