Kevin Sessums follows up with Cynthia Nixon, who made headlines recently for telling the NYT's Alex Witchel that, for her, being gay "is a choice". Sessums asks about Nixon's previous 15-year relationship with a man, and her current relationship with Christine Marinoni:
I'm a bit confused. 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.
It's so not fudging. It's so not. 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.
But it is the “B” in LGBT.
I know. But we get no respect.
You just said “we,” so you must self-identify as one.
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. 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.
Nixon then repeats the assertion that it's fine to say homosexuality is her choice, because to say it's not a choice would be "caving to the bigots":
I understand for political reasons why some people want to kind of squelch this idea that being gay might be a choice, because a lot of the rights we want are posited on the supposition that why are you denying me my rights any more than if I were created a different color? But I don't feel the need to cede the definition of what a gay person is to the bigots. They don't get to define who I am.
Check out more of Sessums' interview over at The Daily Beast.