- If this is how I identify,
if this is who I am,
I think this is who I am.
Then how do I come to terms
with what the media is feeding me
in terms of who I'm allowed to be in the world?
(bright music)
- [Narrator] The stories we see about ourselves have
the power to shape our future.
In this series, we'll honor some
of the most groundbreaking moments
of queer Latine representation in TV and film,
moments that grounded us in history,
made us feel seen and humanized our existence in front of,
and behind the camera.
Join us in uplifting the images,
the artists, the stories, the visions of us.
It's thanks to these Latine bisexual actors
and writers behind these characters,
that powerful and three dimensional depictions
have been achieved.
These are just some of the milestones accomplished
by bisexual storytellers who brought their own voice
to the table and pushed the narratives beyond tropes.
- You testify in an aggravated case tomorrow,
the D.A is worried about how you present yourself
on the stand.
- Why?
I'm fine on the stand.
Look, I'll make this real simple,
so even these dumb-dumbs can understand, man did crime.
- Rosa Diaz, I just, I mean, she reminds me so much of me.
She's just unapologetically herself.
Doesn't take shit from anyone,
she's fun and she's silly.
And she's just, I dunno,
like she's a fully fleshed out character,
you know, she's not someone's side character
or someone's like, you know, queer best friend.
She is one of the stars of this massive sitcom.
And I like to think of that show as a found family comedy
that is like a workplace comedy and a found family comedy,
and she is one of the family members.
And so I just, I love Stephanie Beatriz.
I think like she just shined so much in that role,
but I think so many people see themselves in that role.
I know that I do, but I know so many others and yes
she did have a coming out episode, which was great,
but also that's not what the whole show is about.
And that's what her whole character is about.
And so she gets to be, you know, kind of messy and fun
and you know, a lot of the things that I feel
we don't always get to be.
- Something I'd like to say, I'm a pretty private person
so this is kinda hard for me but, here we go,
I'm bisexual.
I had been playing Rosa Diaz on the show
for a couple of years, and then I decided to on Twitter
I sort of like casually, I guess, came out as bi.
I was like, I retweeted something that Aubrey Plaza
another actress tweeted about falling
in love with all kinds of people.
Didn't matter who they were.
It was just more about the person.
And I was like, "Yeah".
And then people were like, "Ha aa" like, "Flip a table",
you know like pasta flying through the air,
like "Whoa is Rosa gay?" you know, and I had been playing,
I secretly in my heart had been playing Rosa Diaz
as a queer character.
I didn't know what that meant exactly,
I didn't know how that was going to flush itself out.
But for me, when I played that character from the beginning,
I thought, I think that this character is not straight.
I don't know what that means for her,
and I'm not the writer of the series
or I can't shape the series in that way,
I don't have that control,
but I think that this character is queer.
And so shortly after I came out as bi,
the showrunner on the show his name's Dan Goor,
he's also the head writer, called me
before the fifth season and said,
"Hey we were thinking if you're comfortable with it,
how would you feel about making Rosa bisexual
like you are bisexual?"
And I was like, "Absolutely, I can't wait."
And that sort of started the ball rolling,
because he felt he had my blessing, which he did.
The writer's room began sort of,
kind of percolating on different ideas.
And we had lots of different kinds of people
in the writer's room,
but I think what we didn't have was a bisexual person.
So that's where I came in,
because I've had specific experiences,
especially as a Latina bisexual person.
Then I wanted to share with the writers' room
as they were shaping those episodes.
- Stephanie brought it,
to the table of saying, "Okay, this is what it is,
for me to be Latinx and bisexual and exist in this space."
And I think it made sense because Rosa's character exists
in a very male dominated cis-gendered world.
So why would you have people that
don't reflect what she is, not in the room
to be able to consult and say
what's the right way to navigate that
and put that in the writing.
- There's so many times on TV, where you watch people
sort of dance around this idea of bisexuality.
It gets swept under the rug.
And that's a thing that happens a lot
with bisexuality, it gets swept under the rug.
- And the thing of it is, is that as a writer
you should be able to write for other characters
and you know, other sexualities and things,
but the truth be told there's been one kind of character
and one kind of sexuality shown
throughout the history of cinema and media.
So I think a lot of writers kind of lean towards that.
And so I think it's important to have a queer woman of color
in there being able to make sure that it's done right,
especially on a channel that's that big,
that means a lot.
It means you have to get it right,
because that's going to millions of people
and how you show that character is gonna
affect how people feel about us.
- I'm married, I'm married to man,
but I continue to talk about my bisexuality
because it is a part of who I am,
but in continuing to talk about it,
I have many tiny little moments of coming out all the time.
And I think for women it's been, you know
some of the representation in the media
that makes it sort of like fetishized,
has also given way to more people being able to discuss it.
And that can allow for more conversations,
as opposed to male bisexuality, which I think is like,
still sort of, people don't talk about it.
- Normally I feel there's a misconception
that let's say you are in a heteronormative relationship,
you're no longer bi.
And I have friends that are women that are married to men
and it's like, they're seen as, "Oh you're not bi anymore"
or you're not bi enough,
because I just feel like that's, it's an internal thing.
And I think it's probably patriarchal
and that you're seen as, oh, you have to be,
you have to prove yourself in this relationship
to show that you're queer enough.
And I don't think that that's necessarily just with us.
I feel like that's a large part of the community
deals with that.
- Fans of shows are smart.
The average person at home watching TV
is looking for clues about story.
They're consuming the art and they're watching
for things and looking for hidden messages or, you know
sort of trying to get the most that they can out of a story.
And so it was really gratifying to me
to have fans of the show, once Rosa came out as bi,
say things like, "I knew it".
I mean that was really, that was so gratifying to me
because I had been playing her as queer for a long time.
- I think fans were so adamant about Rosa being bisexual
is just because we were craving
that representation so badly.
And I think it made sense.
And honestly, when you watch her,
for those of us that are bi, we're like, "We knew".
It was like, I see you.
You know, there's a reason I saw myself in her.
- One of my dearest memories is being in Washington DC
for the pride parade a few years ago and going out
to breakfast and this young man that was our server came
over to our table
and said, "I'm a fan of 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine',
I've watched a show, I'm really happy to meet you."
And then came out to me as bisexual in that moment
at the table, we were chatting and said,
"You know my family is also right over there.
They're having brunch.
I'm just finishing up here.
But my family is having brunch
cause I'm graduating this weekend
and they're all here to support me."
And I was like, "That's so great."
He said, "They don't know."
And I thought, oh God,
this young man was brave enough to come
over here to this table to talk to me
and tell me and come out to me and tell me that he's bi,
but he doesn't feel like he can talk to his family about it.
And they're sitting right over there.
They're 10 feet away from us.
They're all here celebrating him, loving him,
excited for this next step in his life.
And he doesn't feel like he can share that with them.
And it was so... I felt so honored and privileged that
in this moment in his life where all these wonderful things
were happening for him, he ran into me and decided
that he wanted to share that with me.
And that was really, really special.
But it's painful to think still that people can't
share this necessarily about themselves,
with the people they love
because they're afraid of being judged.
Particularly for men who are bi.
- Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
Jesus, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
Jesus, blessed are those who have been persecuted
for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is my savior daddy, not you.
And Jesus would be ashamed of you for judging me.
He would be ashamed of you for turning your back on me.
He would be ashamed.
- There was this one particular scene in "Grey's Anatomy",
where Callie Torres who was not big like me,
but she was of size compared to the rest of the actors
and she was Mexican-American and queer,
although around this time she was still saying bi.
And she was having a fight with her dad Hector Elizondo
on the show and I remember that so vividly.
I don't have the relationship with my dad.
It was very like, it just resonated you know?
- You think you can pray away the gay?
- We can just sit and talk.
- You can't pray away the gay.
- Calliope Iphegenia Torres!
- You can pray away the gay!
- The thing is when I talk about Sara Ramirez
as an icon in the queer community,
one of the things that has just been so magnificent
about their journey is that at every step of the way,
they just continue to be themselves and welcome us into it.
- It's called LGBTQ for a reason.
There's a B in there and it doesn't mean bad-ass,
okay it kinda does, but it also means Bi.
- Callie Torres went out of her way to always make sure
that we remembered that there was a B in there
and it didn't just mean badass.
- The largest part of the LGBTQ community
is the bisexual community.
And a lot of people don't know that.
And yet we don't see enough representation
and bisexuality is sometimes used as a plot device, right?
And instead of as a real part of someone's humanity,
so we definitely need to see much, much more.
- I think that because of stigmas,
it's absolutely a thing they always want.
As soon as they say bisexual,
or they're like, oh, it's a woman.
Absolutely, it's a female.
And that's not fair because bisexual men exist.
- I think the lack of male bisexual representation
on television and in film is such a bummer,
because there's so many bisexual people in this world
and they really deserve to be seen
in all their beauty and glory and all their messiness
and all their in their full human selves.
Just like any other person,
human being deserves to see themselves
on television and film.
- I imagine, you know, let's be real here in the community
I think that there's a lot of homophobia.
I think there's a lot of queer phobia within the community.
So I don't even know if people necessarily
feel comfortable coming out as safely as say I do.
I don't know if men are welcomed as much.
I don't know, I think that's a societal thing
that we'll have to work on.
I don't know, it's gonna take a little bit
to get to change how people view that,
people outside of our community.
(upbeat music)