“I came to the States to get into acting, and I couldn’t even get a manager or agent, so I made a short film based on my life because I had the time to do it. I put it online, just to say, ‘This is something I wanted to do,’ and it went viral, which I didn’t ever expect. And then I got an opportunity to audition for Orange Is the New Black because they wanted to have a gender-neutral character. But I’ve also gotten backlash. And that’s when you realize you have to keep up with the terminology. When I got cast as a lesbian in Batwoman, I didn’t know that being a gender-fluid woman meant that I couldn’t be a lesbian because I’m not a woman — not considered lesbian enough.
My initial response was ‘Pfft!’ And then I was like, ‘Wait. Let me just figure this one out. How do I right this wrong, because if someone out there is upset by this, I need to know why and how to fix it.’ That’s when I sort of said, ‘I’m a woman that identifies as a woman. I’m not trans. But if being gender-fluid means that I can’t identify as a woman at any point, then I guess I can’t be that.’ Maybe I need to make up another term, one that doesn’t step on any toes. One where I can be fluid in my gender, but also a lesbian, because otherwise I’m not sure what I am.”
– Batwoman and Orange Is The New Black star, Ruby Rose.
How about “lesbian”?
You are Ruby Rose, that is definition enough. People will spend the rest of your life assigning titles to you, so fuck it, let them sort it out. You just be you.
Is there anyone mad at Ruby Rose getting cast as Batwoman who isn’t a TERF? Because the gatekeeping is getting ridiculous. So many of these terms like gender fluid are vague at best—isn’t that the very nature of “fluid?” If someone considers themselves gender fluid but also identifies as a lesbian, I see nothing that’s impossible for me to accept about that. The *only* thing I really support where this gatekeeping stuff is considered is giving LGBTQ actors preference for LGBTQ roles since god knows they’re discriminated against for cis/straight roles (as people in the industry have reported for years).