- I always tell myself that I'm special.
I tell myself that I have a
lot to give and a lot to offer.
If this is too much to say,
but I'll stand in the mirror
completely naked and I just look at myself
and I take in everything about me
and I say, "You're beautiful."
It doesn't matter what any one says
whether they say I've gained this,
or I need to change that
or you should do this.
I always look at myself
in the mirror and say,
"Girl, you are just fine the way you are."
The moment I truly realized I was a star,
it didn't even hit me first season
when I saw my picture on the billboards.
'Cause I was just like, "Oh,
this is an ensemble show,
"we're all doing this
together," which was beautiful.
And, it is an ensemble
show but second season,
I felt solidified as a leading actress.
And I saw that through the pictures
that were posted all over
Instagram and on billboards
in New York City and on billboards in L.A.
And I was like, "Oh my God, Whoa!
"This is like happening, I'm
actually being taken serious,
"I'm a lead on the show.
"Like, you're doing the damn thing!
"Shoot, you actually
making it happen like,
"you're leading not only a show
"but you're also leading people
"and you're teaching
them through your art."
And I also feel there's a lot more
of responsibility that's on my shoulders
which, I live for so it
doesn't matter to me.
You know, I love speaking,
I love making sure people are uplifted,
I like to be a little bit
of a motivational speaker.
And a lot just changed for me
and I think it's changed for the better.
One, I've received so many supporters,
supporters that I've
always dreamed of having.
Regina King came up to
me and she was like,
"Girl, I like your show."
And I was like, "Whoa!"
Baby, that is never, you never expect
anybody like of that caliber who is
a Golden Globe winning actress
to come to you and say,
"I'm a fan of your show."
The people who I never thought would watch
who are in the industry, who
are working all the time.
to know that they're so busy
but they actually take time
to actually hear a story
that has never been told
on a broad scale before,
it's pretty awesome.
Blanca has the confidence to
really fight and fight hard.
I mean I'm someone who is out there
making sure I did the work
so that I could be seen
but there was always that
thing in my mind like,
am I really worth it?
And are people really
gonna take me seriously.
Am I gonna be ostracized
because of who I am
and are people gonna say
that, you're not gonna get
any work simply because
you're a transwoman.
And that kinda deterred me a little bit
and when I would go
into certain auditions,
I would feel that in my head
and almost feel like I
wasn't worthy enough.
But it's moments like now where I'm like
really relating to Blanca
and I look at her I'm like,
Girl, I wish I had the
confidence this woman has
'cause she does not back down.
- Ballroom is about to be more popular
than Studio 54 ever was.
- We about to go mainstream.
- Put away your glass slipper transirella,
it ain't never gonna happen.
- Believe it or not Steven
Canals has opened up
that door for us to actually
be able to just be seen
and not be judged based on our transness,
like we can actually
have seats at the table.
And I mean, granted, I
haven't had a lot of time
to have a seat at the table
'cause you know 'Pose'
has been number one priority
but um, those doors are open.
And people are willing and understanding,
they're saying, "Hey, can
you come and do this,"
and its for an ad.
But its not strategically
tied to the transness,
it's just, they want me there
because they saw the talent
and they saw the person and
they tied those two together.
And so the doors have opened more
and I don't feel restricted
as much as I used to
and it's pretty liberating.
- All right, all right
it's all happening for us!
"Vogue" has hit number one on the charts
and the word is out, Ballroom is in!
- I think we're people
who of the Ballroom scene,
we have cultivated a lot of the things
that a lot of people are
doing in mainstream today.
And I think the only way to do that is,
actually go to the source itself
and show, who actually did it.
I truly believe that's what Madonna
was trying to do with "Vogue".
She knew that there were a lot of people
that were ostracized in that time.
She was always fighting
for people like that
because you know, they were her dancers,
they were people who were
around her all the time.
She really showed homage to that.
But there are some
people out there who take
and do not, like they don't give back.
They'll take and make
it seem like it's theirs
and I think that's the beauty of Madonna,
she actually really said,
"I'm gonna see this,
"I'm gonna put you guys on a scale
"'cause I know the platform that I have
"and I'm hopefully, hopefully
this will push you guys
"a bit forward and it'll help you out."
And I think that's beautiful and I'm glad
that Ryan's doing that too.
And I love that he's
showing that through him,
but he's also showing it through
what happened through Madonna.
A lot of our history's been erased
due to people who just
don't wanna speak about it
or you know, simply because
of people who are just
bigoted around the world.
But I'm glad that we can
actually have a show like 'Pose'
to highlight the things
that actually happened,
it feels good because it means our history
is repeating itself and we
get to tell the stories fully
and completely how they need to be told.
The history that you feel like
you haven't gotten a taste of,
'Pose' is giving you that
taste of it in its entirety.
And I think that's great.
The younger generation need to see that
and it needs to just constantly
circulate and it will.
This is gonna be a show
that goes down in history,
it's gonna be here forever.
You know, people can look at us and see
we were the monumental women
who actually paved the way
for younger women like
ourselves to really look up to.
