‘Is Cynthia Nixon gay?’ The question everyone is asking following news she’s to run for office
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Cynthia Nixon running for governor has sparked headlines across the Atlantic.
The Sex and the City star shared a video on Twitter announcing that she would be attempting to make the grade as New York governor, which in 24 hours alone has accrued one million hits.
Although LGBT+ groups appear to be divided over supporting Nixon rather than incumbent Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, the world has received the news with a lot of fist-bumping.
I love New York, and today I'm announcing my candidacy for governor. Join us: https://t.co/9DwsxWW8xX pic.twitter.com/kYTvx6GZiD
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) March 19, 2018
But another topic has come to light since the announcement – how does Nixon define her sexuality?
Back in 2010, Nixon said that she was “gay as a political stance” but thinks “we’re all bisexual”.
“I identify as gay as a political stance. If anybody, prior to my meeting and falling in love with Christine, had asked me about what I think about sexuality, I would have said I think we’re all bisexual,” she said in an interview with The Advocate.
“But I had that point of view without ever having felt attracted to a woman. I had never met a woman I was attracted to [before Christine]. And maybe if I’d met her when I was 20, I would have fallen in love and only dated women. But maybe if I’d met her at 20, I wouldn’t have responded at all. Who knows?”
Although Cynthia is proudly married to her wife Christine, it appears that her definition of her sexuality is pretty fluid.
“This is the state where I started acting at age 12 to put myself through college when my mom told me she couldn’t afford to. This is the state where I made my career, raised my kids, and met and married the love of my life, my wife Christine,” she said.
As Nixon was in a relationship with former partner and father of two of her children Danny Moses, Nixon clarified that she had decided to identify as bisexual – which she had not done in the past.
“I didn’t really identify as bisexual,” she said, “but people were so insistent that I pick a ― you know, it caused a huge controversy and everyone wanted to graft on to me this narrative ― [that] I felt that I had just simply been mistaken about myself for all these years and finally the veil was lifted and I was a lesbian. And that was not true.”
Of course, Twitter’s finest and brightest LGBT activists have utilised the platform to discuss bi erasure, and how we define sexuality.
With Nixon’s definition at hand, we are left to grapple the space between the definitions of being “politically gay” but personally bisexual.
And while those two sides remain unclear and one definition has come out under pressure, perhaps it’s time to bring the word queer to the forte.
And what is good to know is that Nixon is speaking out about the queer community’s interests.
“Taking our country back is going to require all of us to step up and take action – including more women, people of colour, queer people, and first-generation Americans running for office,” said the Sex and the City star in a tweet.
