Pose offers a deeply affirming and complex portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters, particularly transgender women and gay men of color, within the 1980s and 90s New York ballroom scene. It celebrates chosen family, resilience, and identity, while unflinchingly depicting the external challenges of discrimination, poverty, and the AIDS epidemic. The series consistently validates the worth and beauty of queer lives and love.

POSE offers a profoundly positive and affirming portrayal of transsexual characters, particularly trans women of color. The series depicts them with immense dignity, complexity, and agency, exploring their dreams, relationships, and resilience within the 1980s and 90s ballroom scene. While addressing significant external obstacles like prejudice, violence, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the narrative consistently affirms the worth of trans lives and love.

The series critiques the bigotry and rejection faced by LGBTQ+ individuals from conservative Christian institutions and families, consistently framing these actions as harmful. However, it also portrays characters maintaining personal faith and finding spiritual strength, positioning the audience to sympathize with those victimized by religious intolerance rather than condemning faith itself.