Nyla Rose Addresses Recent Transphobic Sign Shown On AEW TV
Nyla Rose, a dominant force in the AEW women's division and former Women's Champion, joined SI.com to talk about her journey with the company.
Nyla is recognized as the first and only trans wrestler performing for a major American promotion, and with that progress comes some resistance. That was perhaps never made clearer than when she was competing against Ruby Soho on the December 22 episode of Dynamite.
A member of the audience displayed a transphobic sign that read, "Nyla Rose is this guy's dad (with an arrow pointing to the right)", as she entered the ring. Upon noticing it, Rose flipped the person off, and her wife subsequentially had them ejected from the building.
"For the most part, people understood why that sign was wrong," Rose says. "Maybe that person didn't quite understand the gravity of what they were doing. You want to boo, that's cool. But there is a line. People might feel it's a conflict of their beliefs by simply respecting someone else, but it's not.
"You don't have to understand or even agree with somebody's situation to show them simple respect and kindness, like respecting their pronouns and respecting their way of life. I'd love for people to be cool with it, but if that's not your thing, it's not your thing. But shouldn't people want to treat their fellow humans with a little respect and kindness?"
Nyla Rose pointed out how sexuality and gender can be seen on a spectrum, and she established where she would place herself.
"My transitional journey might be completely different from somebody else who grew up in the same conditions as I did, or grew up in totally different conditions," Rose says. "The transition is completely different for every single person. That's one of the things that gets lost on a lot of people. You hear this umbrella term of transgender and you think it's supposed to be black-and-white, and that's not the case.
"For me, I am a binary trans woman. I identify with everything that is femme and female. That's where I'm comfortable, that's where I live. I personally believe it is a broad spectrum, and anyone can fall anywhere on it."