The transgender movement has “completely overshadowed” the campaign for gay rights, actor Rupert Everett has said, as he criticised “today’s New Puritanism”.
Everett, 61, said he feels like “the wrong type of queen” and that the gay community has “completely lost our profile”.
He cited Russia’s banning of gay marriage and said “nobody was up in arms about anything”.
Speaking to The Times Magazine, Everett added that “the gay movement has been completely overshadowed by the trans movement”.
Everett first found fame playing a gay public school pupil in 1984 drama Another Country, while his other roles include My Best Friend’s Wedding and Shakespeare In Love.
He once said he believed coming out harmed his Hollywood career.
Everett, who lives with his partner Henrique, a Brazilian accountant, criticised what he sees as an overly reproachful outlook among young people and told of his fears of being “cancelled” for speaking about transgender issues.
“This might be the first time that the older generation has felt that they have to tiptoe around the younger generation and turn everything off,” he said.
However he shared his support for “wokeness” because “everything it stands for is, essentially, great”.
Everett has previously said he wanted to be a girl until he was about 15. Asked what he would be like if he were that age now, the actor said: “Well, I’d probably be transitioning.”
He also joked that transitioning may help his career.
Everett said: “I might transition because it could be a way of reigniting my career, because in Hollywood now, if you’re a middle-aged director of second-rate television you’re finished.”
Transgender issues have proven to be highly contentious recently.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has found herself on the receiving end of stinging criticism for her comments on the subject, after stating: “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.”