Actor Charlie Carver on Monday came out gay.

The 27-year-old Carver, who is best know for his roles as Ethan on MTV's Teen Wolf and Porter Scavo on ABC's Desperate Housewives, made his announcement in a series of Instagram posts.

Over five posts which included the same graphic that read, “Be who you needed when you were younger,” Carver said that he first realized he was gay at 12.

“As a young boy, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I knew I wanted to be a lot of things! I thought I wanted to be a painter, a soccer player, a stegosaurus.… But the acting thing stuck. It was around that age that I also knew, however abstractly, that I was different from some of the other boys in my grade,” Carver wrote. “Over time, this abstract 'knowing' grew and articulated itself through a painful gestation marked by feelings of despair and alienation, ending in a climax of saying three words out loud: 'I am gay.' I said them to myself at first, to see how they felt. They rang true, and I hated myself for them. I was twelve. It would take me a few years before I could repeat them to anyone else, in the meantime turning the phrase over and over in my mouth until I felt comfortable and sure enough to let the words pour out again, this time to my family…”

Carver said that he grew up in a family where his “orientation was celebrated and SAFE.”

Fame, he said, “complicated” things.

“When it came to this differentiation of public/private, I was of the opinion that my sexuality could stay off the table … I did not want to be defined by my sexuality. Sure, I am a proud gay man, but I don't identify as a Gay man, or a GAY man, or just gay.”

“I now believe that by omitting this part of myself from the record, I am complicit in perpetuating the suffering, fear, and shame cast upon so many in the world. In my silence, I've helped decide for you too that to be gay is be, as a young man (or young woman, young anyone), inappropriate for a professional career in the Arts.”

“So now, let the record show this – I self-identify as gay. And does that really matter anymore?” he added.

Carver's twin brother Max tweeted: “my brother has HUEVOS.”