entertainment

Miley Cyrus: "I feel like I'm not tied to a gender."

“Being a girl isn’t what I hate, it’s the box that I get put into.”

Miley Cyrus, known for dying her armpit hair and wearing nipple tassels, says she doesn’t want to be defined by any one gender.

The 22-year-old singer was being interviewed by Associated Press to promote the new foundation she has created to help LGBT and homeless youth when she addressed her gender.

“I didn’t want to be a boy,” she said.

“I kind of wanted to be nothing. I don’t relate to what people would say defines a girl or a boy, and I think that’s what I had to understand: Being a girl isn’t what I hate, it’s the box that I get put into.”

Most surprising role model of the week: Miley Cyrus.

 

Cyrus also said not all her past relationships have been with “straight, heterosexual” males, but didn’t elaborate.

Cyrus’s revelation about her gender is an important moment for the LGBTQ community, which she strongly supports.

The charity she has begun, called The Happy Hippie Foundation, came about after she took a homeless youth named Jesse to the MTV VMAs last year and together they raised over $200,000 for homeless youth in America.

For more on Miley Cyrus, click through the gallery of her face below. Post continues after  gallery.

“I’m the one that can fix it,” Cyrus told Good Morning America.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I think I’ve been able to identify with it just because I’ve never thought of myself as, ‘I’m a girl and so I can’t do this, or I can do this, or you’ve got to be a boy to do that.’ I feel completely like I’m not tied to a gender or to an age. I feel like an infinite cosmic thing, and that’s what I want people to feel… Forty percent of homelessness is really focused on [the LGBT community], because, I think, of the lack of acceptance.”

The foundation’s mission statement is “Rallying young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBT youth and other vulnerable populations.”

Cyrus says she chose to focus on homelessness because it’s a huge problem that many ignore, or don’t understand.

“It’s something that we all see every single day. It’s like the birds chirping—we just ignore it because we’re so used to it. You’re looking down at your phone, but you never look at someone who’s sitting there and needs help.”

A message on the Happy Hippie Foundation Facebook page. Image via Facebook.

Cyrus is using her talent and her famous connections to raise awareness for the charity – the singer has started a series of backyard concert videos and is uploading these onto social media alongside donation buttons.

The Happy Hippie Foundation’s Facebook page has garnered over 40,000 likes in just a couple of weeks. You can find out more by visiting the foundation’s page.

For more on Miley Cyrus, homelessness and the LGBTQ community…

“Miley Cyrus has been called ‘disgusting’ for broaching this topic. And that’s not ok.”

It’s one of the hardest parts of being a homeless woman. But it’s rarely discussed.

Humanising homelessness: “My father isn’t an issue. He is a person; a human being.”

‘Yes, the LGBTI community has an agenda: To keep kids safe from bullying.’

00:00 / ???