The Queer Evolution of Kristen Stewart

Donald Trump has been tweeting about Kristen Stewart since 2012, despite not knowing her. But now that he's president, Stewart, who isn't usually one to take political positions, addressed him directly in her Saturday Night Live monologue, saying that if he didn't like her seven years ago, then he will like her even less now, because, as she says, "I'm so gay, dude."

The Twilight actress hasn't always been so open about her sexuality. This is the first time she's publicly embraced any label. Queer rumors followed the actress back since she was dating her Twilight costar, Robert Pattinson, the actor who Stewart claims Trump is obsessed with. Stewart talked about her sexuality for the first time in 2015, when she appeared on the September cover of Nylon. She told the magazine, "Google me, I'm not hiding," when asked if she is queer. At the time, photos of her and her then-girlfriend, Alicia Cargile, were all over the internet.

That phrase, "Google me, I'm not hiding," took on special meaning for Stewart, who later admitted that she purposely wanted the paparazzi to take photos of her with Soko, a French pop star Stewart dated after she and Cargile broke up, because that was a way for her to be out without having to say it. "That's really important to me," she told Variety about having her young fans see her holding hands with or kissing another woman. "As much as I want to protect myself, it's not about hiding. As soon as you start throwing up so many walls, you cannot see over them yourself, so you just start isolating in a way that's not honest."

In the same interview with Variety in 2016, the actress opened up and said that when she was dating men, she never talked about her relationships to anyone. She said, at the time, that she felt the same about dating women. "I'm not hiding shit," she told the magazine. "I'm very obviously..." she said, before trailing off without saying the word "gay" or "queer."

But that changed months later, when she did an interview with T, the New York Times style magazine. She spoke about Cargile, with whom she had often been photographed. "Look how cute she is," she told the publication, while showing photos of the two together from a private Instagram account. "I love her so much," she said. Stewart got back together with Cargile after breaking up with Soko.

Stewart's position about not speaking publicly about her relationships changed when she began dating women because "it seemed like there was an opportunity to represent something really positive," Stewart told the Times. While the actress was known for usually keeping mum about her personal life, she didn't want to seem homophobic by not speaking about it. "I still want to protect my personal life, but I don't want to seem like I'm protecting the idea, so that does sort of feel like I owe something to people."

While promoting her movie Equals, Stewart was asked about the process of opening up the media about her relationships with women. "I've discovered a way to live my life and not feel like I'm hiding at all," she told the Los Angeles Times. "And I think that's pretty apparent for anyone who cares -- not that everyone does. But I think that if you had been tracking it in any way, it's more apparent that I'm more relaxed than I used to be."

Stewart's fans have definitely been tracking it. It's because when Stewart opens up about being queer, it lets her fans, especially her queer fans, know that there's no need to hide your sexuality, even when you have a president who reportedly is considering signing an anti-LGBT "religious freedom" order that would make it legal to discriminate against LGBT people.

Watch Stewart's Saturday Night Live monologue below.