What Young LGBTQIA People of Color Are Saying About "Pose" Season 2

Among the many memorable moments from season two of Pose is the funeral of Candy Ferocity, portrayed by actress Angelica Ross, after she is murdered and found in a hotel room. Throughout the episode, as various main characters process their grief, Candy appears to them, confronts them, and lovingly, tells them to let go. The most moving of these conversations is with her parents, who were reluctant to attend Candy’s funeral because of their transphobia. Always her father’s favorite, he says to her, “I can’t let you go. We’re just getting started.”

Part of Candy Ferocity’s funeral takes place in the ballroom as her ghost syncs to a crowd of her chosen family and Pose’s strongest theme is cemented — that the love of family, chosen or not, can help us move forward and grow.

Pose has the largest trans cast as series regulars on a scripted show in television history. It has broken barriers for its stars, like the show’s lead, MJ Rodriguez who became the first openly trans woman to win Best Actress in Television at the Imagen Awards. For many young LGBTQIA+ people today, Pose is a pathway to understanding queer histories through conscious representation and empowering emerging generations to find their passions. Upon the show’s season two finale, Teen Vogue talked to young LGBTQIA+ people of color on the show’s impact.

“As a Latino, my family would watch lots of novelas together,” Federico Rogelio Yñiguez, a 20-year-old college student in Long Beach, California tells Teen Vogue. “None of them had accurate or even positive queer representation. Some didn’t have any at all.” Federico started watching Pose after the 1991 documentary, Paris is Burning, made him curious about ballroom culture and learning about other aspects of queer history, like prominent trans rights activists, Sylvia Rivera.

"Learning about the House of Xtravaganza and Sylvia Rivera led me to Pose," Federico says. "I continued to watch it because the show renews my love for myself as a gay person. It’s hard sometimes when society and people around you don’t fully accept you. Pose also leads me back to appreciating my queerness in general. I feel more powerful and less alone."

Briannah Hill, a 22-year-old non-binary femme in Boulder, Colorado, was compelled to watch Pose after seeing the series trailer prominently feature black queer folks. Despite their love for the show, they took issue with how Candy’s death was portrayed and the backstory of her family being revealed at her funeral. "We never got the humbling backstory for Candy until after she’s dead, which is problematic because it centers everyone else’s grief instead of hers," Briannah says. "I understand that they wanted to shed light on what’s happening to black trans women in America, however, they missed it and made their small problem worse. I still love Pose though and will continue to leave space for them to grow and make mistakes."

When Damon (Ryan Jamaal Swain), asks Helena St. Rogers, his black dance teacher, for permission to audition for a show during the season she responds by revisiting a moment in her early dance career. “My teacher at the time thought I was crazy to drop my studies and go dance for [Lester Horton], but she also knew that those audiences needed to see me — a strong black woman taking up space in those white concert halls and auditoriums,” Helena says. Adding, "The world needs to see you, Damon, a man who knows who he is.”

That representation is what viewers say make the show endearing to a new generation of LGBTQIA+ people who are looking for media and pop-culture to tell authentic stories, qualifying their existence.

Throughout season two, Blanca and Pray Tell, a black elder and ballroom host, shift from utter devastation at how the HIV crisis ravaging their community is being ignored by the U.S. government to organizing with AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, a real grassroots political organization that started in 1987. They also utilized activism to help Blanca fight to get her nail salon back. By showing the realities of how the LGBTQIA+ POC community fought, suffered, and thrived amidst the AIDS epidemic, Pose inspires new generations to learn their histories and to fight for their community today.

For Andre Lawes Menchavez, a 20-year-old San Franciscan that has worked with GLAAD and been a content creator at Queerspace Magazine the representation that Pose presents is important because it allows younger LGBTQIA+ people to connect with characters that mirror their own experiences or inspire.

“She [Blanca] sees a lot of systematic issues within our own community, such as her own discrimination within the white gay community, and isn’t afraid to tackle them on,” Andre says. “All the work I do in my life is to ensure that young queer kids of color, especially those who have faced the complexity of being both Asian and queer, don’t have to face the struggles I once did.”

Another example of this activism exemplified is Sameer Jha, a 16-year-old from the Bay Area that watched Pose and has worked to make schools safer and more inclusive with their non-profit, The Empathy Alliance. Their experiences being bullied in school compelled them to advocate for other LGBTQIA+ people by establishing their school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance, collaborate with organizations, like GLAAD, on projects, and to publish Read This, Save Lives, a book that helps teachers create safer classrooms for queer youth.

For Sameer, Pose shows the power of personal and collective liberation, “I know that even today people in our community feel differently, but I think succeeding as a queer person of color in a world hostile to us and fighting for change are both valid forms of activism.”

Adding, "When we aren't telling our own stories, they can become one-dimensional tales of tragedy and despair. Pose not only gives us representation of writers, actors, and crew but also shows the range of the queer person of color experience. There's love, discrimination, kindness, success, and pain all together. Additionally, Pose gives us a glimpse into our untold history, one I never saw in school textbooks or History Channel documentaries."

With the show’s humanizing of people living with HIV/AIDS, especially people of color, Pose connects to the challenges the realities of today. In 2019 alone, there have been 16 known murders of trans women, most of whom were black. With tonight’s finale for season two, another chapter of conscious queer representation is closed and the next generation can continue to be inspired by it for years to come.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue