X-Files star Gillian Anderson has come out publicly as pansexual in a recent interview with The Australian. The award-winning actress spoke about her first relationship with a woman while in high school and with other women throughout the years, commenting that although she had dated women, she didn’t consider herself gay because she “had a couple of boyfriends” as well. She felt as though she “didn’t have the language for it” in her earlier years, but is now proudly claiming the term “pansexual.”
While Anderson can be attracted to anyone regardless of her gender, she has been in a committed relationship with her “life partner” Peter Morgan since 2016. “I think I would feel the same way if it were a woman,” Anderson confirmed. “I’d feel, ‘This is my life partner.’ When I was younger, there were parts of my brain that thought [women] were temporary.” Those feelings, however, according to Anderson, changed after she turned 50. “[Now] it’s different. It feels different.”
Anderson’s public statement of her queer sexuality comes after decades of her support for the LGBTQ+ community. In 2012 she had already been open in an interview with Out Magazine about her past high school relationship with a woman. In addition to her early queer transparency, she would become a frequent attendant at The Trevor Project’s “Cracked X-Mas” events in support of the LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention organization. More recently, she signed The Trevor Project’s open letter in response to the federal government’s efforts to halt funding for LGBTQ+ crisis services.
In addition to Anderson’s steady support of the LGBTQ+ community, her on-screen character from the “X-Files,” Agent Dana Scully, while heterosexual was viewed by many lesbian fans over the years as an inherently queer icon.
From a Reddit user commenting on the thread discussing the topic: “…She was a pop feminist icon and a lot of gay or bi girls grew up idolizing or seeing parts of Scully in themselves and now that idea of her is as ingrained as their own identities.”
With her past and current activism and allyship to the LGBTQ+ community and her recent pansexual declaration, the actress is sure to be a welcome addition to the queer community everywhere.
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