Two years ago, actor Jordan Gavaris, who plays Felix Dawkins on BBC America's acclaimed clone drama Orphan Black, had fans cheering when he sat onstage at Nerd HQ at Comic-Con and spoke out on behalf of his flamboyant gay character and critics' reactions to him.

"You cannot collectively as a society decide that you are only going to represent one part of a minority. It's like saying you've represented black people on television because you aired an episode of the Cosbys. That is not true. … It's not fair, it's exclusionary, and it's irresponsible," he said before he was interrupted by whooing and applause. "I just don't know when as a society … it sort of only became OK to represent gay people in the traditional sense where they have a great job, and well-adjusted parents, and maybe a surrogate or adopted child. When was that the only way you could represent gay people? … And I love Felix to death. Clichés and not clichés and everything. And maybe that's a choice he makes consciously, a defense mechanism. There's a million reasons why. There are so many more interesting things to Felix than who he's sleeping with."

But it wasn't always so easy for Gavaris to speak so openly. "The statement I made about LGBTQ representation in media, I would have never been able to make that two years prior," he told BuzzFeed News of his much-lauded missive. "I was one of those kids who kept trying on different skins in high school. I was very afraid to be myself around all of these kids, to really reveal any part of myself that was true, so I would try on different skins, try on different masks, hoping I'd hit on one that was cool or quirky or interesting enough that suddenly I would be OK. I'd be popular. I'd be invited in to the in-crowd, which I never was. So when I'm sitting up on those panels, staring into a sea of faces, I recognize their enthusiasm in myself and I keep drilling it into myself that I'm not special. I'm a unique person, as everyone is, but none of us has more of a right to existence or a right to specialness or uniqueness than anyone else. I just happen to have the microphone in front of me for this moment."