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Alan Cumming Blasts Trump's "Persecution Against the LGBT Community"

Alan Cumming

Cumming praised CBS for making his upcoming series Instinct, which features the first gay lead character on a one-hour network TV show. 

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Tony-winning actor Alan Cumming, who is bisexual and set to play network television's first gay lead character in an hour-long drama on CBS's Instinct, spoke out against the Trump administration for endangering the lives of LGBT people, Deadline reported.

"I applaud everyone at CBS for having the courage to put that (Intstinct) on, in the climate that might not be the best time to do it," Cumming said at the show's Television Critics Association's (TCA) winter press tour. "The President is actively condoning--by his silence--violence, and persecution against the LGBT community," Cumming said.

Cumming, who was nominated for an Emmy for his role as political strategist Eli Gold on The Good Wife, stars on Instinct as Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former CIA operative turned professor and writer who's lured back into investigating crimes to help the NYPD track a serial killer. The character also happens to be gay and in a happy, healthy marriage to another man.

Regarding the appearance of TV's first gay lead character in a network drama in the time of Trump, Cumming said it was one of the reasons he was drawn to the series that is based on an upcoming James Patterson book, according to Deadline. Because of the current political climate, Cumming said it was "all that more important we should have a character with a healthy same-sex marriage."

Answering a question about why the "n" in the Instinct logo is backwards, Cumming said, "It's secret code to say 'No' to Trump."

Instinct premieres on CBS on March 11.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.