An Epitome of Strength [May 2022 cover story]

A cover story interview and photo shoot by Alina Oswald published in A&U Magazine

“You had me at Angels in America,” I tell Ron B. when I see her at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network studios, in New York City. She’s on the set, getting ready to tape yet another episode of her award-winning show, No Boundaries Up Close and Personal. There’s a gentle, quiet frenzy happening around us, as technical people are setting and adjusting lights and mics. Getting my own camera ready to snap a few shots of the celebrity host, I remind her about the time we met, in 2007. 

She was performing at a World AIDS Day event that I was covering. Wearing black dress and tights, she seemed to be floating around the room, as she was dancing and engaging the audience ever so gently. Her bright hair reminded me of Tina Turner. Following her performance, we got to introduce ourselves. That’s how I found out that she’s a celebrity host, and national celebrity tribute artist (Tina Turner)—hence the outfit and hair—and that she’s also an actor who appeared in Angels in America [A&U, June 2012], the HBO mini-series. Myself, as an all-time fan of Angels, I knew then and there that I had to find out more about her.  

 Now, on stage at MNN, Ron B. laughs at the memory. She mentions that she was in this very same studio over twenty-five years ago, when two producers saw her and thought she would be perfect for a role, thus starting her acting career. 

Ron B. is an LGBTQ+, and HIV and AIDS activist, and a transgender, nonbinary SAG-AFTRA actor who oftentimes plays both male and female roles. Over the years, she has appeared in movies and TV series, as well as on Broadway. Ron B. played Teedyuscung (which means “as far as the wood’s edge”), the King of Iroquois, in The War that Made America, a 2006 PBS mini-series about the French and Indian War. She portrayed three characters—Chaka Khan, Celia Cruz, a.k.a. the Queen of Salsa, and Tina Turner, in the Broadway play She Got Away, and also appeared in Shaft, Law & Order; as well as in the iconic Angels in America HBO (remember the funeral scene, when the camera pans over the people inside the church, zooming in on impersonators of celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, and (Ron B. as) Tina Turner). 

Tina Turner has inspired Ron B. in many ways. Turner’s life has determined Ron B. to fight back, never give up, and never allow anybody to “break her spirit. In addition, there was a strong physical resemblance between the legendary singer and Ron B.’s mother. 

Known as Ron B. in the entertainment industry as well as among fellow activists, Ron Balaguer was born and raised in New York City. She is an Indigenous, nonbinary actor and activist, with a heritage that one can only read about in history books. Her ancestors came from French Canadian Indigenous tribes who traveled across North America. Her father was Black Foot French Canadian Indigenous, and her mother was Cherokee. Her grandfather settled on the island of Puerto Rico, where he started a pharmaceutical company. A town on the island was named after him. Her great uncle, Joaquin Balaguer, traveled beyond the borders of the North American continent and became the President of the Dominican Republic. He was in power for twenty-six years.

Ron B.’s own spirit name relates to the symbolism surrounding the black panther, which, among others, represents femininity, guardian energy, the ability to know the dark, and reclaiming one’s power. And looking at Ron B.’s life, as well as at her art and activism work, it makes perfect sense. It is Ron B.’s heritage that has given her the necessary strength and determination to never give up.

 Ron B. has always known that she was transgender, and, as a child and very young adult, she kept a diary, jotting down all her thoughts about the feelings she was experiencing. One day, her mother found that diary and asked Ron B. about it. And to this day, the celebrity host still remembers the conversation that they had:

“She said, ‘Is this yours?’ and I said, ‘Yes, it’s mine,’” Ron B. recalls, a faint smile on her face…. In the end, it turned out that her mother was very supportive. “She was always the driving force in my life,” the celebrity host comments. “She encouraged me to always follow my dreams.” 

Today, Ron B. is a member of the Heritage of Pride, where she serves on two committees—the Taskforce and Diversity committees. She’s also the first Native transgender Grand Marshall to walk in the Staten Island Pride, as well as the first out trans, nonbinary SAG-AFTRA member. Over the years, she has received several recognitions for her activism and advocacy work—in 2016, at the New York City Council Pride Celebration, as well as in 2018, at the Indigenous Womxn & Womxn of Color Summit. And these are only a few, in a very long list of accomplishments.

One of her dreams that also came true is her show, No Boundaries Up Close and Personal. “No Boundaries, because there are no boundaries to what you can achieve,” she explains, “and Up Close and Personal, because, throughout my life, I’ve faced obstacles up close and personal.” She adds, “No Boundaries came about because, in my life, many people told me that I couldn’t do…a lot of things, and tried to discourage me, and I wanted to prove them wrong.” 

The show, now in its second decade, has won several awards—most recently, the 2021 Hometown Media Award by the Foundation of the Alliance for Community. The award certificate mentions “The Best of About Access and Empowerment – Independent Producer.”

The show “aims to give voice” not only to members of the LGBTQ+ community in the New York City area, but also to well-known as well as emerging artists and activists from all walks of life and from all over the world. No Boundaries guests include award-winning performer, and HIV and AIDS activist Reverend  Yolanda [A&U, March 2019], international LGBTQ+, and HIV and AIDS activist Carlos Idibouo [A&U, November 2017], singer Tara K. [A&U, June 2016], Mister Eagle NYC 2020, and other artists, activists, and allies of the LGBTQ+ as well as of the HIV and AIDS communities. No Boundaries provides a safe space and an opportunity for honest, open, and meaningful conversations about all aspects of life, no matter how unconventional or even uncomfortable they might be. 

Nothing is off the table or, as the name of the show suggests, there are “no boundaries” to what can be safely and nonjudgmentally discussed. Some episodes focus on equal rights, while others are dedicated to Pride. There are spotlights on women empowerment and women in the arts, as well as interviews with local politicians, and even members of the U.S. military. There are also fun gatherings celebrating Halloween and Ron B.’s birthday, which falls around that time of the year, as well as candid conversations about more serious and sensitive aspects of reality, such as living with depression. 

Ron B. points out that depression and mental illnesses are oftentimes considered taboo conversation topics that make many people uncomfortable. And yet, depression, in particular, affects so many individuals, and oftentimes those living with HIV and AIDS. Ron B., herself, candidly and unapologetically shares her own, personal story about living with and managing depression. “It is important to share my own story,” she comments, “because it makes me stronger.” 

Other No Boundaries episodes focus on the various aspects of the ongoing HIV and AIDS pandemic. Some conversations share narratives about the time when an HIV-positive diagnosis meant an almost-sure death sentence, while others take a closer look at the modern-day pandemic, U = U, and also PrEP. Some conversations take on the issue of HIV in the SAGE community, while others offer a myriad of personal stories told by those living with the virus as well as their allies. 

Ron B., herself, is not only a lifelong LGBTQ+ activist, but also a passionate ally of those living with HIV and AIDS, always educating herself about the virus, and advocating for individuals living with the virus. Maybe that’s because it is in her nature to be “a mother figure” and always be there for those in need and for the underprivileged. Maybe that’s because she has witnessed, firsthand, the suffering and loss HIV can cause. Or because she has lost people she deeply cared about to the virus. 

“I remember my friend, Jason Bain. He was the outreach director at Heritage of Pride. It was back in the day, and he was admitted to the hospital,” Ron B. says. “When I went to see him, I had to put on a gown and mask. You had to do that back then.” Her voice trails. Her words linger as she pauses. “After he was released—that time he was released from the hospital—I went with him to his doctor’s visits. And he always had such a great attitude. I never saw him depressed. And, despite his HIV, he never stopped working, and bringing the community together.” She adds, “he passed a few years ago.”

Ron B. slowly shakes her head, and then goes on. “And, you know, my niece, who was in her late thirties, passed in 2006. It was Labor Day weekend. She was living with HIV, and she had quadruple bypass surgery. And then one day, she never woke up.” That particular experience indeed brought the entertainer up close and personal with the virus. 

Losing friends and family members to HIV and AIDS has only inspired Ron B. to do more, and to give back. Over the years, during the holidays, she’d perform on shows for people living with the virus or make appearances at events supporting related nonprofits. She’d visit camps for children who were living with HIV. “There were children of all ages, from toddlers to young teenagers,” she recalls. “Many of them were born with the virus.” The experience has helped her better understand the effects of HIV on children, and thus inspired her, even more, to give back to the community, as well as to become an even more passionate and dedicated ally and supporter.  

Ron B. has continued raising HIV and AIDS awareness by visiting places like the Rivington House, a former HIV and AIDS nursing home in New York City. Some patients were so emaciated that their bodies resembled human skeletons, she recalls. Some could still, if only barely, walk on their own, while others could not. Those who couldn’t walk anymore were placed and tied in their wheelchairs so that they wouldn’t fall. “There was this woman, maybe in her forties, tied to a chair,” Ron B. recalls. “She couldn’t talk. She had a small chalkboard, and she would write on it. That was the only way she could communicate.” Ron B. goes on, “I was performing, so I couldn’t allow myself to cry, but it took everything that I had not to show it, while I was crying on the inside.” She adds, “the experience has stayed with me ever since. It made me not to take anything for granted.” 

Throughout the years, Ron B. has continued that meaningful and ongoing conversation about HIV and AIDS. She has continued to remind people, especially the younger generation, of what the virus can do and the suffering it can cause if left unchecked. 

She has also talked about the modern-day HIV and AIDS pandemic, “because it is important to keep having that conversation, and thus to raise awareness. Because I think now it’s the time to open our eyes, go back to the basics, and become more aware of what’s happening around us. I think that there’s a complacency surrounding HIV, and that younger individuals think that HIV cannot affect us anymore. But it did! It hit many individuals with such a force that, at first, nobody could make sense of what was going on. And many people have lost their lives because of it. Because a virus—any virus—does not discriminate.” 

Ron B. notes that something similar has happened with the most recent, coronavirus, pandemic. She also mentions the several vaccines and medications that scientists have already discovered for this particular virus, and in record time. And yet, people are still dying, refusing to get vaccinated and, hence, oftentimes succumbing to the virus. Drawing parallels between the two pandemics, Ron B. reminds that there is still no vaccine for HIV. There are several medications available that can help individuals live long and healthy lives, but there is no vaccine, no cure for HIV. Not just yet, anyway.

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Here’s also a link to an article about celebrity host Ron B. published in the Pride 2022 issue of Out IN Jersey Magazine.

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Also, experts from a #tbt feature article originally published in A&U Magazine:

Breaking Boundaries [2018]
Actor and celebrity host Ron B. talks about her show, No Boundaries–Up Close and Personal, and becoming an LGBTQ and HIV advocate
Text & Photos by Alina Oswald

There are no boundaries to what you can achieve in life!” celebrity host Ron B. says, looking into the main camera, at the end of each taping of her show, No Boundaries–Up Close and Personal. Ron B. is a trans actor who has appeared in shows like Law & Order and Shaft. A Tina Turner impersonator, she’s also the executive producer and celebrity host of No Boundaries, as well as a lifelong LGBTQ and HIV advocate.

Although No Boundaries has been running for over ten years, the concept for the show can be traced back to 1996, in New York City, at Manhattan Neighborhood Network [MNN] studios, where the show is still being taped today. “The purpose of the show is to be a vehicle for well-known, as well as everyday people [whose journeys and contributions to the community] should be acknowledged and recognized,” Ron B. explains, when I recently catch up with her at MNN.

[…]

Over the years, Ron B. has become a mother figure for many who’re underprivileged as well as for up-and-coming artists and performers. A very young performing and recording artist, himself an LGBTQ ally and HIV advocate, Cody Bondra (of Cody Bondra and the Contraband) describes Ron B. as “one of the most honest and caring people I have ever met. Without her guidance I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Ron B. has been an advocate for most of her life. Her “activism awakening” happened in 2004, after she was attacked, while working in a casting office. When she wanted to go to the police and report the attack, “people looked at me like I had three heads,” she says, because she was one of the first trans individuals to take that kind of action. She still remembers every detail of the attack—being knocked down from behind, threatened, the police arriving, the ambulance taking her to the hospital…. “I was fighting for my life,” Ron B. recalls. “And when you’re in such a situation, you can either freeze out of fear or try to fight back.” And she decided to fight back—for herself, and afterwards, for others. “And so from there, my anger and frustration fueled my activism,” she says, reminding that not long after her attack, fashion designer and nightclub personality Kevin Aviance was attacked and that made the headlines.

The 2004 experience has also changed the dimension of her show. No Boundaries–Up Close and Personal is not about the glitz and glamour, but about being human, and understanding one another. Sometimes sharing one’s story doesn’t come easy, especially when surrounded by TV cameras. And yet, as the host, Ron B. makes it easy. Through her candor and laughter, talking about her own experiences, she makes her guests feel at home while on the set and comfortable enough to share their own stories. (I myself have been a guest on the show, speaking about my journey as an AIDS advocate and editor for A&U.)

Through No Boundaries, Ron B. has started much-needed conversations surrounding LGBTQ rights, women empowerment or HIV awareness, to mention only a few. Over the years, she has also helped raise HIV awareness through her performances and appearances.

In 2003 she was asked to do an event at a camp for children living with HIV. “I went to this camp and I performed,” she says. “These were children, most of them born with HIV, two- and three-year-old and up to fourteen-year-old [children.] One was sixteen months old. That affected me.”

The 2003 and 2004 experiences brought Ron B. closer to her niece, who was in her late thirties and was living with HIV. “She was a strong person,” Ron B. recalls. “She had a son. Seeing her in the hospital [brought me even] closer to her, because I thought, here’s another person who needs help.”

It was not the eighties, it was just over a decade ago, but getting closer to her niece offered Ron B. an up close and personal look at what it really meant to live with the virus. Having that one-on-one contact was a game changer in her own understanding of HIV, as well as in her efforts to raise HIV awareness.

“I remember [my niece] saying, ‘if anything happens to me, would you look after my son,’” Ron B. recalls. Then, one day, “her son, who was a teenager at the time, called me and said, ‘something is wrong with my mother.’ And I rushed to her house.”

Her niece had a heart attack and she died. It was Labor Day, 2006. “You never know how long a person has here [on Earth,] so love them as long as they are here,” Ron B. advises.

After her niece’s passing, Ron B. decided to devote a lot of herself to raising HIV awareness. She began to get more involved, more “up close and personal,” with people living with HIV. She started doing a lot of appearances at places like Hearts & Voices and Rivington House, and got to meet “a circumference of people, from eighteen-year-old people to those who could have been my grandmother, and who were living with HIV.” She distinctly remembers individuals who had to be tied to their wheelchairs, so that they would not fall. Some had chalkboards to write on, to be able to communicate. “I remember one woman who had a portable oxygen tank on her, and she also had a chalkboard,” Ron B. recalls, getting emotional. “And I wrote on her chalkboard ‘I love you.’”

Listening to Ron B. sharing her own encounter with the AIDS epidemic through her niece’s story and through her advocacy work, I remember that she has also appeared in HBO’s Angels in America. With the Broadway revival of Angels in mind, I have to know more about her own experience being part of one of my favorite movies.

“Mike Nichols was the director,” Ron B. reminds. “The casting people said [to me], ‘we saw your picture and you’re coming in for an audition,’” she recalls. She had to go all the way to Kaufman Astoria Studios. “We were all in one room, and then they asked me to get dressed. So I got dressed and I guess my look was what they wanted.” And so, she was cast in Angels in America.

At the time, Ron B. wasn’t too familiar with the success of the play that was being brought to film. Also, it was only when they started shooting that she found out about the all-star cast—Al Pacino portraying Roy Cohn, Jeffrey Wright (with whom she had worked in Shaft) portraying the nurse, as well as Emma Thomson and Meryl Streep, among others.

Ron B. ended up appearing in several scenes in Angels in America. “There was a funeral scene,” she recalls. “I got my high heels stuck in the mud,” she adds, laughing. “Then we got to shoot the church scene. In the movie, there was a drag queen that had died. You never saw her, but the casket was there. And that’s when I came together with all of the top female impersonators—of Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross” and “one with short white hair” that appeared in The Birdcage with Robin Williams.

To this day, Ron B. doesn’t miss a chance to talk about HIV, to raise awareness. It’s important to keep having that conversation, because, she comments, many people still think that HIV cannot happen to them or that if it does, it’s no big deal because they “can just take a pill and everything will be ok.”

She shakes her head, almost in disbelief. “No, that’s not so!” She goes on, “I have seen the other side of [the epidemic]. I’ve seen a lot of people who had AIDS, and it was very scary, because they were walking around like human skeletons. [We don’t want to go back there,] and that’s another reason why I bring [HIV] up in the community.”

Her show, No Boundaries–Up Close and Personal, is a “catalyst” that brings people together and allows them to have honest, open-minded conversations, including conversations about HIV and AIDS, oftentimes touching on related stigma, alienation, depression, and also PrEP, prevention and much more.

“It has kept me very weary and educated,” Ron B. says, commenting on her ongoing conversation about HIV and AIDS. She makes a point to mention HIV in the transgender community. “Because they can’t get jobs, many people in the transgender community, as well as in the gay community, put themselves in risky situations having [unprotected] sex [for money] with people who might have HIV.”

She also emphasizes the importance of addressing HIV among seniors. “I think the most important part is trying to help those seniors,” Ron B. comments. They are more likely to go back into the closet when they lose a partner, and even more, if they happen to test positive for HIV. And that kind of HIV test result is possible among seniors, now more than ever. “There is a point where seniors just want to be loved, and forget all the cautionary lessons that they’ve learned,” Ron B. explains. “I think that we need to step up the HIV education, and also talk about PrEP [among the elderly as well as the youth].” Because young or old, “You have to educate yourself!”

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Ron B.’s show No Boundaries–Up Close and Personal is taped once a month in studio at Manhattan Neighborhood Network (www.mnn.org). It is available online, on Vimeo and YouTube, as well as on local Verizon Spectrum TV. Connect with the show on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ronbnoboundaries.