Orange is the New Black star Lea DeLaria has joined YouTube’s StyleLikeU to tell her journey of self-acceptance – from Catholic school to stand-up comedy.
The video is part of The What’s Underneath Project series of videos.
Throughout the clip, the comic and actress slowly strips down to her boxers and sports bra as she talks about body image, self-assurance and being a proud gay butch woman in the LGBT community.
My entire life has been trying to put a positive spin on what it is to be butch.”
Her sexuality has always been a known fact, and she never covered this up:
I started doing stand-up comedy in 1982, performing as the ‘F**king Dyke’. I’ve always been moderately famous – I used to say, for me it’s a long climb to the middle.”
Continuing onto stereotypes within the LGBT community she commented on how:
Nelly fags and butch dykes are very much looked down on – and treated as second class citizens.”