Mj Rodriguez makes Emmy history as first trans woman up for leading actress

Mj Rodriguez, a.k.a. Mother Blanca, is making history both on and off camera. On Tuesday, the ‘Pose’ actor, who has featured as the strong and unabashedly ambitious and compassionate Blanca Evangelista, made Emmy Awards history by becoming the first transgender nominated for best actress, ushering in a new era of transgender recognition in the Emmy arena.

Uzo Aduba, Emma Corrin, Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Moss, and Jurnee Smollett are among the other nominees for best actress.

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Rodriguez is only the third openly transgender person in Emmy history to be nominated. She follows multi-hyphenate actor and filmmaker Rain Valdez, who was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding actress in a short-form comedy or drama series for ‘Razor Tongue’ in 2020, and Laverne Cox, who was the first openly transgender actor to be nominated for her role as Sophia Burset in Netflix’s ‘Orange Is The New Black’ in 2014.

When Emmy nominations opened in June, GLAAD and a number of LGBTQ+ organisations urged voters to honour the ‘Pose’ cast in the final season of the show. Despite the fact that the programme closely follows the lives of transgender women, the Television Academy has only acknowledged Billy Porter’s portrayal of Prey Tell, who is a cis-gendered male. Porter, who was nominated in both 2019 and 2020, made history in 2019 by being the first openly homosexual black male to win the award for outstanding actor in a drama.

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Despite Emmy’s limited history of honouring transgender talent and stories, Rodriguez’s nomination on Tuesday establishes a new, welcome benchmark for who can be the best actress contender (or winner) for years to come.

The 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast on CBS on September 19. Cedric the Entertainer will host a live audience that has been vaccinated.