At the ATX TV Festival,
Pose
and
American Horror Story
star
Angelica Ross
said that she once had a fiance who demanded that she hide the fact that she is transgender in order for them to continue their relationship.
According to
Page Six
, Ross, instead, decided to break up with him in order to be her truest, most authentic self.
"He was Italian, handsome and it would have maybe worked had I chosen to be stealth, live in his shadow, and protect his image of being a straight male in the world or whatever," she said during the virtual festival about being told ber her ex to go stealth, i.e. keep her identity as a trans person a secret.
She said that at the time, she thought it was the best she could get, and there many other trans people who feel the same way. "Even with the fact that he won't really take you home to see his family or they honk outside the door and take him to dinner or...threaten your relationship all the time or whatever, this is the best it's going to get," she remembers thinking.
Eventually, though, she found strength enough to stand on her own. "The audacity that I had to say that I deserve more and to love myself enough to leave that and bet on myself after years of having to figure it out."
Trying to live stealth took a toll on Ross, but she's so much happier now, even if she's single. "I am very pleased with where my life has gone, how I've blossomed into the woman I am now," she said. "But I wasn't as secure in myself and my body, in my appearance."
That insecurity led to constant fear and stress, enough so that it was holding her back in her acting. "I was always terrified of being found out and so in my acting classes in college...I was just so nervous. My teachers didn't know, no one knew for my safety on campus," she remembers.
"I would never get to greatness hiding parts of myself in the sense that as an actor you need to be able to let go into the role and not be worried about what I look like, what I sound like."
Now, as evidenced by her
performances in projects like
Pose
, nothing is holding her back. Next up, she's set to appear in the upcoming tenth season of
American Horror Story
,
titled
Double Feature
.
"I am someone who is just breaking through," she said. "I'm just beginning...even though I'm 40 years old, you are seeing me just break the surface."
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