Laverne Cox spoke as part of Wright State’s Presidential Lecture series at the Nutter Center on Dec. 1. Cox is most known for her role as Sophia Burset, an incarcerated transgender woman on the Netflix hit series “Orange is the New Black.” In addition to being an Emmy-nominated actress, Cox is also an advocate for the transgender community and visits universities around the country to speak about how to move society beyond gender expectations and combat transgender stereotypes.
During her lecture at WSU, titled “Ain’t I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood,” Cox spoke about the discrimination and violence transgender persons often face, in addition to her own experiences as a transgender woman of color.
“Over 72 percent of LGBTQ homicides are transwomen and over 67% are transwomen of color,” Cox said, during the lecture--one of the many statistics on the abuse and disadvantage of transgender persons Cox gave in the opening of her speech.
Cox also talked about her childhood experiences of growing up as an African-American boy in Mobile, Ala., where she often faced backlash against her desire to be female in school and church. Her mother took her to a therapist in the third grade, where she was asked if she knew the difference between a girl and a boy, to which she replied, “there is no difference.” At one point, Cox considered receiving testosterone injections so she wouldn’t be taunted anymore.
“Everybody was telling me I was a boy,” Cox said. “But I knew in my soul I was a girl.”
Cox was bullied almost every day and attempted suicide at the age of 11, something that happens often for the transgender population as Cox stated “41% of all transgender people admit to having attempted suicide.” It was not until after high school, when she moved New York City that Cox started to feel less ashamed about her gender identity. She became involved the transgender community there and began to live full-time as a woman.
“New York City not only represented a place of possibilities, but a place of becoming more myself,” Cox said. “In New York City, all the misconceptions I had about transgender people disappeared. If we have misconceptions and we just get to know people, all those misconceptions will melt away.”
However, while living in the city Cox still often received discrimination. Men often called her out on the street, calling her a “man” and other slurs, both transgender and racial. She was even kicked by a man on the street once.
“Far too often there is that undertone that trans people deserve violence for simply having the audacity to leave our apartments as ourselves,” Cox said. “Calling a transgender woman a man is act of violence.”
Cox also talked about how society needs to be a free and safe place for transgender people and people of all sexualities, races and gender identifies.
“As long as we live in a society where we have to prove our womanhood or our manhood, we are not living in a free society.”
