Culture

Declan McKenna doesn’t have to label his sexuality but, if he did, pansexual would come pretty close

Declan McKenna

Declan McKenna (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty)

Declan McKenna has said his sexuality “always feels like it’s changing” but added that pansexuality would come close to describing who he is.

The “Brazil” singer opened up about his sexuality in an interview with Attitude magazine and revealed that he was afraid to label himself a few years ago.

“I don’t really know why, it was just scary,” he said.

“For me, I don’t even know if I would call it sexual fluidity these days. I might call it pansexual, depending on who I’m talking to. I struggle to imagine it in any other way.”

Declan McKenna ‘struggled to express’ his sexuality.

Declan McKenna had previously said that he didn’t identify as gay or straight while telling Evening Standard about his song “Paracetamol”, which tackles transgender conversion therapy.

He told Attitude that his sexuality has been “something I’ve really struggled to express when people ask me about it”.

“But I’m a lot more comfortable now in being happy.

“I always feel like my emotions and everything is changing, and the sum of whatever is waking me up at the time, which is also always changing. Change is good.”

Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview the 21-year-old — who won the Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent competition in 2015 — spoke of his frustration with politics.

For me, I don’t even know if I would call it sexual fluidity these days. I might call it pansexual, depending on who I’m talking to.

“It was a big part of my first record, feeling disenfranchised and out of the loop within politics and feeling like our futures were at stake with the sorts of decisions that were being made and rushed past us,” McKenna said.

“You can feel a bit isolated from these things. It’s important to stay engaged, because the presence of young people now is being felt a lot.

“There’s protests that have been happening with millions of people around the world, and a lot of them are young people.

McKenna thinks this generation doesn’t believe in the same ‘social constructs’ of the past.

Declan McKenna added: “It’s inspiring to keep going and [to] not let it fall behind. Obviously, in a time like this as well, it’s hard to focus on anything other than the present day – most people are taking each day as it comes at the minute.”

He said it is “hard to know yourself” as a young person today because many in his generation don’t have the same ideas around “nation or of money”.

“It can make you really struggle with having an identity and knowing yourself because these things have stopped becoming so important to our lives,” he said.

“There is the space now to not believe in the social constructs that have made our world up to this point, and that a lot of people still strongly believe in.

“It’s strange. It can be very hard. I find myself not knowing myself very well at all.”

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