JoJo Siwa Says Boyfriend Chris Hughes Redefined Queerness, LGBTQ Identity

“When I came out at 17, I said, ‘I’m pansexual, because I don’t care [about gender],’” she told Daily Mail. “But then I kind of boxed myself in and I said, ‘I’m a lesbian.’ And I think I did that because of the pressure.”

As for where that pressure originated, JoJo mused, “In a weird way, I think it came a little bit from inside the community at times. From people I know, from partners I’ve had. You just get put in this world where you feel like, because you now have said, ‘Oh, I’m a lesbian,’ you have to be a lesbian.”

“The truth is,” JoJo emphasized, “sexuality is fluid.”

And indeed, it was meeting Chris, 33, that helped the dancer realize the degree of her fluidity.