Tyler James Williams took to Instagram earlier on Sunday to dispel all rumors about his sexuality, instead urging his followers to break the stereotypes imposed on both straight and gay people about representation.
“I wouldn’t usually cover things like this but I feel like a conversation is bigger than me,” she wrote in a Notes app message posted on her Instagram story. “I’m not gay, but I think the culture of trying to ‘find’ some kind of hidden trait or behavior that a hidden person ‘lost’ is very dangerous.
Williams wrote that the culture of forcing someone to come out “directly contributes to the anxiety many queer and queer questioners feel when they are afraid to live in their own truth.”
“The blandest of conversations and interactions in venues makes us feel less safe for our gay siblings and questioners.” the Abbott Elementary School star wrote.
It’s unclear what prompted Williams to address his sexuality directly, as his recent interviews—specifically, a roundtable for a comedy actor. Hollywood Reporter—did not refer. Earlier, noting his role in 2014, he said the Black community was “notoriously homophobic”. Dear Whites As a gay college student, she broke with the often portrayed view of gay men as feminine.
“For so long, there have been so few depictions of the average Black American that the average Black American male has associated himself with whoever is on television,” he told HuffPost at the time. “So that way, there’s still the ‘OK, you’re a black man on TV’ mentality. I am you. Wait, are you gay? IAM not gay! No, no, never mind, we are not the same thing. forget you. Now we’re running from you.’”
Williams wrote on Sunday that his platform is dedicated to resisting as much as possible flat archetypes that are “often unrealistic, less free and limiting individual expression.”
“Being straight doesn’t seem one-sided. Being gay doesn’t seem one-sided,” he wrote, later wishing those celebrating Pride Month would feel safe and be seen. “As an ally, I am determined to help as much as I can and to help foster a future where we are all accepted and allowed to be ourselves.”