"Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between" was how "Orange Is The New Black" star Ruby Rose greeted her audience before she introduced Duran Duran during the "MTV EMAs," highlighting her advocacy for gender fluidity.
Ruby Rose does not identify herself as exclusively female or male. She even released a video entitled "Break Free," where she talked about her self-identification and celebrating gender fluidity. As of this writing, the video is already approaching 15 million views.
In an interview with Elle last June (via The Independent), Rose said, "I'm not a guy; I don't really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I'm somewhere in the middle, which-in my perfect imagination-is like having the best of both sexes."
According to The Independent, Rose defines gender fluidity as "the feeling of not sitting at one end of the gender spectrum or the other."
She previously told The Guardian that she used to pray to God for her to not get breasts. She said in the interview, "As a little kid, I was convinced that I was a guy. I used to bind with ACE bandages, which is really, really bad for you. I was like, five or six? I was really young. I didn't have anything there to bind! I used to sleep on my chest because I thought it would stop me from getting boobs."
And when she did greeted the crowd with "Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between" during the "MTV EMAs," Rose instantly was lauded for her gender fluidity acknowledgment. "Ruby Rose fiercely breaking the gender binary at 'EMAs,'" one user tweeted.
"Forever inclusive," another one commented.
In the U.S. broadcast of the "MTV EMAs," however, Rose's greeting was cut. The U.S. broadcast aired hours after the European telecast. Although Ruby Rose's gender fluid greeting did trend in social media, it was not seen in the U.S. version. And according to MTV (via The Washington Post), several parts were cut because the American broadcast can only have two hours. Duran Duran accepting the inaugural Video Visionary Award was also not shown in the U.S. broadcast.
