Nico Tortorella Opens Up About Sexuality & Gender Identity

Nico Tortorella looks fierce on the cover of Mood Magazine‘s first Pride issue!

Here’s what the 30-year-old Younger actor had to share with the mag:

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Nico Tortorella

On sexuality and gender identity, and where he finds himself on the spectrum: “We’re all still figuring it out, and my best piece of advice would be: You don’t have to be one thing for the rest of your life. … Play with your sexuality, play with gender identity, play with your expression. That’s what we’re all doing, we’re transitioning every single day. Your transition doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s! I identify differently depending on who I’m talking to. The ability to code switch, right? Giving the person I’m having a conversation with the knowledge that they have in the community, and gender politics. It runs deep; you open up this portal and start driving through and just keep going farther and farther and farther. I don’t know if it’s down or up or all directions; Space between, right?”

“I use the word bisexual, I use the word pansexual, non-binary, gender non-conforming. The words are so much more simple than what we are. I think in the fields of social justice, we have the tendency of getting hung up on the language or the movement, rather than the cause-and-effect and who we’re really talking about. I’m more interested in who you actually are than what you are. I’m looking forward to a time where we can all just be an individual and we don’t necessarily have to be anything but that.”

For more from Nico, visit MoodMagazine.co.

10+ pictures inside from Nico Tortorella‘s new shoot..