'American Crime' Star Connor Jessup Comes Out As Gay

Connor Jessup has opened up about his sexuality for the first time publicly, telling fans he identifies as gay in an emotional, wise-beyond-his-years Instagram post.

The Canadian actor, best known for his role on the ABC anthology series “American Crime,” said he’s known he was gay since he was 13, but that he “folded it and slipped it under the rest of my emotional clutter” for years.

“My shame took the form of a shrug, but it was shame,” Jessup wrote early Monday. He said his journey toward fully accepting his authentic self “took me years” and is an “ongoing” process.

“I’ve been out for years in my private life, but never quite publicly. I’ve played that tedious game,” he said. “Most painfully, I’ve talked about the gay characters I’ve played from a neutral, almost anthropological distance, as if they were separate from me. These evasions are bizarre and embarrassing to me now, but at the time they were natural.”

Noting that he was “grateful to be gay,” Jessup continued, “Queerness is a solution ... 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.”

Jessup’s timing was also significant. The actor, who is also known for 2015′s “Closet Monster” and will next be seen in the Netflix horror series “Locke & Key,” turned 25 on Sunday.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.