Keiynan Lonsdale doesn’t care for labels all too much, as admitted in an interview with BIllboard. Now, rather than identifying with any specific pronoun, Lonsdale wants to go by “tree.”
The Love, Simon star opened up about sexuality and gender pronouns in an intimate Instagram Live session on Tuesday.
When a fan asked if Lonsdale was gay, the actor was surprised to keep getting that question. “Now it just depends on the day. Sometimes I’m bisexual, sometimes I’m gay, sometimes I feel straight, sometimes I’m not anything,” Lonsdale said on Instagram Live. “It doesn’t matter. Either way, throughout all of that, I’m Keiynan.”
Lonsdale further explained: “I don’t want to go by ‘he’ anymore, I just want to go by ‘tree.’ I want people to call me ‘tree,’ because we all come from trees, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a he or a she or a they or a them. At the end of the day, everyone’s a tree. I want to call my friends ‘tree’ and me ‘tree’ and everyone ‘tree.’ So, I think, like now, when people ask me what my preferred pronoun is, I’m going to say ‘tree.’”
In a duo of Instagram posts, Lonsdale displayed an affinity for trees. In one, the actor stands shirtless, shrouded by a leaf-filled tree branch. In another, Lonsdale holds a branch of leaves.
Lonsdale concluded the Instagram Live remarks by saying: “I’m not high by the way, this is just me.”
Lonsdale is still at work on a debut album, describing the process as “very scary and very beautiful” on Instagram. Lonsdale’s latest single, “Preach,” was unveiled last month.
Check out the Instagram Live session and the woodsy Instagram posts below: