AMY GOODMAN: There were so many who addressed
the crowd for hours on Saturday, among them
Cynthia Nixon, the actress best known for
her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in Sex and
the City.
CYNTHIA NIXON: Hello, brothers.
Hello, sisters.
Hello, siblings who reject the gender binary.
Welcome and thank you for being here.
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, demonize, beat up, even kill."
We don’t know yet what Donald Trump has
in store for us, and chances are he doesn’t
either.
As far as LGBT people are concerned, he seems
to hold many different positions at once,
or, as Gertrude Stein once said, "There’s
no there there."
He poses as our ally.
He reassures us he would never let his administration
roll back our hard-won rights.
But he chooses Mike Pence—
AUDIENCE: Boo!
CYNTHIA NIXON: —the poster boy for anti-LGBT
rhetoric, legislation and conversion therapy,
as his vice president.
AUDIENCE: Boo!
CYNTHIA NIXON: His son-in-law, Jared Kushner,
and his daughter, Ivanka Trump—
AUDIENCE: Boo!
CYNTHIA NIXON: —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.
So, not sure how much influence they really
have when weighed against his desire to placate
his base.
We must fight hard and yell loud for ourselves.
We have come too far to be turned back now.
But we must fight just as hard and yell just
as loud for Muslims, both those here and those
trying to get here.
We know now that their struggle is our struggle,
because their enemies are our enemies.
Whether we are lesbian or gay or transgender
or Muslim or Mexican or any one of a number
of other categories I could name, we are allies
united by our otherness.
And if we didn’t know it before, thanks
to Donald Trump, we know it now.
And, yes, yes, we are stronger together.
Seattle Federal Judge James Robart’s ruling
yesterday has, for now, shut down Trump’s
Muslim ban, at least temporarily.
It is a major legal decision in the right
direction.
For it, we certainly have Judge Robart to
thank, but also the thousands and thousands
of people who have come out and protested
the ban and kept the issue front and center
for the last week—in other words, us!
I was at a number of those protests, and I’m
sure a lot of people here today were, too.
And the thing that has struck me at all of
the protests I’ve been to is not the anger,
which has been abundant, not the turnout,
which has been, if you’ll pardon the expression,
"yuuge," but the diversity of the crowd and
the good humor we have managed to maintain
in the face of such hateful Trumpian bleakness,
and the wit and creativity of the messages
we are expressing on our signs and on our
bodies.
While our anger is high and highly justified,
it is important that it’s entwined with
those other strands that sustain us.
We cannot burn with anger 24/7, or we will
flame out.
Our rage will consume us.
And, people, we are in this for the long haul,
because this is just the beginning.
And if we listen to the anarchists and go
violent, I believe we’ll make things even
worse than they are already.
We will give our law-and-order president just
the opening he’s looking for.
So my message today is take care of yourselves,
because you are our most valuable resource
right now.
We needed you here today, and I thank you
for coming, but it’s not over.
We need you here tomorrow, too, and next week
and next month and next year.
We have to keep coming out.
And to do that, we have to find a place inside
each of us and between all of us of joy and
humor and solidarity and hope.
And then we can win.
I promise.
Look at Donald Trump.
His fear and anger are consuming him.
Be different.
Be other.
Be you.
We need you!
AMY GOODMAN: That was Cynthia Nixon, known
for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in Sex
and the City and many other productions, speaking
Saturday at the massive rally outside the
Stonewall Inn in New York City.
 
 
