Canadian actor Connor Jessup has come out as gay, penning a heartfelt note which he shared .
“I knew I was gay when I was 13, but I hid it for years,” Jessup, best known for his role on ABC's American Crime, wrote.
“I folded it and sipped it under the rest of my emotional clutter. Not worth the hassle. No one will care anyway. If I can just keep making it smaller, smaller, smaller… My shame took the form of a shrug, but it was shame."
The 25-year-old actor, who also played the role of Ben Mason on TNT series Falling Skies, continued: “I’m a white, cis man from an upper-middle class liberal family. Acceptance was never a question. But still, suspended in all this privilege, I balked. It took me years. It’s ongoing. I’m saying this now because I have conspicuously not said it before. I’ve been out for years in my private life, but never quite publicly. I’ve played that tedious game.”
“I don’t want to be complicit, even peripherally, in the idea that being gay is a problem to be solved or hushed. I’m grateful to be gay. Queerness is a solution, It’s a promise against cliché and solipsism and blandness; it’s a tilted head and an open window.
"If you’re gay, bi, trans, two-spirit or questioning, if you’re confused, if you’re in pain or you feel you’re alone, if you aren’t or you don’t: You make the world more surprising and bearable"
Wrapping up the beautiful letter, Jessup wrote: “To all the queers, deviants, misfits, and lovers in my life: I love you. I love you. Happy Pride!”
