Actor Marcia Gay Harden opened up about how her parenting journey has inspired her LGBTQ advocacy.
During the “Drag Isn’t Dangerous” telethon on Sunday — which raised more than $500,000 for LGBTQ charities as anti-drag legislation rises across the U.S. —Harden said her children motivate her work.
“What drives me is because it’s right and what’s happening right now is wrong,” Harden, 63, told the telethon’s co-host Adam Shankman. “What drives me is — my children are all queer. My eldest child is nonbinary. My son is gay. My youngest is fluid. And you know, they are my kids and they teach me every day.”
She went on to slam the anti-LGBTQ legislation: “This is so fear-based and it’s spreading that kind of fear and hatred among other people. I believe this country will fight that.”
The actor shares three children with ex-husband Thaddaeus Scheel: Eulala Scheel, 24; Julitta Dee Harden Scheel, 19; and Hudson Harden Scheel, 19.
The telethon included several drag performers like Jinkx Monsoon, Trixie Mattel and Candis Cayne, as well as celebrity allies like Charlize Theron, Leslie Jones, Jesse Eisenberg and Melissa McCarthy.
Theron, 47, spoke in a pretaped segment where she spoke directly to the drag community: “We love you queens. We’re in your corner and we’ve got you, and I will f--- anybody up who’s trying to f--- with anything with you guys.”
“There are so many things hurting and really killing our kids and we all know what I’m talking about right now, and it ain’t no drag queen — because if you’ve ever seen a drag queen lip sync for her life, it only makes you happier, it only make you love more, it makes you a better person,” she added.
Theron, who adopted her two daughters Jackson and August, shared in 2019 that her daughter Jackson is transgender.
“My daughter’s story is really her story, and one day, if she chooses, she’ll tell her story,” Theron said in an interview with Between the Lines. “I feel like as her mother, for me, it was important to let the world know that I would appreciate it if they would use the right pronouns for her.”
