Ruby Rose

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Ruby Rose

Ruby Rose at The CW Upfront 2019
Date of birth	20 March 1986
Place of birth	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Pronouns	they/she
Gender identity	genderfluid woman
Occupation	model, actor, TV presenter
Known for	Batwoman

Ruby Rose Langenheim is an Australian model, actor, and television presenter. Rose came to attention as a presenter on MTV Australia (2007–2011), followed by several high-profile modelling gigs, notably as the face of Maybelline New York in Australia. In addition, they have co-hosted various television shows, most notably Australia's Next Top Model (2009) and The Project on Network Ten (2009–2011).

Rose pursued a career in acting from 2008 onwards. They had a small role in the drama Around the Block (2013), and came to global attention for her role in season three of the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black (2015–16). They also had large roles in the action films Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017) and John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) and co-starred in the musical comedy Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) and the monster film The Meg (2018). She also starred in the lead role of Kate Kane / Batwoman in the first season of the CW television series Batwoman (2019–20).

Rose came out as lesbian at age 12. Because of her sexuality and gender variance, she was bullied, which included verbal and physical abuse by her male peers. She was also sexually abused as a child by a relative. Rose experienced suicidal thoughts, and attempted suicide at age 12. Commenting on having attempted suicide multiple times throughout her life and being diagnosed with different disorders, including clinical depression (which was initially misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, she stated that she has struggled with mental health issues all of her life. She added, "What I have learned from the struggles of mental health is just how strong I am."

Rose has said that while growing up, she was convinced she was a boy, and she was saving up money to physically transition from female to male. She said, "It was in my mind as something I wanted to do and then I just... didn't. I guess I grew out of it. I even used to sleep on my front because I didn't want to get boobs ever, which I think worked actually." She stated that modelling led her to discover androgyny, and allowed her to model with different gender expressions. She recalled, "I remember being at a yum cha restaurant with my dad and the owner coming up and saying, 'Excuse me, we're trying to work out if you're a handsome boy or a beautiful girl.' It was a compliment and I was shocked, and when I thought about it I actually wanted to be a handsome boy."

In 2014 Rose released Break Free, a short film in which they visually transform from a very feminine woman to a heavily tattooed man. Soon after this, she came out as nonbinary, saying that in regards to gender "I feel like I'm neither". In 2015 she said, "I am very gender fluid and feel more like I wake up every day sort of gender neutral."

Rose has received some backlash because of being genderfluid and a lesbian:

«

When I got cast as a lesbian in Batwoman, I didn't know that being a genderfluid 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.

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References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Ruby Rose, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

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