Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon to be honoured with LGBT award
(Getty)
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon is to be honoured by the Human Rights Campaign.
The out actress, , who has three kids with her wife, will receive the HRC Visibility Award at the 2018 HRC Greater New York Gala.
Nixon, who starred on iconic New York-based TV show Sex and the City as Miranda Hobbes, is a strong proponent of LGBT equality.
HRC President Chad Griffin said: “Cynthia Nixon is a fearless and outspoken advocate for all LGBTQ people.
“Cynthia uses her talent and public platform to speak out for equality in this country and around the globe, and in the process, she is changing countless hearts and minds. We are proud to recognize her with the HRC Visibility Award at the 2018 HRC Greater New York Gala.”
Last February, in front of a crowd protesting Donald Trump’s immigration ban outside the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City, Nixon said, “As LGBT people, we know how important coming out is, but I would argue that our coming out has never been more important than it is right now.”
After the Supreme Court’s decision in favour of marriage equality in 2015, Nixon penned an op-ed for Variety on the importance of not being complacent on LGBTQ equality, saying, “The important thing to remember going forward, though, is no outcome is ever 100% assured. We have to keep organising like our lives depend on it.”
New York City Mayor Mayor Bill de Blasio with wife Chirlane McCray, actress Cynthia Nixon and activist Al Sharpton march during the New York City Pride 2016 (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
HRC supporter Javier Muñoz, who starred in the musical Hamilton as the replacement for Lin-Manuel Miranda will be a special guest at the event.
Mr Muñoz – who is openly gay – previously spoke about living with HIV and also surviving cancer.
He recalled: “I have been living with HIV since 2002, and I’m undetectable.
“I’m healthy, I’m strong and I’m very out about that because of the stigma still attached to it.”
He added: “I have this joke – if it’s funny or not funny, I don’t know – but the joke is that I have died several times already, and that’s how it feels.
“My life completely and drastically changed in 2002 when I was diagnosed with HIV, and then again with cancer. And you can’t unknow what you know. Life is not the same after that.
“But I’m alive, and I’m for all intents and purposes healthy and well. And I’m grateful for that.”
Cynthia Nixon at the Tony Awards (Getty Images)
Last year there was rumours that Nixon is reportedly considering a challenge to become Governor of New York.
If the rumours are true, one thing is for sure: she would definitely not be the worst politician named Nixon in living memory.
The actress is a vocal critic of President Trump.
She has blasted Mike Pence as the “poster boy for anti-LGBT rhetoric, legislation and conversion therapy”, adding that LGBT people must reject his agenda.
Speaking at a rally days into the Trump Presidency, she said: “As LGBT people, we know how important coming out is, but I would argue that our coming out has never been more important than it is right now.
“We need to come out not just as queer, but as people who know all too well what it feels like to be put in a box that says ‘other,’ less than,’ ‘easy target if you’re looking for someone to bully, harass, discriminate against, demonise, beat up, even kill.
“We don’t know yet what Donald Trump has in store for us, and chances are he doesn’t either.”
(Photo by Clemens Bilan/Getty Images for Glashuette Original)
Ms Nixon later reflected: “I think it’s really important to be in full possession of what victories we’ve had, because we’ve had quite a few.
“And certainly the triumph of our judicial system, and blocking the Muslim ban. And it’s not just our judicial system. It’s also people all over this country standing up and saying, ‘Absolutely not. This goes against everything we believe in this country. No! Not here! Not here!’
“I think standing up and rejecting the repeal of Obamacare. That has to do with the people in our Senate and our Congress but that mostly has to do with people all over the country and screaming, ‘No!’”
Ms Nixon is married to spouse Christine Marinoni, with whom she has one son. The actress also has two children from a previous relationship with a man.
Cynthia Nixon and her wife
The star caused controversy shortly before her marriage to Marinoni, when she claimed her sexuality was a choice.
She later clarified her comments by saying that her sexuality was not a choice, but she did ‘choose’ was to be in a gay relationship.
Later clarifying her sexuality, she said: “I didn’t really identify as bisexual, but people were so insistent that I pick [label]… 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.”
Other celebrities including Kanye West and Kid Rock have also considered political bids.
