Cynthia Nixon, of Sex & the City fame, tells the NYT today that being gay is a choice. What she means is that she's bisexual, 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. 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.
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. Thanks.
From the NYT:
"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. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. 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." - Sex And The City actress Cynthia Nixon, speaking to the New York Times.I've heard some lesbians make this comment before, and I think it's somewhat bassed in the different between women and men, whether it's biological or societal, in that women's sexuality seems to be more fluid than men's (or at least women are more willing to admit it). But again, that doesn't mean that women find the idea of sex with other women repugnant, but then suddenly say "hey, maybe it would help my career if I dated another chick," so they "choose" to find other women really hot sexually, and voila!, they now DO find other women really hot sexually. It doesn't work that way. In the same way you don't choose to prefer blondes over brunettes, or even choose what kind of sex you enjoy once in you're in the sack. It's the way you're wired, it's not a choice.
Finally, a "certain section of our community" is concerned? Yeah, that would be the people whose asses are on the front line fighting for your civil rights, who actually know how all of this works. Who know, first hand, that everything you say can and will be used against you by the gay-haters. And when you say things like this, using incendiary buzzwords that don't really mean what you're trying to say - when you try to define the rest of us by your incredibly poorly chosen, and incorrect, words - you hurt us all.
This was an incredibly irresponsible interview.
And finally, she's right. It shouldn't matter if it's a choice. But wake up, Mary. Lots of things in life shouldn't matter, and they do. The entire reason we have to have a civil rights movement is because it shouldn't matter but it does. Words matter too.
I've written a bit more about this over on the main AMERICAblog site.
