Election night is less than a month away, and Pose star Angelica Ross has vowed to hold Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden accountable following the stockpile of promises he has made in a bid to be voted in as the nation’s leader.
“With Joe Biden, you do not have my endorsement,” the actress says in her Self cover story. “What you have is my commitment to hold you accountable to all of the things that we say we, the people need.”
Ross has used her platform to raise awareness about the rising number of attacks on Black transgender women.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 21 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been killed so far in 2020 — the most violent deaths in the trans community at this point in the year since the advocacy group began tracking them in 2013.
“Seeing all these Black trans women dying or the violence that happens, I sometimes worry about being out and about. I am getting a Doberman, though, and I’m getting it trained to have that kind of protection.”
Despite being a well-known figure, Ross recounts the time she was left “traumatized” on the set of televisions series, Claws, back in 2017.
“The trauma I experienced on that set is a drastic difference from the support that I felt on the set of Pose,” she shared. “Someone referred to me as ‘he.'”
She continued, “I had a scene that was dropped on me. I knew the scene was coming and we had talked about it. I get to set and I’m now being asked to drop my underwear and wear a modesty garment—it’s basically this tape that goes from your front to your back. I was supposed to do a scene where I’m hovered over some guy and then flip off of him. It was one of the hardest things for me to do because I was pre-op. These garments aren’t made for trans people.”
Click here to read the interview in full.
