Newly-bald Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon's declaration that she is gay "by choice" has outraged members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Nixon, who shaved her head for her latest theatrical role, told the New York Times she had been subject to a backlash after telling a gay audience: "I've been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better."
She had been pressured to retract the comment "because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice", she said.
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"For me, it is a choice, " Nixon told the New York Times. "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."
"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."
Her comments have drawn criticism from some members of the LGBT community, with at least one popular gay blogger saying she should have used the term "bisexual"
"If you like both flavors, men and women, you’re bisexual, you’re not gay, so please don’t tell people that you are gay, and that gay people can "choose" their sexual orientation, ie will it out of nowhere. Because they can’t," he wrote in AmericaBlog Gay.
"Every religious right hatemonger is now going to quote this woman every single time they want to deny us our civil rights."
Nixon was with a man for 15 years and had two children before beginning her current relationship with long-time partner Christine Marinoni.
They are engaged and last Februray gave birth to their son Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni.
Nixon, a famous redhead, revealed her new look on Live With Kelly yesterday after shaving her locks for the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Wit in which she plays a poetry professor with cancer.
"I thought it was kind of gonna be no muss-no fuss, but I have to shave it every day," she told host Kelly Ripa.
"It's got kind of a five o'clock shadow, and you don't want to go on with that.
"I was always kind of curious to see what it would be like. I like it; I don't think I'm gonna keep it forever."
Nixon had a cancerous lump removed from her breast in 2006 and endured radiation treatment but did not undergo chemotherapy.
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