Billy Dee Williams ‘Comes Out’ as Gender Fluid

Actor Billy Dee Williams as always been seen as the smooth-talking, ladies man who made it look all too easy to get women to fall all over him. Even in characters like Louis in “Lady Sings the Blues” with Diana Ross or as the cape-wearing smuggler Lando Calrissian in the “Star Wars” universe–Williams always gets the girl and does it so effortlessly. He’s forever been cemented as being the epitome of masculinity and a “Man’s Man.”

But now, in Williams own words, he not just masculine, not only feminine either–he’s a little bit of both, according to a recent profile in Esquire magazine.

“You see, I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine,” Williams, 82, told Esquire. “I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.”

“I think of myself as a relatively colorful character who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously,” Williams said.

Describing his role in Star Wars, Williams said the character was truly unique.

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“What I presented on that screen people didn’t expect to see,” he shared. “And I deliberately presented something that nobody had experienced before: a romantic brown-skinned boy.

Last year, shortly after Jonathan Kasdan, a writer on the Star Wars prequel “Solo,” confirmed that Williams character was pansexual (being attracted to people regardless of gender or sex), Glover said: “How can you not be pansexual in space?”

While Williams, who has been married to Teruko Nakagami since the 1970s, this is relatively the first time he’s come out with anything like this.

Remember Billy Dee in those suave Colt 45 beer commercials? He was the man! But does this new revelation make him less than manly?

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For some people, gender is not just about being male or female; in fact, how one identifies can change…

… every day or even every few hours.

Gender fluidity, when gender expression shifts between masculine and feminine, can be displayed in how we dress, express and describe ourselves.

Everyone’s gender exists on a spectrum, according to Dot Brauer, director of the LGBTQA Center at the University of Vermont. Progressive gender expression is the norm for the university, which offers gender-neutral bathrooms and allows students to use their preferred names.

“If you imagine the spectrum and imagine the most feminine expression you have ever seen and most masculine you have ever seen and just sort of imagine where you are on that,” Brauer said.