The FX series “Pose” follows a community of Black and Latinx queer people navigating questions about their identity, violence against their community, and the rise of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. The stage might be set in the concrete jungle of New York, but the players strut and slay in drag in a glittering ballroom.
The show has been hailed by critics and viewers as revolutionary in how it makes space for Black and Latinx trans actors and characters.
The show’s final season premiered last week and it was not without drama. It’s generated discussions about how Hollywood treats queer people of color. Janet Mock, a trans woman of color and the show’s director and executive producer, didn’t hold anything back during a fiery speech about the show’s cancelation at its premiere.
It’s a show, but it means so much to everyone to ‘ensure that we enable black and brown trans women to make it’ because that sounds good… It makes you comfortable to talk like that because then I don’t scare you into facing the f–king truth. You all have stomped on us.
We talk with one of the stars of “Pose,” Angelica Ross, about the end of the series, her own work around trans representation in the tech industry, and what’s next for queer people of color onscreen.
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