Cynthia Nixon has spoken passionately against Donald Trump at a rally outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City over the weekend.
The actor attacked Trump’s immigration ban and urged the LGBT+ community to fight alongside minorities in the wake of the president’s stream of executive orders.
“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,” Nixon said.
“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'.”
It was announced last week that Trump would not be repealing President Obama’s 2014 executive order that protected employees of federal contractors from anti-LGBT discrimination—but uncertainty remains.
“We don’t know yet what Donald Trump has in store for us, and chances are he doesn’t either,” said Nixon.
“He poses as our ally, he assures us he would never let his administration roll back our hard-won rights but he chooses Mike Pence—the poster boy for anti-LGBT rhetoric, legislation and conversion therapy—as his vice-president."
It was rumoured that the possible anti-LGBT executive order was halted by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump —yet Nixon remained sceptical.
“His son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka Trump are supposed to reassure us that those closest to him are gay positive cosmopolites. But the Kushners couldn’t even get the president to mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day."
She ended her speech imploring the crowd to stand together in the face of adversity.
“Be different. Be other. Be you. We need you!”
Nixon has been vocal in her opposition to the Trump administration— she was pictured protesting at JFK airport after Trump’s executive order temporarily banned residents from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.
