Ruby Rose drops out of Batwoman Comic Con panel
Ruby Rose as Batwoman. (The CW)
Ruby Rose, star of the upcoming Batwoman series, has apologised after she dropped out San Deigo Comic Con.
The gender-fluid actor announced on Instagram that filming on the lesbian superhero series meant that she would not be attending the event.
“I unfortunately will not be able to make it to Comic-Con this year, and it is devastating,” Rose, who uses she/her pronouns, said on Friday (July 19).
Adding that she had tried “everything that we could humanly to be there,” she explained: “It wasn’t until really now that we saw there wasn’t any other way to finish this ambitious episode we’re doing and create this amazing show that really is special.
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“In this particular instance, I gotta work and bring Kate Kane/Batwoman to the screen and not Ruby to a panel.”
Ruby Rose cast as lesbian Batwoman
Rose first appeared as Batwoman in the CW’s 2018 Arrowverse crossover event, Elseworlds.
Despite a mixed reception from LGBT+ fans, in January the network ordered a standalone pilot for Rose’s character Kate Kane, a cousin of Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne.
A full series was commissioned in May, and is set to debut on October 6 in the US.
Ruby Rose opens up about gender criticism
Rose has spoken out about the backlash she received, with some fans claiming that her gender-fluid identity made her unsuited to playing a lesbian.
“When I got cast as a lesbian in Batwoman, I didn’t know that being a gender-fluid woman meant that I couldn’t be a lesbian because I’m not a woman — not considered lesbian enough,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly.
After intially dismissing the criticism, Rose later reevaluated how she identifies, eventually settling on both woman and gender fluid.
“That’s when I sort of said, ‘I’m a woman that identifies as a woman. I’m not trans. But if being gender-fluid means that I can’t identify as a woman at any point, then I guess I can’t be that,’” she said.
“Maybe I need to make up another term, one that doesn’t step on any toes. One where I can be fluid in my gender, but also a lesbian, because otherwise I’m not sure what I am.”
