Earlier this month, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez was honored by the Human Rights Campaign with the Equality Award for her work advocating for the LGBTQ community. Accepting the award at the JW Marriott in Downtown Los Angeles, Rodriguez delivered a rousing speech addressing the onslaught of more than 400 anti-queer bills that have been introduced across the country,
“I remember growing up in Jackson, New Jersey, and feeling free,” Rodriguez told the crowd at the HRC Los Angeles dinner on March 25. “When I was four years old, I had no knowledge of the restrictions that society wanted to place on my body or on my existence. My light. The boxes they wanted to fit me and the standards they wanted me to uphold. I had full autonomy to be just me.”
When she was growing up, Rodriguez went to church regularly and took some important lessons from her studies of the Bible. “There were three words that stuck with me. One was ‘Love’ … and the second two words where ‘I Am,’” she shared, quoting from the book of Exodus, when Moses was posed the question ‘Who are you?’ and the creator responded, “I am who I am.”
That passage came to define how Rodriguez made her way through the world, supported by her mother Audrey Rodriguez, as well as her father and her stepfather, who all “encouraged me to simply exist as I was.”
That’s why she’s so laser focused on uplifting the many young people who are affected by this wave of legislation.
“Love with conditions could possibly be the fall of a nation or humanity. But love without condition? Well, I’m sure you know what that harbors: tremendous and groundbreaking power,” Rodriguez concluded. “There’s two last things I have to say: one, look what love can do and lastly, I am who I am.”
The powerful speech received a standing ovation and has been shared around social media by other entertainers, including Charlize Theron and Cynthia Erivo and the widespread praise echoes another moment, when Rodriguez received long-awaited recognition at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.
On that evening in January, “Pose” co-creator Ryan Murphy, who was set to be honored with the Carol Burnett award for achievement in television, invited Rodriguez to sit at his table in the Beverly Hilton ballroom, where she’d enter the building as the reigning winner for best actress in a drama series.
The trouble was, her awards ceremony did not take place, due to the turmoil over the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s lack of Black members and other controversial practices, which meant Rodriguez didn’t get her moment in the sun. That wasn’t going to work for Murphy, who notified her that he had something up his sleeve.
“He said something so important to me: ‘This time, girl, make sure you take it in.’” she says, in an interview for Variety’s Power of Women cover, recounting Murphy’s forewarning. “’Because before I’ve watched you before and at least I think I can say, you’ve never taken in like how you need to. This night take it in. Because you deserve it. I can only imagine how it would feel not being able to have a speech or even be able to be present. I’m not going to tell you what I’m saying — but I want you to be there and witness the moment.’”
So, Rodriguez walked the red carpet, stunning in a jewel-toned Balmain gown, with a bit of a secret. When Murphy took the stage, he urged the A-list crowd to give Rodriguez the standing ovation she’d missed for making history as the first transgender woman to win a Golden Globe in any category. It was a touching moment and Rodriguez still gets choked up thinking about it.
“I actually, for the first time, let his words land on me,” she recalls. “I stared at him and all I could see was like, ‘Yeah, we did this.’”
She adds: “This was not just my moment, it was our moment as the queer community. Thank you Ryan for not only acknowledging me, but acknowledging the Billy Porter, Niecy Nash-Betts, Jeremy Pope, Matt Bomer. Thank you, the queer community who’s in Hollywood, not just speaking on our community in a stigmatized way, but who’s also tackling all types of roles, like we deserve to, because what is this career for after all? To play characters.”
Not only did the speech go viral, but Rodriguez says, “That night, I felt the shift.”
When she woke up the next day, Rodriguez felt different. As she got in the car to drive across Los Angeles — “This was a ride that I’d taken before, when me and my mom were first here, going to Nike to possibly, hopefully get a deal,” she recalls — she passed by the Beverly Hilton and received a text from Lana Kim, VP of media relations at FX.
“She wrote, ‘I remember when you first started out. I’m so proud of you. The best night was the night Michaela Jaé get her flowers,” Rodriguez shares, noting that Kim, alongside FX EVP of communications John Solberg were two of the show’s staunchest supporters.
“I cried in the car,” she continues. “Because I was like, ‘You were there when I was on my mom’s knees crying because I didn’t know how to deal with the onslaught of the media. Dealing with anxiety and the worry of what the world was gonna say [about me] as a trans woman. Lana Kim was there, and watched it, and was a part of my fostering. It takes a village.”
Sitting outside the Beverly Hilton, where she’d experienced such a heartfelt salute less than 24 hours earlier, and now looking back on her earliest days in the business, felt like everything was coming full circle. And it all make Rodriguez focus on pushing forward.
“I turned on some fucking Whitney Houston and the waterworks came,” she remembers. The song was “Step By Step,” which Houston performed on the soundtrack for “The Preacher’s Wife.”
Rodriguez recites the lyrics: “There’s a bridge, and there’s a river that I still must cross. And as I go on my journey, though I might get lost, there’s a road I have to follow. One place I have to go. No one told me how I was going to get there. But when I get there, I’ll know. I’m just gonna take it step by step.”
It was a sign, she thought. And that particular song pumping through her speakers as she passed by the place Houston took her last breaths was all the push she needed to take on new endeavors like stepping behind the scenes to produce movies and working on new music, including the upcoming single “Green Lights.”
“I realized in that moment, you are right at the place you need to be. And guess what? You’re doing all right, girl,” Rodriguez says. “No weapon shall form against me. I’m going to prosper. I’mma die for this shit. I’mma die doing it.”
She continues, growing more emphatic with each statement: “If the strength of the words that come out of my mouth land so heavily on people where there’s someone who is just so mad, at least I can say, ‘Well, baby, I went out with a bang.’ I don’t wish that upon me, God forbid. But that’s how hard I want to fight for the human race, and specifically the people like me.”
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez at the Golden Globe Awards.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images