*By Christian Smith*
This Pride Month, Americans need to think about how the injustice at the U.S.-Mexico border isn't that different from the injustices committed against the transgender community, says Angelica Ross, a prominent transgender rights activist and one of the stars of the new FX series "Pose."
"As I watch and see immigrant families being torn apart, being put into cages no matter how you describe them, we need to see how there are multiple examples of where we as a country and as a global society have lost touch with our humanity," Ross said in an interview on Cheddar's Business of Pride special Wednesday. "There's a war that's waged on our humanity and we need to win this war at every intersection."
On the trans rights front, Ross said that progress is being made.
"I am constantly trying to remind myself to take a moment and stop and to applaud and to celebrate the small wins because winning this overall battle is an accumulation of small wins," Ross said.
One of those wins is "Pose," Ryan Murphy's new series on FX that dives into the world of the Harlem ballroom scene of the '80s. The series features the largest transgender cast ever ー five recurring characters are played by trans actors. Behind the scenes Ross says you will find trans people with a hand in everything from makeup to the writers' room.
Murphy's team worked closely with the LGBTQ community to put the show together.
"What's amazing is that the collaboration has been between the community and the show in a way that is not just, 'Here we're trying to do this show for your community,' but more, 'How can we tell this story together?'," Ross said.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/pose-star-on-how-trans-visibility-is-changing-in-hollywood).
Announcing 599 deaths in the last 24 hours, Cuomo called the fatality number “effectively flat for two days,” which he said hints at a possible flattening of New York’s curve, along with fewer hospital and ICU admissions
New Jersey is emerging as another hot spot of COVID-19 with nearly 40,000 confirmed cases and 917 deaths. However, the head of one of the state's health care systems said officials there hope they are beginning to see a peak.
New York City could start burying its dead in city parks if the mortality rate from coronavirus doesn’t decline soon, according to City Council Health Committee Chair Mark Levine.
Experts maintain that despite social distancing and quarantining measures during the coronavirus pandemic, people should still attempt to socialize "serendipitously" and commit to acts of kindness to mitigate the stress.
Gun sales spiked last month as fears around the coronavirus pandemic rose. A veteran ATF special agent told Cheddar that new gun owners need to make sure they know how to store and use those firearms safely.
Like many of you out there, everyone at Cheddar is cooped up at home for maximum social distancing. And we’ve noticed something: in our respective self-quarantines, we’re taking out the trash a lot more than usual.
So our Megan Pratz teamed up with HEATED’s Emily Atkin to figure out the impact this extra waste is having on our communities.
The coronavirus outbreak has triggered a stunning collapse in the U.S. workforce, with 10 million people losing their jobs in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, the number of confirmed infections worldwide has hit 1 million, with more than 50,000 deaths, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Eric Wei, chief quality officer for NYC Health + Hospitals, told Cheddar that one of his biggest fears as a hospital administrator and ER doctor is the potential impact of the pandemic on the emotional and mental well being of the health care workers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released new guidelines for blood donors to bolster the supply of urgently needed blood and blood components. Most notable perhaps is a partial lifting of the controversial ban on men who have had sexual relations with another man within the last 12 months.
The director of the Samaritan's Purse emergency field hospital operating in New York City's Central Park told Cheddar that the group will "absolutely not" turn away queer COVID-19 patients, despite the parent organization's views on homosexuality.
