The 'Ratched' star gets candid about identity and LGBTQ politics in the Attitude October issue.
Cynthia Nixon's sexuality has been given many labels over the year, by both herself and the media.
But after clarifying in 2018 that she identifies as 'queer' rather than 'lesbian' or 'bisexual' (when pressed further, the actress simply replied at the time: "It's personal"), the former Sex and the City star has revealed why the sometimes polarising term best fits her.
"I could call myself a lesbian, gay, bisexual. But none of them seems really particularly right,” Nixon, 54, muses in the Attitude October issue - out now to download and to order globally.
"To say ‘queer’ means, 'I’m over there, I don’t have to go into the nuances of my sexuality with you'."
Nixon, who after running to be the Democratic nominee for governor of New York in 2018, is set to make her return to TV with an LGBTQ role in Ryan Murphy's new Netflix series Ratched, opposite Sarah Paulson.
The outspoken a screen star began dating her now-wife Christine Marinoni in 2004 after splitting from her husband of 15 years, but says she didn't consider the relationship - her first with a women - to be a lightbulb moment.
"Falling in love with my wife was one of the great delights and surprises of my life, but it didn’t seem like I became a whole new person, or like some door had been unlocked", she reflects.