Cynthia Nixon: 'You Don't Get to Define My Gayness for Me'

A recent New York Times interview with Cynthia Nixon has rattled some in the LGBT community who feel that her comments on homosexuality could be used against the community by conversative opponents of equal rights.

The former Sex and the City star is currently in a committed relationship with a woman, and has been a vocal advocate of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. The Times interview primarily focused on her acting career -- the one-time child star is peforming on Broadway in Wit -- but the conversation eventually turned to her thoughts on those who question her seemingly abrupt change in her sexual orientation (she was once in a long-term heterosexual relationship with Danny Mozes).

I totally reject [the skepticism], Nixon told the Times. I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line 'I've been straight and I've been gay, and gay is better.' And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me.

I say it doesn't matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not, she continued.

On Twitter and beyond, critics have blasted Nixon's choice of words, with many believing the issue comes down to how she self-idenitifies.

What she means is that she's bisexual, wrote John Aravosis of Gay America Blog, and doesn't quite get that most people aren't able to have sexual romantic relationships with both men and women because they're just not into both genders. She is into both genders. And that's fine.

But she needs to learn how to choose her words better, because she just fell into a right-wing trap, willingly, Aravosis continued. When the religious right says it's a choice, they mean you quite literally choose your sexual orientation, you can change it at will, and that's bull.

Though Nixon may have her critics, we probably shouldn't expect her to back down anytime soon.

I am very annoyed about this issue, she said in the Times interview. Why can't it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we're just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don't think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn't realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I've been out with.

We will be on the lookout for any comment from Nixon's camp. Stay tuned!

[via Huffington Post]