You're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Sam Sanders.

So I first began watching Pose a few years ago, because I knew it'd be unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

A drama on TV with the cast full of trans actors.

Pose is a show about the black and brown, queer and trans people who built New York City's

ballroom scene in the late 80s and early 90s. It's also about how they had to fight the epidemic

of HIV AIDS during that same time. The whole show is this time capsule of the era.

With all the outfits and the throwback the core and most of all, the music.

In season three, it's 1994 and I know that because some of y'all are walking the runway to

Warren G's regulators. The music and the genre of that time was a perfect time to shift.

And let people see what it was like in the 1990s, especially in the mid 1990s where things were

really popping at least out. All three seasons also give you a real history lesson.

They show you just how long this community had to endure the AIDS crisis.

My guest this episode is MJ Roderie Gess. She plays Blanca on the show. She is a house mother

of Evangelista. In season three, she is living with her HIV diagnosis and pursuing a career

outside of the ballroom scene. I think you will like this chat. MJ and I cover a lot of ground.

We talk about why the representation on Pose matters, but also why it's not enough.

We discuss how MJ channels her own loss and her work and how the queer community still finds

resilience when facing grief and despair and sometimes a government actively making things worse.

All right, let's get to it. Here is MJ Roderie Gess. Enjoy.

You know, one of the opening scenes on the first episode of Pose season three in 1994,

we see NYPD under then Mayor Giuliani's control closing down a queer sex club,

loudly, almost violently in their minds to stop this spread of HIV AIDS. And I was watching this

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