Every single day, I wake up and take a glimpse of where I am now compared to where I was before, and the work that we have all put in to be in this space. I think of that, and being able to express myself through my art and show up and be present - that's activism, advocacy, and artistry in itself.
I started out in the ballroom scene when I was fourteen years old.
It's a blessing that I have my family in my life and they were supportive, but there were times when I needed to find an outlet for me to understand my people and my own journey, and I found that through my chosen family, which was the ballroom community.
I have so many ways I can explain the ballroom scene. But the essence of the ballroom scene would be elegance, extravagance, and fabulousness to its 100 per cent. It's a place where you can be whoever you want to be inside of already being who you are.
There's a lot of hope and comfort and nurturing in the ballroom scene.
There's so much you can say about the ballroom scene. But, simply, it's just a way of life. It's a place you can live out a fantasy you never lived before.
When I was in high school, I was doing a fashion show, and my House Father would host fashion shows at the school. He was great at it. He saw me and said, 'That's my daughter.' The rest was history! We went to New York City to rehearse and go to balls, and I was in the ballroom scene until I was 17 years old.
'Paris Is Burning' was only just a glimpse into what was happening within the ballroom scene. The difference is that 'Pose' is opening the lens a little bit more, and it's diving into the personal lives of these women who fought for their kids - who raised their kids to be strong individuals so that they can move on and have a legacy, too.
Me, as a woman of the trans experience, I'm not able to have children biologically. And I have always been someone who was very, very... I wanted to have a traditional family, as a young kid. The wife and the kids and, you know... as I grew older, times changed, and my mindset changed.
For a long time, with a lot of women of the trans experience on television, people have only got to see one aspect of their life. With 'Pose,' it's broadened the scale.
There were moments where I was called many derogatory names. I've gotten into a couple of fights. People have jumped me. You know, I've had a lot of things that have happened to me, but I look past those things now.
Home is like my detox: it's what keeps me grounded.
Sometimes I wake up, and I wear jeans; sometimes I want to wear khakis or full-on overalls.
I hear from a lot of young kids. One said to me, 'You remind me of my house mother that passed away,' and another said, 'You remind me of the mother that I didn't have.'... It's beautiful that I can instill that in people.
I just want to instill love into everyone's hearts. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true.
'Rent' was one of the main defining moments, and it was like the precipice of my transition.
A lot of people have forgotten the severity of this disease, of HIV. So I think it's important that we just talk about things like this: how we can prevent it, how we can make sure that people are safe, how they can move forward, too, if they do have HIV.
The ball scene was never really only gay people. I think people have this notion that if there's a man hanging around a gay man, he must be gay, but that's just stigma. Back in the day, it was the same; there were lots of different people there: gay, straight, whatever. They did not care what they were called because they knew who they were.
'Pose' itself is about family. It's about all kinds of families and how they bring themselves together and how they uplift each other and how they fight even harder to move forward.
Throughout my life, my mom, my dad, my grandmother - these were people who made sure that I had the right people around me uplifting me.
