Cynthia Nixon says she's gay by choice

(CBS) Cynthia Nixon is turning heads - and not just because she recently shaved her head for a Broadway role.

The "Sex and the City" actress, who went bald to play a cancer-stricken professor in the play "Wit," drew attention for comments she made about her sexuality in recent interviews.

In an interview printed in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Nixon said that, for her, being gay is a choice.

"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," she said.

"Why can't it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate?" she continued. "It seems we're just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don't think that they should define the terms of the debate."

Nixon is engaged to longtime partner Christine Marinoni, who gave birth to their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, last February. She also has two children - Samantha, 15, and Charlie, 9 - from her 15-year relationship with Danny Mozes, which ended in 2003.

"I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn't realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I've been out with," Nixon told the Times.

In another interview with the Daily Beast, published Tuesday, Nixon referred to herself as bisexual but said she doesn't like to use that term.

"I don't pull out the 'bisexual' word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals," she said.

When the writer said that bisexual is the "B" in LGBT, Nixon responded, "I know, but we get no respect."

"You just said 'we,' so you must self-identify as one," the writer continued.

"I just don't like to pull out that word," the actress explained. "But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her. I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt."

Nixon's play, "Wit," is currently in previews and officially opens on Thursday.