Star of the upcoming Broadway revival of Wit Cynthia Nixon has clarified that whole being gay is a choice statement she made in a recent interview with the New York Times, but the clarification she made about the word bisexual to The Daily Beast will not like assuage her detractors in the LGBT community.
The Sex and the City star raised eyebrows when she told the New York 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.”
Nixon went on to tell the NYT, “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.”
One writer who took umbrage with Nixon’s calling being gay a choice –even if it’s just something she defines for herself—was America Blog writer John Aravosis who responded with the following:
“It's not a "choice," unless you consider my opting to date a guy with brown hair versus a guy with blonde hair a "choice." It's only a choice among flavors I already like. And if you like both flavors, men and women, you're bisexual, you're not gay, so please don't tell people that you are gay, and that gay people can "choose" their sexual orientation, i.e., will it out of nowhere. Because they can't. And when you tell the NYT they can, you do tremendous damage to our civil rights effort. Every religious right hatemonger is now going to quote this woman every single time they want to deny us our civil rights.
Nixon since gave a second interview to The Daily Beast’s Kevin Sessums in which she says she eschews the word bisexual.
Sessums touched on Nixon’s orientation when he asked her, “Were you a lesbian in a heterosexual relationship? Or are you now a heterosexual in a lesbian relationship? That quote seemed like you were fudging a bit.”
Nixon, who has two children with her former partner Daniel Mozes and one with her current partner Christine Marinoni replied, “I think for gay people who feel 100 percent gay, it doesn’t make any sense. And for straight people who feel 100 percent straight, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t pull out the “bisexual” word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals.” She also told Sessums of the “B” in LGBT, “We get no respect,” which prompted him to ask if the “we” means she identifies as bisexual.
“I just don’t like to pull out that word. But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her,” Nixon said. “I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt.”
Image via Getty.
Disingenious
Everyone knows what it means to be bisexual and what it means to be homosexuals; she is clearly bisexual basd on her 'clarification.' She, therefore, can make a choice as to the sex of whom to love and lust after. I don't, and haven't since I was 4-years-old.
Cynthia...
...over complicate things much? You're bi. Or make up some other word you like better. But you didn't have a "straight orientation" and then switch to a "gay orientation." That goes against the whole notion of the word "orientation."I think that what most of us are struggling over is other people taking their individual experiences and "mapping" it onto us, without checking to see if it's actually true or not. One issue I have with many bi activists is this insistance that most people's sexual orientation "moves along a continuum throughout their lives."Ummm...that's a bi thing. There's also a gender difference, in that the people reporting this kind of orienation shifting are most often women. Although I'm not 100% gay male (5.5 on the Kinsey scale?), I have not experienced my sexual orientation moving along a continuum throughout my life. I do not consider my closeted years--until the age of 22--to be "moving from 'being straight' to 'being gay.'" I was always gay...I was just in huge denial and lying about it for many years.So, some people experience their sexual orientation "moving" during their lives (I rarely meet a man who describes it this way). Most don't.We need to develop language to talk about this that doesn't pigeon hole people or push an agenda onto people when it doesn't fit their experiences....and, as I said on another website, I think it's time we de-emphasized this "we deserve civil rights because we're born this way." Even if it's flexible and a choice, we still don't deserve to be beaten and marginalized...people making choices that don't hurt anyone should have the right to do so. And civil rights laws already include groups whose membership involves choice: veterans and religious people.
What does it mean to be "bisexual"?
Hi Gerrifisher61,Everyone keeps saying that she's Bi, but if you are overwhelmingly attracted to all things masculine, regardless of whether it's female or male, doesn't this point toward a straight orientation? Yes, it is a woman she is with, but she could easily pass for a man. I'm sorry, but I just feel like this is a straight woman who happens to be in a homosexual relationship. I have long been confused by the whole uber masculine woman thing; If I wanted something that looks like a man, I'd be with a man!
Bi's, Butches and Cynthia
The woman is clearly bi, many femmes are so what? Moreover, some femmes enjoy the mix of female and male energies in a butch WOMAN. Apparently you aren't capable of experiencing this kind of energy exchange--too bad for you. (Maybe you are entertaining a case of internalized homphobia, I don't know.) In short, us butches are NOT men, we ARE FEMALE, i.e., two spirited people. You find this in queen men as well. They are our counterparts, that is, men who are feminine in outlook and presentation. Nature loves variety and we are the third gender. If you haven't been with a butch you would never understand this about butches and the femmes who love us--just as we are MASCULINE AND FEMALE AT THE SAME TIME.
Ok.......
Two-spirited people huh? Overthinking this much? If you're aknowledging the fact that you are a woman, why do you go out of your way to conceal it? Perhaps YOU are internalizing resentment toward the fact that you in fact are a WOMAN! There is nothing wrong with incorporating elements of both sexes; I have always been a tomboy, but no one in a million years is ever going to mistake me for a man. I'm not trying to be something I'm not. And how on earth could I be homophobic? I am quite openly gay!
What does it mean to be "bisexual"?
Hi Gerrifisher61,Everyone keeps saying that she's Bi, but if you are overwhelmingly attracted to all things masculine, regardless of whether it's female or male, doesn't this point toward a straight orientation? Yes, it is a woman she is with, but she could easily pass for a man. I'm sorry, but I just feel like this is a straight woman who happens to be in a homosexual relationship. I have long been confused by the whole uber masculine woman thing; If I wanted something that looks like a man, I'd be with a man!
Is she even bisexual?
Although Cynthia Nixon is best suited to explain this herself, I'd ask her if maybe she is a straight woman who is simply in a homosexual relationship with a woman. I think we mistakenly think that just because someone has entered into a relationship with someone of the same sex, they have "turned" gay or bisexual. I have seen this many times with straight women who had always been with men; for whatever reason, they get fed up with a man, and enter into a relationship with what is usually a very masculine woman. In most of these cases, she will typically want a man again at some point, because she was straight all along. I don't feel that anyone who is truly gay chooses it, just as those who are straight never chose to be, they just are.
I agree with you, Kris. I
I agree with you, Kris. I believe Cynthia will be back with a man eventually. Especially when she gets her eyesight back that gf of hers is HIDEOUS. Good God...
I don't get it.....
Hi Deena,If you are a gay woman, doesn't that mean that you're attracted to something that actually looks like a woman? You're right, the first time I saw her "girlfriend," I was shocked. But then again, Cynthia isn't that attractive herself.To be honest, if you're attracted to something that looks like a man, why not go for the real thing? I just don't get it. As a gay woman, I sure as hell want something that resembles a woman!
Choose Away
Cynthia Nixon isn't damaging gay rights with her comments any more than Sheryl Swoopes did when she said something similar. Who cares if it's a choice? We should have the right to choose if we want. Plenty of people with inherently gay tendencies choose to be straight all the time. I'm not saying it's the best path to happiness, but they have the right to make that choice. We can't base our fight for rights solely on the premise that we are born this way. It must also be based on love, equality, justice, and the freedom to live the life we want to live.So choose away, Cynthia and anyone else. I'll welcome you to the LGBT community regardless of your reasons for being here.
Cynthia Nixon
All of this labeling has been a sore point for decades. I would hate to think that all people (gay or straight), are defined by their sexuality. Many times in our lives we may vary (or not) who we are sexually attracted to and in some cases, are intimate with. Does any of this define who we are? I don't think so. Many gay activists want to keep the government out of the bedroom. Maybe we should police ourselves to do the same.Also, if you want a cause, please check out the first listing on bing.com regarding Ms Nixon's interview by USSReport. I found it very offensive in that they would not completely spell out either homosexual or homosexuality (deleting vowels) yet, they had no problem spelling out heterosexuality. Maybe activists should concentrate on how the media represents reports.
Hm
As someone who might be classified as bisexual, I do understand where she is coming from up to a point. I have been derided and ridiculed from both gay and straight people for 'not choosing a side'. Yet in just the same way that gay people say that being same sex attracted is not a choice; being both sex attracted is also not a choice. It is just what it is and simply who I am and who I have always been.Sometimes the gay community can be their own worst enemy. They fight for equal rights, and yet do not apply those same principles to all the members of the queer community. It is only when we as a community can fully accept each other for who we are, without reservations and without bias, that the mainstream naysayers will be able to do the same. It's about leading by example.
There is harm.
She is now being a bit clearer, but still reluctant to say what has become obvious to everyone else: that she is bisexual and that she now chooses to make a life with her same-sex partner.If she had said that, she wouldn't have gotten a negative peep out of anyone, including me. But the bottom line is that she seems to hate the term "bisexual" (talk about another closet!) and therefore calls herself gay while still insisting that she can "choose" to be gay or straight at any old time.What this did is give terrible ammunition to our enemies. In fact, it also puts in jeopardy our current court cases, since both the Prop 8 and DOMA cases hinge on LGBT Americans being a "suspect class", a group of people who have less power than others because of the way they are, not because of behaviors we chose. If we can just choose willy-nilly to go with another gender any time we want, then why are we entitled to press our case for our rights? As Michele Bachman said "they already have the same right to marry as heterosexuals, just not to someone of their own sex."Her very public comments were ill-thought-out and badly expressed, and she certainly has not done us any good.
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