- 2 weeks ago
Cast members from the FX show 'Pose' - Angel Curiel, Dyllón Burnside, Hailie Sahar, Indya Moore and MJ Rodriguez - sat down with moderator Jayce Baron of Kills & Tell Networks for a wide-ranging and very real conversation.
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00:00Y'all look gorgeous like what who did the casting who's the what is that Alexia Fogel you know she
00:10turned it out well first and foremost I wanted to say congratulations and thank you for telling
00:20these stories that are necessary to be told and on mass media scale a lot of times it's like you
00:25know hush-hush LGBT but this is on a public platform on FX so thank you for being vulnerable
00:32and sharing those stories. Thank you. So I kind of wanted to start off with representation and kind
00:45of digging with yourselves because I know a lot of times growing up we watched Nickelodeon we watched
00:50Disney and we kind of like see ourselves on television and right now you guys are the
00:55trailblazers for that for black queer people of color on television so growing up who did you see
01:05yourself in on television what was the first time you saw yourself on TV let it marinate I think this
01:15is gonna maybe sound far-fetched but it's my truth the first time I saw something and saw myself was
01:24when I saw the bodyguard Whitney Houston I instantly connected to her there was something about her
01:35spirit something about her energy that I was smitten by and I knew that there was something there for me
01:44that I needed to uncover and so that kind of began my love affair with music and theater and acting
01:53in the
01:53arts so that was the first time which you know I maybe is unexpected coming from a man but that's
02:01perfect that was for me the first time that I saw myself on the screen and what a soundtrack yes
02:11I'm not gonna lie I will say I saw myself first on um and this may sound far-fetched as
02:17well but Noah's
02:18Ark I used to watch that show all the time and it spoke to me so much because not only
02:26was it like
02:26showing african-american gay men in a wonderful light but it also made sure that they implemented
02:33trans women in their forefront like in the forefront in certain episodes and I was really happy about
02:38that and I saw a lot of myself in those women or the opposite way either way it was amazing
02:44right
02:44the cast the cast everything the music the theme song I used to listen to that all the time right
02:58iconic so I'm gonna go on with the far-fetched trend mine was actually a cartoon and mine was the
03:05little mermaid um I saw a character that did not feel that she fit into the world that she was
03:11in and
03:11she wanted more for herself and I related to that a lot Ariel got me through a lot of hard
03:18times
03:19um so yeah that was that was my moment of realizing the possibilities the magic of the world and I
03:26still
03:26hold that with me today and Haley's playing the new Ariel ironically
03:41um wow thank you for asking that question because I never really thought about it um the first
03:50character I think I feel like this is loud the first character that I remember seeing myself in was in
03:58Degrassi y'all remember Degrassi you see Drake so I was good night I saw myself with Drake
04:08wheelchair Jimmy
04:16but um you know Mario y'all remember Mario Mario you know Mario was like
04:28was was was queer was a person of color and they were caught bitch
04:37no shade I really loved Mario I love the story around it I remember watching Degrassi just to see
04:44Mario and just to like get into Mario's story and everything that was happening around him
04:48but and I didn't like I think I'm still realizing um from the other side how important representation
04:55is and like people seeing themselves on TV and not only seeing themselves and people who look like
05:01them but also the experiences that they can relate with like I was in school when I was watching
05:06Degrassi so like navigating how my queerness um showed up in school um and like just relating to
05:15what Mario went through in school like navigating just a bunch of a-holes and like homophobia and
05:24bullying bullying and like so much harm um I really resonated with that and um I just for a while
05:33until
05:33seeing Mario and Degrassi I felt like um my experiences were were like the elephant in the closet
05:40the thing that happened that nobody really wanted to talk about um and you know just being able to
05:48relate to that was really important to me and made me feel um less alone awesome awesome um real quickly
05:55uh actually you didn't go angel who do you show you want me to talk no no go ahead talk
06:00I can stay
06:01real quiet um for me the first time I saw myself represented was in uh John Leguizamo's freak
06:10actually um I remember sitting in in a classroom with a teacher trying to help me navigate through
06:15what it was that I was going to do after I finished high school and it was the first time
06:21I got to see
06:22a man uh be vulnerable yeah and right away I knew that that that was the that was the route
06:30for me
06:30awesome awesome um so my next question um kind of goes into the way that the entertainment industry
06:38is set up not for us um we all know it's systematically not going to be we're not
06:45white cis privileged people um and so prior to Ryan Murphy giving you a call like hey we're going to
06:54do
06:54this great groundbreaking show all of you guys were in entertainment doing whatever you guys what was
07:00the driving force that kept you pushing towards that every single day all the no's all the no thank
07:07yous all the even the rude no thank yous um what kept you going to get to the point where
07:13you're
07:13getting a call from fx to be on the best show ever well what kept me going was knowing that
07:21there was
07:21no blueprint knowing that everyone was saying no knowing that there was a biasness out there
07:28knowing that someone had to do the work to change things that's what kept me personally going um
07:34and my mother of course kept me inspired I love my mommy um and and I just knowing that other
07:40people
07:41were coming up after me and seeing my brothers and sisters also trans men who I don't think are
07:45talked about enough um seeing everyone and knowing that we need you know a voice yeah absolutely
07:53I I think I had a fire in me that was burning and a desire to prove everybody wrong who
07:59said I
07:59couldn't do things there were you know um coming out as queer especially in the church um I
08:09somebody over here right and I get a witness um yes um I'm a PK I understand yeah and so
08:17before
08:18opposed before I moved to New York I worked for a church um and before I was able to embrace
08:27my identity before I was willing to accept uh I confided in my pastor that I was attracted to men
08:36and I lost my job and what kind of church uh non-denominational okay um in our exit meeting he
08:45said
08:46to me that I was going to ruin my life and for me that was the thing that always propelled
08:54me forward
08:55is that I cannot not do this because there are kids all over the world all over the country who
09:06are being told that who they are isn't right um and that they can't achieve the things that they know
09:12that they were put here to do because somebody else doesn't understand them and I knew that I needed
09:19to like Haley said be the blueprint for that I knew I needed to break through whatever walls may be
09:25there
09:25invisible imaginary or actual walls I needed to break through them and and uh and that's what Pose is
09:33allowing me to do is just is break down barriers for uh young black queer men so I'm forever grateful
09:39for uh Ryan Murphy and FX for the opportunity to do that absolutely
09:49I would say um for me when I saw the breakdown um and this was before agents had sent me
09:57anything
09:58I saw that each and every one of these women as well as the men were of color whether they
10:03be Latino
10:04Latina black or of any person of color I just knew that they were of color and I was like
10:09well
10:09one I have to be a part of it because of this but also because of the human aspects that
10:13they had
10:14and the breakdown they showed every single thing that certain cisgender individuals get casted for
10:21we had them too and I was like okay this goes to show that we're being seen as humans and
10:26that's the
10:26first thing that anyone should see us as is human right we shouldn't be seen as anything other than
10:31I mean yes we are trans yes we are African American and Latino and Latina but we're much more than
10:37that
10:38we are human and I made first first before anything um and that's not taking away the
10:46burdens that have been put on our backs because of the colors of our skin you know that's not taking
10:51that away at all instead it enhances it so people can see how we live what we did in 1987
10:57how we worked
10:58hard to get to where we are today the women that were in our spots at one point who are
11:03not here to
11:04speak for us because they passed on god bless their souls but we're speaking for them now and
11:09that's the best part of this whole process is seeing those breakdowns seeing that we can step
11:14inside of those shoes and I mean I don't know listen I'm I don't like feeling shoes it's a hard
11:19thing to
11:20do it's a hard thing to do but I was glad I got to step in those big shoes because
11:25it meant that we
11:26were doing something bigger than what we already are right here right now so you doing it okay
11:31y'all all doing it all right yeah I'll say
11:38um so kind of moving on oh you want to talk okay you're gonna jump in it's like double dutch
11:44girl
11:45come on the dialer didn't move yet but what kept me going um I I didn't really
12:05like what I actually wanted to do was be a part of improving the human race
12:13um I think I was inspired the most to do that because of the things that I went through because
12:19of the human race um and I also like grew up a Jehovah's Witness and like there's always like this
12:30solution oriented um kind of like atmosphere in the kingdom hall and in the church but I didn't
12:39really feel like they it was just like there was this idea that there was nothing that we could do
12:45personally ourselves to change the world around us and that we would have to wait for God to do it
12:50and so like that wasn't necessarily my perspective I think that um the decisions that we make as human
12:57beings so much influence um other people around us so I felt like there was more of a responsibility in
13:05the people around me to change um so like I I I knew that I can act I I you
13:14know I was very confident
13:17it wasn't necessarily I still am you know but it wasn't necessarily something that I always wanted
13:25to do I never always wanted to be an actor I wanted to um uh at first I wanted to
13:32go to college I wanted
13:33to uh study philosophy I wanted to study psychology because I wanted to do more one-on-one with kids
13:38who were experiencing what I was doing what I was experiencing what I was going through especially
13:43through foster care or whatever um and then um I just was thinking bigger and bigger like what can
13:50I do to influence the world around me and to like help change and make people you know help people
13:55to
13:55become better I didn't know anything about white supremacy I didn't know anything about systemic racism
14:00I didn't know anything about colonialism I didn't know about any of those histories growing up but I
14:06didn't know that there was something that was wrong and the more that I became aware of what was
14:11happening the more that I felt emboldened to do something about it so I um I because of an
14:20experience that I had um I had gotten really sick and then I healed myself um and then with like
14:28with
14:28natural medicine and then I was inspired to become a naturopathic nutritionist I wanted to go to school
14:34and become a natural doctor wow and um a naturopathic doctor and like this was something that I was really
14:40really headstrong about everyone um in foster care that was helping me navigate my life knew that that's
14:47something that I wanted to do when they try to help me get the resources to go to college and
14:50things like
14:51that going to school was really tough I dropped out in 10th grade um there was constant bullying all
14:56around me in school and foster care I was going from house to house so I couldn't really focus on
15:01going
15:02to school so I was just I felt like I was in a state of like stuckness but I knew
15:07that I had to
15:07make something for myself to support myself and to stay alive but I never got the grounding that I
15:13needed to do that so what kept me going was just knowing that I needed to survive and that I
15:19deserve
15:19to live first and foremost because you can't achieve your dreams or do anything that you want to do
15:25without first being able to live and survive and have people around you that support you so you know
15:31I was working on my family and trying to bring my family back into my life I met somebody um
15:38named
15:39jose extravaganza became a part of the house of extravaganza and um he sent me an audition for
15:47um uh saturday church and at this time I was having a lot of trouble saturday church is saturday church
15:54is a
15:54really incredible film you have to see oh my god mj and i that's how I know mj mj and
15:58i um played in
15:59it and you guys are both in a ballroom scene they're okay it's based in um ballroom culture
16:06based around ballroom culture so um I did saturday church and it was amazing experience it was the
16:10first um experience that I had like on camera and um that changed my mother's perspective and then
16:19like when I got the support of my mom that's when I I when she saw saturday church she went
16:25to the
16:25bathroom she was crying she was really emotional and she had like this existential crisis around
16:30how present she wasn't being for her kid and how present she could have been and how things would
16:36have been different and like um so that experience happened for her and I got so much hope like from
16:42having my mom for having my mom like you know starting to see me and like um validate me like
16:48all of
16:49those things really empowered me and made me feel so grounded um and then you know I felt like I
16:55can accomplish anything amazing and so um from then on you know just knowing somebody who knew somebody
17:02I met my manager lisa kelly who's the mother of the main character luca kane and saturday church
17:07and um she sent me alexa fogel's casting notice for pose about two years later was it mj
17:13about two years later and then I went I was like oh shit and now you're here so then you
17:21know now
17:21I'm here and then I realized that I can still do what I wanted to do around changing and influencing
17:27the world around me through being angel on pose and through my representation that's so crazy a lot
17:33of people um actually read a post recently about how now media is kind of going towards a celebrity of
17:41being lgbt and a lot of people are not going to the white house or the capital to do the
17:46work
17:46but honestly the media is so huge and influences so many people that it is doing the work I think
17:52people all kind of take away that weight from um the creative side of the industry um angel I'm
17:58gonna ask you this question first so diversity and inclusion seems to be a very popular phrase
18:03that we've heard in the past let's say 10 or so years being accountable whatever um and I too work
18:10in the facet of entertainment and uh what I've seen personally is that companies are doing a great job
18:19however there's so much more to be done and there's been situations that I've been in personally where I
18:25kind of felt more of a quota than having diversity and inclusion um so do you guys have any experiences
18:31or what would you like to actually see these companies do to really maximize their power to
18:39be truly diverse and inclusive when it comes to seeing people like us on the television
18:47you sure you want to hear me talk I absolutely do let us know I I think for starters we
18:54have to start
18:54giving opportunities to the right people we can't just write stories about the people that they see
19:01are now finally making money for them and so it becomes an instant oh this is popular okay we need
19:08we need to we need to put it out there but it's not enough to put it out there you
19:12have to make sure
19:13that the people that are putting it out there are the people from those experiences for background who
19:19are in it who are who have those day-to-day experiences otherwise really who are you helping
19:26because the stories that are going to end up out there aren't going to be authentic
19:29they're not going to be true because it's not coming from the people that are living in it on
19:34a day-to-day basis drop the mic um so I think like the world is really interested in trans
19:46and queer
19:47people's lives and like I know the industry wants to bank off that right so like they want a little
19:53piece you know everybody voguing you know when madonna happened when madonna brought vogue into
19:59mainstream and like brought so much of our culture you know people were really inspired and there was
20:04like this buzz people were really interested in what our lives were like etc and I feel like that's
20:09happening now again but like whenever people are like trying to tell our stories you know first and
20:16foremost I or you for I always wonder like why do you know why you want to tell my story
20:22you know um
20:23why do you want to tell my story especially if you're not including us in it you know like why
20:30would
20:30you like want to tell stories about a marginalized demographic that you don't even care about
20:36you know so like I'd be thinking about those things you know when we're talking about
20:42um uh uh cis people playing trans people and arguing you know these actors are arguing their
20:50entitlement to like playing anything they want but it's like I don't want you playing you you clearly
20:55don't care about how we feel around you occupying our experiences why would you want to play a role
21:01you don't care about especially occupying um uh you know an experience in a life that is already
21:08marginalized like what do you even know why you want to take on the role oh you just want to
21:15expand and and stretch and and show people that you can act right because you want to play a tree
21:20you want to what she said you want to play a tree
21:29lord have mercy this side of the cow i agree 100 yeah i think it even needs to start deeper
21:37within
21:37actors i think it needs to start within the writing rooms and directors like we need to have people
21:41that are like us writing and directing the things that we're a part of especially just like how we
21:47can do with our culture we can do with the trans culture and our movement and i think that's how
21:52you
21:53make things happen if you don't do that then the stories will not be as true as they need to
21:57be
21:57we need to be in the forefront and in the background as well it can't just work one way
22:02right uh to piggyback off of the rest of my cast i equate this subject matter to blackface you know
22:08there was a time where black artists were not allowed to play and portray themselves and um you
22:13know the white community was portraying them for them in a very derogatory way so i equate this to
22:19the same thing and everything else my cast said one final thing and i'm not just saying this because
22:27he's he's he's he we work for him but one of the things that's brilliant about ryan murphy is that
22:33he has truly empowered uh he's empowered us he's empowered um so many other trans and queer folks
22:41to tell their own stories from bringing from giving stephen canals and janet mock and our lady jay
22:48the ability to expand what they were already adding to the world uh and all of us as well so
22:54i think that
22:54that is really the key that about what india and angel and all of them are saying is like it's
22:59it's it's great that you see value in us because there's a lot of value in us right but the
23:06key is to
23:07not just want to profit off of us but to want to empower us to be able to stand on
23:13our own and to be
23:14able to stand in these rooms with the executives to make money making decisions that's what the key is
23:19to empowering us to be able to run the shit yes come on affirmative action that's actually one of my
23:26favorite things about pose the show is because i have a lot of friends who are in new york like
23:30twiggy
23:31and all that i'm like i'm happy that they are like you said janet they are in the rooms they're
23:34creating
23:35the content it's not you know a bunch of white folks sorry guys making right in the show they have
23:41people
23:41in the rooms who are lived experiences and so i really appreciate that about ryan murphy and effects in the
23:46show
23:46um i kind of want to divert the conversation to um hiv that's been a heavy topic this season of
23:54pose
23:54um and i do a lot of work in the hiv field and so i've been in certain spaces and
23:59one thing i've
24:00noticed is that a lot of the people who have done the work in the 80s and the 90s don't
24:08necessarily want
24:08to pass the torch on to us who are doing the work now um because a lot of people i
24:14mean if you think
24:15about it lgbt history just entered school the school system recently in and only in some states
24:22and cities right and so i was very unfamiliar i didn't if i didn't seek out the information i
24:27would not gonna we're not gonna receive it um so i wanted to kind of ask like you as a
24:31younger
24:31generation like do you feel um kind of an importance with teaching our folks about hiv and the history
24:41behind what it took to get us prep you know tasks all these initiatives to help our generation now
24:50go ahead
24:52um
24:54i think that it's imperative
24:58that it's on this show because there is a stigma that it's constantly held around having hiv and aides
25:06and the history is important not only were there people just dying within weeks but there were peaks
25:13and i've mentioned this before but i feel like i have to let this be known because it's truth
25:18it's statistics in 1987 through 1988 and so on there were 20 000 individuals who had passed on and then
25:27when 1990 1991 1992 hit it was a peak of 20 000 more individuals who had passed which made it
25:3440 000
25:35people and a lot of people don't know that and also there is still a stigma held around that and
25:40that's why that's there's still a stigma held around that and that is why a lot of people don't want
25:46to
25:46tell that story but it's important absolutely important it needs to be heard because that goes to show how
25:53much work is put in but how much more work needs to be done around finding a cure
25:58absolutely
26:03so this season uh actually this this past week's episode and the week before uh for those of y'all
26:11who haven't seen pose you about to get a spoiler ricky finds out he's hiv positive
26:15um and if you ain't watch the show that's your bad
26:18um but ricky finds out he's hiv positive this season and that when i first read it
26:26in the script i mourned for the character um because i just i didn't want to see him go through
26:35that
26:35um but i'm so grateful to be able to tell that story do you know that over half of the
26:42the new
26:44uh cases of hiv have occurred in the south um in 2017 and that almost half of those folks
26:54are african-american and of the folks who have contracted it um a large majority of them are
27:01african-american and identify as gay and bisexual so being from the south what that says to me is
27:08people are not talking about it because if they were talking about it they would know their status
27:15and they would not be spreading there's just and knowing what it's like growing up in the south
27:21knowing what it's like to grow up in the south and be queer and to be black there's a huge
27:26stigma
27:26around the the intersection of those identities and then on top of that adding hiv you don't even
27:33understand how conversations about hiv prevention don't even happen um i didn't learn about
27:41the consequences of hiv and what prevention looked like and what treatment looked like until i moved
27:48to new york city eight years ago which is mind-blowing for me that i was 23 years old before
27:55i and and had
27:56to end up with a scare to realize that i needed to know more about this and so um the
28:05the beautiful
28:05thing about pose is that we get to come into people's homes week after week and they get to
28:10get attached to these characters and they get to see the humanity in these people and that's the key
28:15to ending stigma is being able to see somebody that you know and and that's what television does we
28:22we we we grow close to these characters and we feel like we know them and we mourn for them
28:26the way
28:27that i mourned for ricky when i read it um and so if we can can take that and harness
28:33that power to
28:33to encourage more conversations uh amongst families and amongst schools and amongst churches about
28:42dealing with this problem in the south and in black communities and queer communities i think that
28:46that that's really where the key is right and holistically too because there's no sexual health
28:53um for queer and trans people you know in schools like that doesn't yeah in education systems yeah so
29:01and i think that's a large part of it and like i think a lot of people think that the
29:05cure to aids
29:06and hiv a lot of cis hetero people think that the cure to aids and hiv cure to aids and
29:11hiv is the
29:12eradication of trans and queer people and that's just not um true right so like
29:19the lack of information and the stigma that already exists contributes more to transphobia and queer
29:26phobia and you know there needs to be a lot more education around it for queer and trans people as
29:32well absolutely yeah and of course obviously with you know being black latino we have a whole other
29:39heap of issues with the family the church um and transphobia we have a whole another pack of issues
29:46that before we even get to the treatment that we have to unpack and deal with so it's a whole
29:51other
29:51story so i commend you guys for doing that um i kind of want to uh switch to gears and
29:58talk about
29:59colorism um because let's talk about let's have a conversation um so for the room colorism um i am afro
30:09-latino
30:09my mom's from panama i am a fair shade of black um i have more privilege in the role who
30:17may be of a
30:17darker complexion so one of the um people say everything about everyone has something to say
30:22all the time um but one of their critiques with uh pose was the colorism and actually you hayley you
30:29said a line at um angelica's funeral or miss candy with the hammer light skin and thick yeah she's like
30:35i thought you only be a friend to me because because i'm white skin and thick and that was a
30:38very intentional line that i caught um and so i kind of want to talk about how colorism has played
30:45into the writing and also like the casting of the show
30:51i think um uh colorism is one of the most subconscious biases that exists because black
31:01people also contribute to it too and people of color also contribute to it too especially
31:06when you're light-skinned you know you don't really see how you're contributing to colorism
31:12a lot of a lot and in a lot of ways you know that white people don't see themselves contributing
31:20to white supremacy or like anti-blackness in a lot of ways right so like um i think
31:32there there there people have brought up concerns around colorism and um you know like
31:41people um have you know noticed how you know dominique and candy are you know seem to be the
31:51villain the villains you know of the show i like eletra she's my favorite character
31:56she will read you and i also love candy and you know what i mean like i think they also
32:03go through
32:03the most of all the characters because they're dark-skinned black trans women and um you know
32:09their experiences aren't the same but i think like a lot of the way it was written was intentional to
32:15demonstrate you know not that they are villainous but that they go through a lot their experiences
32:24have been tough and that they've had to protect everything that they do have and are constantly
32:29fighting for space even in their own community like we saw candy constantly having to do you know
32:35that shit is real you know um in the ballroom community there was a point where um dark-skinned
32:44black and brown people weren't feeling visible and um favored and and and um you know what i mean
32:50like essential to the community because all the light-skinned girls that the latina girls you know
32:56were like kind of coming in and like you know there's so much centricism around light-skinnedness
33:02and proximity to it you know white woman cunt you know like that is a um a phrase in the
33:11ballroom
33:11scene that is commending somebody who is beautiful like oh she's giving me white woman cunt like yes like
33:19that's that's actually like a a praise you know what i mean so like it's just there's so much i
33:26think
33:26like um there's so many ways that i think we as people of color adopt anti-blackness um unintentionally
33:34but because of the way the world around us shows us to ourselves through through through its own
33:40perspective of what blackness looks like what blackness deserves and what blackness does not
33:45so i think like um yes i don't i'm not in the writer's room but i do know that a
33:54lot of the
33:54way the characters written were intentional and i think that um we're gonna get to see these characters
34:00evolve you know a lot more um but you know yeah it was something that i was also concerned about
34:07too
34:08because i'm like damn why is it that angel's like that's arling you know what i mean like she's like
34:13she seems like the darling and everybody else seems like the darling but then you know we have
34:17lulu who is a bitch no also understood i'd rather and hayley is the lightest hayley is the light the
34:25most lightest skin girl you know what i mean on on on pose of us um um uh trans women
34:32and femmes of
34:32color so it's like there is you know what i mean like there there's there's a nuance in it all
34:39but i also think it's really incredible to see the ways that um electra is growing into her character
34:45and i think that there there still is a lot of work to be done and everyone is aware of
34:50that i want to
34:51i'm sorry where you're going i would just to piggyback off of that and i'll be quick is i don't
34:55know if
34:56there's a colorism issue with pose but if if based on just piggybacking off of what india is saying
35:03there is a colorism issue in the world right and what pose is is taking a microscope is into issues
35:12that are occurring in the world um so that's that's the piece that i was gonna say about it
35:18i was i was just gonna say that um this subject matter for me personally is very touching i am
35:24a
35:24multiracial young woman many people don't know that i am black but both my parents are black and i'm mixed
35:30and so growing up for me i'm also a preacher's kid and i grew up in a baptist church me
35:35too did you
35:36what's up you understand me a lot more then we see each other so um my world was very challenging
35:43um as far as colorism goes because though i do understand there are privileges to being
35:50a lighter complected i also want to address there were times where i was bullied or treated very very
35:57bad by dark or not black enough not black i'm always not something enough because no one knows
36:01what i am yeah i never really felt like i fit in anywhere though i was treated bad by sometimes
36:09darker skinned people i understood as i got older why and i understood that there was a privilege
36:13privilege that i had even though i wasn't carrying myself that way that was the perception and i think
36:18that that subject matter dates way way far back way far back i mean we were brought over to this
36:24land
36:24so it dates way far back and i understand it so i will say that i'm not in the writer's
36:29room either
36:29but i will say that i'm glad that we're talking about it now and i think that's the intention of
36:34the show
36:39i'll say something too um i agree with every single last person if i could drop maybe a piece of
36:45knowledge um colorism has been something like we have all said that has been in this world for years
36:52and beyond in africa they chop off um albino limbs because they think it's magical and that's something
37:03that has been embedded i'm sorry to the white people in the room but it has embedded by white people
37:08due to colonialism and colorism so that is something that we have to tackle with every single day
37:13simply because that has been embedded and i think like everyone has said it's a mat it's a magnifying
37:21glass on how that is a trickle effect a trickle effect and sometimes it's hereditary and where
37:26people are just have that and there are sometimes where people have to learn themselves out of that
37:31and get out of that and i think that's a wonderful thing that post is doing is learning themselves out
37:36of it simply due to the trans experience but also as people of color in a realm where they're
37:41separated from other people juxtaposition between people who are working in wall street and us being
37:46down in the underground so yeah i mean agree upon everything that everyone has said but that's
37:53something that has happened and it needs to be seen it has to be seen unlearning unlearning for sure i
38:00didn't hear about i gotta get into that um albino story yes bro google i gotta get into google i
38:07didn't
38:08really know that was happening i know they was chopping people up elsewhere yeah uh so india
38:15it's true and no i'm gonna google that when i get home too um so india you identify as non
38:24-binary trans
38:25how um i wanted to ask you specifically what has because the conversations around pronouns and all
38:36these different things has been fairly new for mass media but not new for everybody else um so what
38:43has been your experience being a tall model-esque non-binary um what or non-binary person well i i
38:53really
38:53appreciate um that we now have an evolving language around um gender variance and um transness now
39:02because i think the entire like latin culture um evolved like latin you know english french you know
39:12um the the the the colonial culture grew and evolved i mean like european culture that is now our culture
39:22western culture has developed so much without language of gender variant people you know while
39:32a lot of the ancestry that we have as people of color there was a language that acknowledged our
39:39existences where for so long there was not so like now i think our culture um holistically throughout
39:46the world is evolving to include uh language that acknowledges the existences of trans um uh uh and
39:56gender variant people and i think that's really really important because colonialism took so much of
40:03that away and and and and i know we stray away from colonialism to make a certain people feel more
40:08comfortable but these are inconvenient truths that have to be talked about because so much of it
40:15you know it's an important historical factor that contributes to where we are today and it's
40:20important for everyone to learn about you know regardless of how inconvenient that truth may be for you
40:26so you know y'all shady but um
40:34um so like i mean identifying as non-binary was more like a choice because i found and i noticed
40:43that
40:44um a lot binaries cause violence and binaries also create the expectation for people to perform a
40:55certain way within their gender and nobody fully performs within those expectations fully
41:04and i think also like it reminds me of like oh my god there's so much there's so much gender
41:10war
41:11binaries have created so much gender war and and and and and binaries created patriarchy and i think
41:17like i think about the first things that young boys are told when they're expressing themselves
41:22naturally when they're expressing their emotions when they're crying you know when when when you know
41:28they're they they they when they're just expressing themselves they're compared to girls as an insult
41:34right like oh why you acting like a girl fuck a thing right and then you know so it's like
41:43binaries cause violence and me identifying as non-binary is a way for me to forfeit
41:52the binaries that i feel um limit the way that i'm able to express myself even as a woman like
42:02i didn't
42:02shave my legs today and i still think about you know i didn't shave my underarms they hairy as hell
42:08and you know how many people tell me that it's disgusting like on instagram when i post a picture
42:13like my body but they don't tell this to men men don't men aren't told that they are disgusting and
42:20that their body is nasty because they chose not to shave and so like the expectations that are that
42:27we're forced to like live like it's too much and you know what i'm just opting out i'm they them
42:34right
42:34and i'm gonna put you through the labor to get it together and that's it my underarms are bushy as
42:40fuck and my legs are hairy today and you know what those are the subtle ways in which i trespass
42:48the
42:48convention of gender i am very femme you know i express myself in very femme ways but i do feel
42:54more comfortable having a relationship with my masculinity because i'm non-binary and also it
43:00don't even matter you don't have to be non-binary to have healthy relationships with femininity and
43:05masculinity also but that's just my political choice in my identity and so before we open up the floor for
43:14questions um in one word what do you want the audience the viewers people watching pose on fx
43:24what do you want them to receive watching you guys tell these stories i have a word but i want
43:33to say
43:33something after it okay go ahead i say this on yeah three words interview that i do so someone in
43:39this room
43:39has heard this before the one word that i want you to take away from this is love now i
43:45want to
43:45give you an example if you ever did not understand what it meant to be a human when we say
43:50humanizing
43:50and just to be a human everyone in this room was a child at one point in their lives everybody
43:56when you
43:57were a child you saw friends that you wanted to play with you did not see color you did not
44:01see gender
44:02you did not see any of those barriers that is a learned behavior so we naturally are loving beings
44:08we naturally want to embrace each other we learn this stuff we're not going to be here forever everyone
44:16has a time where we're here and then we transition on to wherever we go while you're here enjoy each
44:22other's company enjoy each other and love each other and if you never understood if you never understood
44:30and i'm almost done if you never understood what it meant to be a human remember yourself as a child
44:43um i know this is a weird word to choose but unconditional just look up the definition of
44:50unconditional and see what that means and then you can tie it in with exactly what she just said without
44:55conditions boom exactly right what about you guys um power power there's power in owning who you are
45:11there's power in your authenticity there's power in your truth your your uncompromised truth
45:22you sure yes i do um deprogramming i think it's about time we stop unlearned start unlearning the
45:31scripts that have been handed down to us um there's there are um different demographics that watch pose i
45:43think like to um the people who aren't queer who aren't trans i want them to walk away with knowing
45:50that um we deserve to have mothers like blanca um in our lives we deserve to have families like the
46:00house of
46:00evangelista in our lives um and you know we we deserve the ones that we came into the world with
46:08also um and we deserve to expand our families with um our chosen families as well we deserve love we
46:18deserve to be loved in safety um trans people trans women deserve to be loved in safety whether it's in
46:25the safety of our romantic partnerships or it's in the safety of our families or in the safety of the
46:31communities that we grew up in um trans black trans women and um femmes deserve love and protection and
46:41safety um by the people around us um i want queer and trans people who are black and brown
46:50um to um take away that just to affirm that we're incredible we're beautiful we're amazing um you know
47:02like we're magical um and you know we're it's incredible the way that we create for ourselves
47:09everything that's taken away from us we create for ourselves everything that's taken away from us and
47:15everybody still want it and so you know and even what we create for ourselves people still don't
47:22want us to have that so i think like pose is an incredible platform and television show that creates
47:28that crosstalk between people and um i just want to end with lastly that to trans and queer people who
47:36are
47:36not of color who relate to everything on the show keep relating to your black and brown queer and trans
47:44can't amen because we need your power we need that validation and that love and that affirmative action
47:52honey so you know center queer and trans black and brown people anywhere that you can and the whole world
48:03is about you so make it make it an action in your day to make it about black and trans
48:12black and brown
48:13trans and queer people amen okay as a daily practice and mantra so quickly i'm gonna bring up um alexis
48:21fish
48:22from billboard um come on up now everybody say hi girl hey i didn't want to cut off the q
48:31a though so
48:32do you want to do the q a first a couple let's like three questions please yeah um yes
48:44hey everyone my name is michelle i use they them she her pronouns um and what i'm taking away from
48:49this conversation and what i've known is like the biggest issues in this world are men whiteness
48:55and capitalism right and so it can seem really overwhelming to try to tackle all of those things
49:01at once um and so i'm constantly thinking about what is making the most change whether that be
49:07media representation like y'all are doing whether that be policy change
49:11change and i'm i'm curious as to what y'all think is the best way or a multiplicity of ways
49:17to getting
49:18us toward that liberation i don't know that there is a best way i think that it's comprehensive i think
49:25that you have to use whatever influence and whatever power you have in your sphere to create the change
49:31you want to see whether that be with policy whether that be in the media and in the arts uh
49:36whether that
49:37be in your own homes by you know or whether that be looking in the mirror and dismantling the toxic
49:43masculinity that you have to deal with uh the patriarchy the white supremacy the cap you know
49:48whatever though your thing is in your sphere that you have control over that you can influence
49:52that's where you start and it's a ripple effect it's i think it's comprehensive
49:59i think um just really quickly um centering uh organizations that are doing the work
50:05on the ground because they i think the orgs that are doing the work like national bailout
50:12and um there are a few others that i don't i'm that flew across the top of my head i'm
50:18embarrassed
50:18about it but um there are a lot of orgs that are not glad and glisten and hrc love them
50:24for the work
50:25that i know but there's there's just not enough on the ground work that i see right now and there
50:30are orgs that are doing that work that are working 24 7 and doing that work so i think like
50:36centering
50:36those orgs are really important um i'm working on a list of those orgs posted on your gram to post
50:43on my gram on twitter um the trans latina coalition is one of them right here in the front row
50:54and um transgender legal defense also um but that's it did you want to ask something haley very
51:01briefly i agree with both of my cast members um to answer your question like delon said i don't
51:06think it's one way india and i talked about this before there's a big block of hatred right and on
51:11this angle of the block someone's chipping away with um activism work on this end someone's not going
51:17to relate to that activism because they maybe they're not into that so someone's chipping away with just
51:20being a good person so social media i think it's different ways that's going to tackle this
51:25monster it's not just one yeah block analogy one more question hi hi you guys are such great actors
51:36just in general watching the show i'm like really blown away by your performances but i would like to
51:41know like if you could do an ideal character and didn't have to be necessarily queer or trans like
51:47what kind of characters would you guys do like serial killer you know oh baby give me a a romantic
51:55comedy because i'm silly as all hell or give me like a strong marvel like give me a marvel strong
52:02character but she doesn't have to be trans yeah she can be it does not matter i think people need
52:07to see
52:07us in certain aspects but not just with the transness added onto it just to see our you know the
52:12work that
52:12we can contribute yeah that's what i'm saying yes that's again if i could just know from everybody
52:17like i want to be a bond girl oh i see that for you helen i see that baby yes
52:25i see it and that's all
52:27i'm gonna say on that i love it i uh i grew up loving like action adventure movies so i've
52:33always wanted
52:33to be like an indiana jones kind of a thing or something like that i um i don't sing and
52:41i have
52:41two left feet outside of bachata but uh if you if you throw some prints my way oh i'd love
52:49to tear that
52:50up uh-huh not a prince biopic i can see it i can see it all right good look good
53:01um so not the not
53:05the dominican prince come on dyke man um i'm generally more so attracted to characters that are um
53:21misunderstood and um underlooked and um you know seen for you know just like seen by the outside world for
53:34what's happening on the surface
53:37you know um but you know i'm really interested in and playing those characters that have so much more
53:44um to show for and contribute i don't know that can be anything it could be a doctor it could
53:49be
53:50it could be you know a politician i mean politicians right now but it could be
53:55it could be like i mean i would be that radical politician to play you know like an aco i
54:02don't
54:02know like i would i would i'm really down to play anything i'm really really into sci-fi and action
54:08and fantasy like i'm a little here for horror too but i mean like i would love to occupy a
54:15character in any of
54:16those worlds um i love sci-fi because it imagines um you know just the things that we haven't done
54:24yet
54:24um you know or that we're working toward and yeah i like occupy that can we can we get a
54:31question from
54:32him uh because he's been raised in his head get fast produce quickly and only one um i grew up
54:41like
54:41very like i got like a lot of like um i was discriminated against in my own community for
54:46being as dark as i am as you can see and i used to like go out of my way
54:51to bleach my skin like going
54:52to like walgreens and getting bleach cream cream and stuff like that and i used to feel very bad i
54:58used
54:58like put waves in my head because i knew that in my community like light-skinned people were like
55:03more praise and stuff like that and like they would call red bones and yellow bones and stuff like that
55:07red you know and um now it's like i see people like lupita and like i want to be darker
55:14like i wish
55:15i was like even darker yeah and um it's like if i do smile you see my teeth honey you
55:21can tell that i brush
55:23honey like you see my smile and um i feel like do you think like in the industry like people
55:30my skin
55:30color is being are being like giving opportunities or should we like made those opportunities for
55:35ourselves ourselves because i feel like it's not enough people my skin color so like i've just started
55:43to like make like youtube i made a youtube channel i have like six instagrams and two and twitters because
55:49i just decided to like if no one's gonna like cast me i'll just make the opportunities myself so like
55:54do you feel like either like they need to make more roles for us or like should we just like
55:59yeah
55:59create them for ourselves i think more roles definitely need to be made but i will say that
56:03we are living in a time where definitely create your own content for sure um be the leader be the
56:08writer
56:08be the producer i have my grandfather was your shade i have a little brother who is your shade as
56:14well
56:14and i speak to him a lot about this because he is the darkest out of all of my siblings
56:19and i want
56:21you to know which i'm sure you do because you're very handsome i want you to know that you are
56:25gorgeous
56:25and that color is rich and stunning and amazing and divinely yours but yes create the content be the
56:33boss and be in charge yes so beautiful thank you um so we're gonna bring out alexis and first of
56:42all i want
56:42to add that i agree with hayley and i want to say that i think um it's really important to
56:57hold
56:57productions accountable for the way that they cast because producing is really hard especially when you
57:07don't already have your name out there i mean it took stephen canals 12 years to get
57:14this close you know what i mean until he finally met like ryan murphy so it's a lot of hard
57:21work
57:21and i mean like stephen canals is a light-skinned girl you know what i mean and it took him
57:2612 years
57:27and like in context of colorism the darkest you are anywhere in the world you suffer the most
57:36and in the industry you know what i mean you get the least you have the least access and so
57:41like
57:41affirmative action is really important especially for you know what i mean like a lot of people of
57:48color who are black who get it first usually end up being light-skinned black people or lighter-skinned
57:55black people and you know what i mean like i didn't barely have any experience i didn't have any
58:01experience except saturday church and then i just went from literally i'm two years removed from
58:05the character story of angel right and it happened so fast for me so i think yes creating is so
58:12important
58:13but let's be honest like it's really hard it's really hard we should create too and i think that
58:21we need to put a foot up hollywood's ass to actually make an intentional effort to cast
58:27dark-skinned black people when we're looking for black people to cast in roles you know the first
58:32thing that we don't think about to cast as a light-skinned so beautiful person so beautiful
58:37yeah you know awesome well thank you so much one thing oh never forget you never give up just promise
58:43me you won't do that that's the one thing i don't want you to do is give up you see
58:48that confidence
58:50awesome well please say one one i'm just joking i'm just joking i'm just joking i'm just joking
58:56are you sure you want to hear yeah yeah thank you guys so much um a round of applause for
59:03mj haley
59:04jolan angel
59:06you
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