Troubled Life of Ruby Rose: Battle with gender norms, bullying and living life on her own terms
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: When Ruby Rose came out to her mother at age 12, she didn't have the words to express how she felt. In an effort to make ends meet, Ruby Rose's mother, an aspiring artist, traveled around Australia for a significant portion of her youth. Rose claims that despite their poverty, they were unstoppable.
In recent news, after posting a worrisome message about how her birthday was "nothing to celebrate" on the eve of turning 37, Rose abruptly disappeared from social media. The Australian actress announced she would be logging off of her accounts until Tuesday in an Instagram Story that she posted on the afternoon of March 19.
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The world through Ruby’s eyes
"I wanted to write a book for kids that were my age. I just wanted to have a way to communicate and speak to kids like me, who didn’t have someone,” she said over a Zoom session, Guardian reported. “I was just this kid who had no friends, who was super unpopular, got bullied and beaten up at school, and was like: ‘I’m going to be a famous writer'".
Rose has surely aided children who identify as LGBT or gender-fluid, like she does, even though the book hasn't yet been published. Once her passion project, ‘Break Free’, a personal short film in which she investigates gender norms, was released in 2014, Rose has aided in igniting discussions regarding non-binary and gender-fluid identities.
Her appearance in ‘Orange Is the New Black’ highlighted her particular androgyny and posed a challenge to more conventional conceptions of sexuality. Moreover, her portrayal of ‘Batwoman’ made her the first openly lesbian superhero in a TV series. Her existence in the public eye as a gender-fluid lesbian still feels rebellious and significant, even when she stars in action movies like the recently released ‘SAS: Red Notice’.
Ruby Rose faced childhood struggles
The sole child of Katia Langenheim, a 20-year-old single mother, Rose was born in Melbourne in 1986. Rose regularly sat on Langenheim's knee as she studied for her master's as an artist. When Rose was two years old, Langenheim separated from her father. Following a period of time spent sharing a room (with their cat) at her maternal grandparents' house in Melbourne, they were offered a church house in a neighboring parish at a discounted rent.
Rose's struggles with gender identity are prevalent in many of her early memories. She has said, “I loved being with all the boys, and sort of saw myself as one of the boys." She struggled to comprehend why she had to play with the females when sports classes were divided based on gender.
Less encouraging were her schoolmates. She hailed from an impoverished household with a single mother, was openly lesbian, and occasionally shaved her head. In addition, she had begun modeling. Due to all these, she became a target. Rose was put in the care of several of her teachers. Yet after a particularly nasty bullying event, Rose's mother agreed to let her daughter transfer schools.
Although these discussions have improved awareness and acceptance of transgender, non-binary, and gender-fluid identities, there has also been a rise of animosity over time. Rose, however, asserts that "you already own all the solutions you seek".