Mj Rodriguez

“I started out in the ballroom scene when I was fourteen years old.”

“When I started 'Rent,' I already had an idea of how I was going to portray Angel, simply because of who I was at that moment. Everyone always perceived her as a drag queen, but the reality of the matter is that I truly believe she was a trans woman.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My mom is my biggest cheerleader.”

“For people who have been ostracized, who have been all the way at the bottom, there's only one way that we can go - and that's up.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“'Rent' was one of the main defining moments, and it was like the precipice of my transition.”

“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.”

“Hopefully I can play a role where I'm not stigmatized to just being a trans woman.”

“Whenever I go onstage or in front of a camera, I always want to pour my soul out because I know I have a lot to offer.”

“Today I may advocate through my art, but I've won my share of 'hood fights.' So if I ever saw one of my sisters being beaten in the street, I'd be the first one to jump in.”

“'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.”

“It feels completely amazing to finally be in the space where there are so many people taking me seriously as an actress.”

“I'm obviously fighting for my community simply because I'm trans, and I have to do that, and I do it because that's my existence. I wake up in the morning, and that is my activism.”

“I had always known I was female, since I was 7 years old.”

“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.”

“When I was little, all I could think about was just being on some kind of stage, whether it be on a live stage, whether it be on a set stage.”