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Last week I saw Laverne Cox give a speech at a university in Virginia. To say that she was incredible, funny and well spoken is an understatement. Laverne was so impressive, so well read and just compelling. I’m grateful to have been able to see her, and transgender activist and former Navy Seal Kristin Beck, in person recently. You feel like you’re in the presence of strength and bravery beyond anything you’ve experienced. I know that sounds like I’m blowing smoke, I’m not, I just can’t imagine having to go through the sh*t that these two women have experienced and to come out the other side giving life-changing speeches. That’s honestly how I felt after seeing Kristin and now Laverne, if they can do this then anything is possible.

Laverne discussed her upbringing in rural Alabama as a twin born to a single mother who worked as a teacher. She touched on a few points that she’s given in interviews in the past, so this recap will skip the details that are already known about her biography. (Watch her It Gets Better video for more. There’s no way I could do justice to everything she said, even if I included it here.) At the end of her speech, she took questions from the audience that left a lot of people in tears. Three different attendees knew transgender people and were sharing their stories and asking how to be more supportive. One woman revealed that her transgender friend had attempted suicide, and Laverne promised to record a message for him backstage. I’m tearing up just remembering it. Here’s some of what Laverne said. I was blown away that night. (Also, I typed this up on my iPad and she’s a quick talker so in some cases I’m paraphrasing.)

We should support gender self determination
“If we are serious about ending bullying, we have to support gender self determination.
Our lived experiences defy this conflation, this binary model. We are called on to police [each other’s gender] as individuals. Allow people to express their gender in ways that feel most authentic to them.”

She felt ashamed as a child
She quoted Brené Brown: “Shame is the intensely painful belief that one is unlovable, unworthy of connection and loving, guilt is ‘I did something wrong,’ shame is ‘I am wrong.‘”

She was sent to a therapist in 3rd grade
The therapist asked “Do you know the difference between a boy and a girl?” and she answered “there is no difference.” She assumed that there was doctor patient confidentiality, as she learned from television. However the doctor told everything to Laverne’s mother. When the doctor recommended testosterone shots, her mother discontinued the therapy. It took her mother a while to come around, but she now refers to her as her daughter and uses the correct pronouns.

She attempted suicide at the age of 11 after her grandmother passed
She swallowed a whole bottle of pills and woke up the next day with a stomach ache. More on Laverne’s suicide attempt.

She has a twin brother, a musician, who played her character, Sofia, on OITNB, before Sofia’s transition
Her brother doesn’t define himself as gay. He told her to describe him as “‘A practicing homosexual because the term gay is a white bourgeois concept.‘” Her brother “also identifies as negro goth and a true punk rock fan.” (More on Laverne’s brother here.)

She was part of the 90s NY club scene
“It was the first time in my life that my gender expression was looked on as something valuable.” She credited her friend Tina Sparkle as having changed her life. She also explained that she’s never done a drug in her life.

She’s experienced discrimination, bullying and scary situations
Laverne told of several situations where people would call out to her “that’s a man.” She said “Misgendering a transgender woman is an act of violence.” She finds it threatening and demeaning to be catcalled. In one incident in NY city, she got kicked and called slurs by a group of men and she retreated to a nearby store to call the police. She said that the police were very decent to her. She’s afraid every day but explained that she’s had it so much better than many transgender people.

She also talked about Islan Nettles, a 21 year-old transgender woman murdered in NY in 2013. A suspect has finally been arrested in Islan’s beating death. The statistics on murder and hate crimes against transgender people are heartbreaking.

She loves working on Orange Is The New Black
She is “so blown away by the power of these women, [they have a] mostly all female crew as well… it’s a wonderful atmosphere. The storyline for Sofia this season is just wonderful.” She called the cast “brilliant” and said that she’s learned a lot on set.

She was asked what Jenner’s transition means for the transgender community (this talk took place after both episodes of “About Bruce” had aired)
“Bruce is extremely sincere and there is no way, because of who Bruce is, to transition privately. I couldn’t imagine transitioning in the public eye…

“What the media is doing to it in terms of a spectacle is deeply disturbing to me.”* We should “try to get rid of the spectacle and make it about the humanity. These folks [The Kardashians] have taken on all of these ideas in the public imagination about being famous for no reason [but] at the end of the day they are human beings who love each other. There is a human piece, I wish this would happen privately… They have a sincere desire to change the world.”

In previous interviews, Laverne has revealed that she spoke to Jenner a few months back and said she found Jenner sincere, human, and very connected to their family. (I’m using the pronouns Laverne used, which are gender neutral.) She also had positive things to say about the Diane Sawyer special on Jenner’s transition. The thing is, it’s hard to separate out “the media spectacle,” from the Kardashian hype over Jenner’s transition, and how the family has capitalized on it. I understood what she was saying, though, that the media has taken it too far and has focused on the wrong things.

As for how we can support transgender people and others in general, Laverne said “We have to become more empathetic, we have to listen more, we have to let folks take the lead.” She also explained that the media “narrative has been around surgery [and] bodies.” We should “think about trans identity beyond our bodies” and instead focus on “hearts, souls, emotions and our experiences. That’s when we can go to the next level.”

She also talked about how, in the 90s, transgender people strove to blend in, but said there’s a growing movement to recognize transgender people as beautiful. She asked us to use the hashtag #transisbeautiful. After hearing Laverne and Kristin speak, I know that trans is so much more than that.

*Note that the title is a direct quote, she reiterated her point about the media spectacle in a later sentence, but it was redundant so I left it out of the recap.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

photo credit: Getty, FameFlynet and me