Entertainment
the queerty interview
New Jersey
intersex
Cowboy
River Gallo dishes on ‘Ponyboi,’ falling for Murray Bartlett, and the allure of the cowboy
Ponyboi, intersex actor-writer-model-activist River Gallo isn’t just making a movie—they’re making a movement.Raised in New Jersey by Salvadoran immigrant parents, Gallo was told from a young age that they were different—told they’d need to take hormones and undergo so that they could live life as a “normal” male.Years later, they would follow their creative passions to study acting at NYU, and later to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts to earn their master’s degree. At 27, while doing research for the senior thesis film (the short “Ponyboi”), they first encountered the term “intersex”—someone born with male and female biological traits—and began to realize they weren’t so alone.