Mj Rodriguez
Mj Rodriguez, who starred as Blanca on all three seasons of the groundbreaking FX channel series Pose, made history Sunday night, Jan. 9, when she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a TV drama — the first time ever that a trans actress has won a Golden Globe.
Her win was also the first Golden Globe award for Pose, which premiered in 2018.
Rodriguez is, of course, not new to making award show history: In 2021, she became the first trans performer nominated for a lead acting Emmy, although she did not win that time.
Rodriguez celebrated her win Sunday night with an Instagram post, declaring, “This is the door that is going to open the door for many more young. talented individuals. They will see that it is more than possible. They will see that a young Black Latina girl from Newark, New Jersey who had a dream, to change the minds others would WITH LOVE. LOVE WINS. To my young LGBTQAI babies WE ARE HERE; the door is now open now reach the stars!”
Billy Porter, a cisgender gay man who portrayed a cisgender gay man named Pray Tell in all three seasons of Pose, was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and won the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, making some history of his own as the first gay black man to be nominated and win in any lead acting category at the Primetime Emmys.
But the other trans actors and actresses in a show that was primarily about transgender people have yet to be recognized for their work by the awards shows. Indya Moore, who played Angel Evangelista in the series, tweeted in 2020 about the “cognitive dissonance” of “trans ppl not being honored on a show abt trans ppl who created a culture to honor ourselves bc the world doesn’t.”
And Angelica Ross, who was already recognized as a trans activist and businesswoman before playing Candy Ferocity on the series, retweeted Moore’s tweet and posted on Instagram that she wasn’t crying over “an award or nomination. Ultimately, I need y’all to understand that I’m so tired — those of you who know me know I’m not just working on screen or behind screen but I’m working around the clock to get our society to value trans lives and Black trans lives.”
