Trans Actors of ‘Pose’ Snubbed at Emmys

Cis-actor Billy Porter got some love from the Television Academy for his supporting role as Pray Tell in the recent FX phenomenon Pose. However, none of its lead trans actors received any type of recognition for their work on the show.

For those who may not know, Pose is a groundbreaking, critically acclaimed series centered around the world of NYC Ballroom in the late 80s early 90s. The show was made by and for black trans people, and it shows.

Personally, I’ve seen the first few episodes of season one (doing my homework for this article), and to say the least, I’m impressed. Pose contains everything that would make a TV series good, from the writing to the actor’s performances to the costumes and cinematography.

But what makes Pose a great show, what makes it groundbreaking is that it’s telling a story from American History that people outside of the LGBTQ community would never hear otherwise. Not only is Pose a series centered around the trans person’s struggle to fit into a society that’s rejected them, but it’s also a series that continuously gets things right.

I’ve seen a lot of trans sex scenes, all of which have included the dreaded ‘trans panic:’ the moment in which a character reveals some secondary sex traits and is outed as trans only to be met with anger and violence. When Indya Moore’s character Angel does a slow striptease at the beginning of season one, I braced myself for her imminent death at the hands of her gentleman caller.

That doesn’t happen though. In fact, Angel gets several sex scenes and a few romantically charged scenes all of which are done right. By this I mean, she’s treated like the woman she is, by a cis-het white man from Wall Street no less.

But I digress. To quote the show, “This shit runs downhill, past the women, the blacks, Latins, gays, until it reaches the bottom and lands on our kind.”

Many of the lead actors of Pose took to social media to express their disappointment with the Emmys. In a heartfelt video, Ross spoke on how it wasn’t about the nomination, Rodriguez simply wrote on Twitter: “I love you all,” while Porter took to his Instagram to share a lengthy response to his co-star’s snubs.

“It took me a minute to process all of the conflicting thoughts I had about yesterday. A record number of Black actors received #Emmy nominations this year, myself included. For that, I am grateful,” he began. “I have been doing this for a long, long time. It has taken me 30 years to get recognized for my work…I know the pain of being overlooked so well. Too well.”

“When I look at my Emmy win last year, I see the exuberant joyfulness in the faces of my #Pose family. MY win is THEIR win. And just as we share in each other’s happiness, we all share in each other’s pain. For me, @poseonfx lives at the intersection of art and activism and that is important to me. But I am keenly aware that for my SISTERS – it is much, much deeper than that. This is the story of their LIVES.”