# Cynthia Nixon states she's "gay by choice". Does this harm the LGBT community? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 24, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554 "2012-01-24T23:28:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/21 "2012-01-25T10:06:56Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Isn’t this just a roundabout way of saying she’s bisexual? That’s what it sounds like to me. If you can choose to be gay or straight, that means you’re both; in other words, bi. But some people have this weird denial thing going on with bisexuality; you have to be straight or gay, period. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/22 "2012-01-25T10:14:54Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I don’t think it matters. Clearly people have a choice about which religion they belong to, or which political party they support. Does that mean that we should discriminate against Southern Baptists or against Republicans because they choose that? So, if Cynthia Nixon chooses to be gay, or even if all gays have chosen to be gay, why should we say, “No, you can only choose to be heterosexual”? > > Everyone should have the right to choose who they have sex with, and who they marry. The fact that many people, for various reasons, limit their choices based on gender, religion, race, or whatever, does not mean that society or the law should interfere with their choices. I think this is precisely it. Thing is, in having a debate at all about whether being gay is innate or a choice, you’re unwittingly having the discussion in terms set by those who are coming to the debate wanting to discredit homosexuality. The debate is essentially framed as “homosexuality is wrong, QED, therefore it shouldn’t be permitted” with the response being “but gay people can’t help that they perpetrate this wrong and shouldn’t be punished”. If you approach the topic from a position that isn’t religiously motivated and neutral towards the issue of homosexuality, then it ceases to matter whether people choose to be gay in the same way that it doesn’t matter what they do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Of course this is a utilitarian approach to the subject, but unless you want to be underwriting the flawed arguing position of those who would deny people same sex rights (and I really don’t believe whether it’s a choice or not has any actual bearing on their views in this regard) it’s best simply to not engage in such a pointless blind alley at all. In reality why something is so is less important than the fact that it is so, and we must deal with the latter rather than the former when considering rights within society. Harsh pragmatist to the rescue! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/23 "2012-01-25T10:30:12Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > After Michael Glatze [turned from a gay advocate to an anti-gay advocate](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?pagewanted=all), plenty of people came out of the woodwork and accused him of merely “pretending to be gay”. Oh my… god. This is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever read, I genuinely wanted to cry at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/24 "2012-01-25T10:47:52Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Of course this is a utilitarian approach to the subject, but unless you want to be underwriting the flawed arguing position of those who would deny people same sex rights (and I really don’t believe whether it’s a choice or not has any actual bearing on their views in this regard) it’s best simply to not engage in such a pointless blind alley at all. Actually, I do think it has a significant bearing for a lot of them. First, because it’s a big part of their paranoid fantasies over homosexuality that homosexuals are going to convert people and that it’s something that people can be tempted into. If it’s not a choice then that just doesn’t work. And it’s also an important part of the mentality of the closeted self-hating homosexual segment of the anti-gay movement, which appears to be quite large judging from all the scandals; it seems to be a standard part of their rationalization that _everyone_ is tempted by homosexuality and it takes a major effort of will not to indulge. Which again, means that homosexuality has to be a choice in their eyes. I do agree with your basic argument though; while it may be important to them, to the rest of us it shouldn’t matter much. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/25 "2012-01-25T11:00:17Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Oh my… god. This is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever read, I genuinely wanted to cry at the end. The funniest part was when the mormons offered to “find him a wife” now that he was straight, except straight guys don’t express their straightness by getting married thats just a side effect of the emotional and sexual relationship with a woman. Its a funny case of putting the cart before the horse. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/26 "2012-01-25T11:00:32Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I’ve never heard of Cynthia Nixon Where do you live that you’ve never encountered _Sex in the City_ and can I live there too? Nixon can say what she wants just as Glatze can. It’s annoying and unhelpful in the larger scheme of things, but it’s her life. > [@grude](#): > > e funniest part was when the mormons offered to “find him a wife” now that he was straight, except straight guys don’t express their straightness by getting married thats just a side effect of the emotional and sexual relationship with a woman. Its a funny case of putting the cart before the horse. I lost my eyebrows in my hairline at “Christian fundamentalists should burn in hell!”. That right there was a red flag that this dude had self-loathing issues. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/27 "2012-01-25T11:41:36Z")
I’m glad she’s raising the discussion (or rather, people hounding her for a label is raising the discussion) because I’ve always been profoundly uncomfortable with the “it’s not their choice, the poor damaged dears!” argument for gay rights. Gay people shouldn’t be persecuted because they’re consenting adults and it’s none of anyone else’s damned business, not because they’re helpless to their genes. Or jeans. If this fuss makes us as a culture reexamine that line of thinking, then it’s a good thing. And I’m also annoyed that “bisexual” doesn’t do. I agree that a person who can “choose” which gender to be attracted to fits bisexual most neatly. Not that she must be bisexual, she could have been straight then with no relationship attraction to women and be gay now with no relationship attraction to men. That happens, too. But the wording there, that she’s choosing to be gay, makes me think that there is still that relationship attraction to men, too, just not one she’s choosing to pursue. And that \*is \*bisexual. But bisexual people don’t really exist, we all know that. They’re just indiscriminate whores, or gay people who haven’t accepted it yet. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/28 "2012-01-25T12:12:46Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I agree that a person who can “choose” which gender to be attracted to fits bisexual most neatly. I think someone who genuinely choose which gender they would rather be attracted to is actually a pansexual, if I understand it correctly. Nixon may be bi, but what’s she’s actively choosing is to only have sex with one gender, what she gets hot for only she can know (and, again, I personally don’t see it as relevant to anyone but her and who she has relationships with). I’m homosexual but I can choose to have sex with women and pursue a relationship with one, it doesn’t mean I’ve chosen to be heterosexual it just means I’m choosing to not follow my own inclinations (a monumentally stupid thing to do, in my view, but it doesn’t stop a lot of people doing it and arguing others should). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/29 "2012-01-25T12:19:02Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > I think someone who genuinely choose which gender they would rather be attracted to is actually a pansexual, if I understand it correctly. You may be correct, but given the information in that article, we only know she has, at some point, been in a relationship with a man and a relationship with a woman. Two genders = bi. We don’t know anything about any other genders or sexes she may be attracted to. ETA: Although I observe that “pangender” may be becoming the newer, more acceptable term for “bisexual” in the LGBT community, in reality it does still have it’s own useful and unique definition, and includes more than 2 genders/sexes. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/30 "2012-01-25T12:53:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Bisexual what? Bisexual erasure - ‘there is straight, there is gay, there is nothing else’. (Or, just as annoyingly, but less denying of the obvious - ‘sure bisexual people exist, but they don’t matter’.) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/31 "2012-01-25T13:15:37Z")
Didn’t they sing “Chains of Love”? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/32 "2012-01-25T13:41:43Z")
I think the thing about it being a choice is what allows people to think it is a sin. They can’t imagine a God who would punish people for who they are, so, if God says he doesn’t like it (which they fervently believe), it must be a choice. It’s the same type of rationale that allows them to say that even someone who never heard about Jesus must’ve rejected him subconsciously to justify their beliefs that said person would go to hell. As for this situation: I’d argue that if one has been both straight and gay, and prefers gay, one is, by definition, gay. Being gay or straight is not necessarily about exclusivity, but what one prefers. It is not uncommon for straight people to have a couple people of their own gender that they are attracted to, nor for gay people and someone of the opposite gender. It’s especially popular among women. There’s absolutely nothing mind blowing about what this woman is, only in that she chose to say it in a way that gives ammunition to those who do not want her to exist. You can explain the way things are without undermining the work that has been done to show that “homosexuality is a choice” is a rationalization and absolutely not based on any real life situations. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/33 "2012-01-25T13:44:27Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Didn’t they sing “Chains of Love”? No, that was gay Erasure. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/34 "2012-01-25T14:01:28Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Bisexual what? There—you see what I mean? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![IntelliQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@IntelliQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IntelliQ)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/35 "2012-01-25T14:05:10Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Exactly. This a moral issue not an empirical one, and the empirical fact is that we really do not know why some people are gay and most are straight. > > I am old enough to remember when the progressive, anti-bigotry stance on this was that sexuality _is_ (at some deep level) a matter of choice, that deep down we are all polymorphously perverse, and have all equally chosen a sexuality to keep that under control. Thus (so the argument went) society should not discriminate against gays because really we are all the same, and gay people are not some alien ‘other’. In recent decades the rhetoric has flipped around to “gay people are innately that way, they can’t help it, so we shouldn’t blame them or discriminate against them.” It is a simpler argument that has been quite effective (or any more true), and it really is not any more ‘liberatory’" Gay people are at the mercy of their genes apparently. I am also not convinced that it is the safest strategy in the long run. I don’t want to Godwinize here, but it did not do the Jews much good that the Nazis believed their Jewishness was innate. Likewise, if Europeans had not believed that Africans were a fundamentally different type of creature to themselves (that they had somehow just chosen to be born with black skin), they would not have been so quick to enslave them. Racists have always justified themselves by the claim of innate differences. Claiming that your group is innately different from the dominant group, although it may be an effective defense from persecution under some circumstances (in a society where bigotry is under some restraint), is really not a very safe strategy. > > The right-wing homophobic rhetoric has flipped the other way: from “gays are fundamentally different from us, and thus and scary and disgusting”, to “gays have made a foolish or wicked choice to be gay and thus can (and should) be cured of it.” > > I am not convinced that both sides are not being disingenuous. (These days more than formerly, perhaps. I very much suspect that homophobes really still do feel that gays are fundamentally alien and disgusting. You don’t go around beating people up just because you think they have made unwise life-choices.) > > In any case, the question should not be whether gay people are different from non-gay people by choice or by compulsion (the answer to that is we really don’t know, and maybe it is a bit of both), but whether that difference does any objective harm (or a greater harm than would be done by attempting to eliminate that difference) either to society as a whole or to themselves. > > So far as I can see, the answer is that the fact that there are a certain percentage of gay people in society does no objective harm whatsoever (what harm there is, is actually done by the people who think that gays, just by existing, do do harm, and those people are certainly potentially reeducatable). Thus there is no reason to treat them any worse than anybody else. Agreed, but it’s important to also point out people can be biologically repulsed by homosexuality and not homophobic. It is by choice how we treat others. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/36 "2012-01-25T14:38:08Z")
I see it as quite the opposite. Her statement in no way indicates it’s a choice for everyone. And that homosexuality has become mainstream enough that she can be free enough to openly state she chose to be gay. It is not only something one can be born with but also can be a free choice that people are willing to make as well adds to the normality and it is no longer only a exclusive club by birthright. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/37 "2012-01-25T14:51:13Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > Agreed, but it’s important to also point out people can be biologically repulsed by homosexuality and not homophobic. It is by choice how we treat others. Do you have any evidence of that? I’ve never encountered any evidence that said opinion of homosexuality was anything other than cultural. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/38 "2012-01-25T15:20:05Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Where do you live that you’ve never encountered _Sex in the City_ and can I live there too? I’ve heard of that show, but I’ve never seen it. I think Sarah Jessica Parker was on it, and that it was about a few women and their sex lives, and that they lived in a big city somewhere (New York?). I know who Sarah Jessica is largely because she was caricatured on _South Park_. Never heard of Cynthia Nixon though. Isn’t SatC an HBO program? I don’t subscribe to that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/39 "2012-01-25T16:52:16Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I fail to see how any of this changes anything. It doesn’t give anyone “ammunition” for their irrational thoughts, because irrational thoughts have nothing to do with facts . . . including the fact that she claims to be “gay by choice.” People will continue to believe what they choose to believe. This sums up my thoughts pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554/40 "2012-01-28T16:55:25Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The funniest part was when the mormons offered to “find him a wife” now that he was straight, except straight guys don’t express their straightness by getting married thats just a side effect of the emotional and sexual relationship with a woman. Its a funny case of putting the cart before the horse. Some would say that you’re the one getting it backwards. Some people examining contemporary marriage issues are coming to a conclusion that basing your marriage on love is a shallow foundation for marriage because being in love can be a fleeting condition. Others feel that basing it on your personal honor and commitment is more important to building a lasting marriage. You say love and sex come first and then you marry. others say marriage comes first and then love and sex; though this doesn’t preclude already being in love. I tend to agree with the later. If marriage is only about being in love then it is logical to divorce when that feeling fades, as it nearly always does. I say that marriage is the horse and love and sex are the cart, and that the primary reason we have high divorce rates is the fact that most people in our culture have agreed with you. I don’t, and think you have the cart before the horse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cynthia-nixon-states-shes-gay-by-choice-does-this-harm-the-lgbt-community/610554.md?page=3)