It is June and that means for the whole month the LGBTQ community get to celebrate extra hard about being ourselves every day! And because of that, every day here throughout the month, we are going to spotlight one LGBTQ+ wrestler. These names are not going to be in any order. So, this won’t be a countdown but more of just a highlight to celebrate.
On June 15, we are going to celebrate Nyla Rose.
Wrestling since late 2012, Rose signed with AEW when the promotion started in 2019. This made her the first openly transgender woman to sign with a major wrestling company. On the indie scene, Rose wrestled for WSU and made a trip over to Japan and took part in Zero1 and Sendai Girls promotions.
Rose quickly became a key factor in the new AEW promotion and won the first Casino Battle Royale. This led her to a match to determine the first-ever AEW Women’s World Champion. She lost in that match to Riho. However, Rose would continue to fight towards the title and did eventually taking it off of Riho to become the second champion in AEW’s history.
Through her time with AEW, she has wrestled many top talents such as Thunder Rosa, Britt Baker, Hikaru Shida, Ruby Soho, and more. She was involved in the TBS Championship tournament to crown its first champ, but lost to Soho in the second round. She did chase after the title while the inaugural champion Jade Cargill was in her undefeated streak. She also attempted to take it off of Kris Statlander.
Rose hasn’t had any on screen presence this year. There’s been talk about her taking more of a backstage role but she has not confirmed her time in the ring is up. She continues to be a huge advocate for trans rights.
An incident did occur in 2023 in Oklahoma where the state’s athletic commission censured AEW due to its backwards policy of transgender athletes in sports. AEW CEO Tony Khan wasn’t happy with that response and supported Rose during this.
