Trans actress Laverne Cox addresses the crowd at Creating Change 2014 Thursday evening in Houston. (Jessica Borges/Dallas Voice)
HOUSTON — Transgender actress and advocate Laverne Cox has learned to love herself and is pleased to see the rest of the country learning to love trans people.
Cox gave the keynote address Thursday evening at this year’s national Creating Change conference at the Hilton Americas–Houston.
She walked onstage to a standing ovation and loud cheers from the 4,000 people in the audience. But she admitted to them she was “not used to receiving this kind of love.”
“I have to say that a black transgender woman from a working-class background raised by a single mother getting all this love tonight; this feels like the change I need to see more of in the country,” Cox said.
Cox stars in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, playing trans woman Sophia Burset, who’s incarcerated for credit-card theft after using stolen cards to fund her transition. The role is the first time a trans woman of color has had a leading role in a mainstream series and has shot Cox to even more stardom among the LGBT community.
Cox’s appearance is among the conference’s heavy focus on violence the transgender community, especially trans people of color, face and how to prevent further violence.
Speaking of her emotional upbringing, during which she was bullied and attempted suicide, Cox gave snapshots of her painful youth.
“Some days I wake up and I’m that 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14-year-old kid in Mobile, Ala., who was bullied. Some days I wake up, and I’m that kid who’s being chased home from school practically every day by groups of kids who wanted to beat me up because I did not act the way that people assigned male at birth were supposed to act,” she said. “Some days I wake up and I’m that sixth-grader who swallowed a bottle of pills because I did not want to be myself anymore, because I did not know how to be anybody else.”
But she also shared moments she has now where people will shout at her that she’s a man, saying trans women who are called men is “an act of violence.” And other days she’s just a woman who wants to be loved but is told by men she’s dated and others that she’s not “passable enough by certain standards.”
“Some days I wake up and I don’t feel good enough because I’ve heard that over and over again,” Cox said. “I’ve heard it from men I’ve dated, I’ve heard it from members of my own community who told me that I am not passable enough, that I should not go and get surgery for this and that, and then I will be an acceptable trans woman.”
But Cox then thinks of her role models and trans people who refuse to be told by society what they should look like and act like. People who defend their identities against people’s impressions of what trans is and people who must defended themselves against anti-trans violence. People like CeCe McDonald, who Cox has met with and has been inspired by her resilience.
McDonald was recently released from prison after being arrested in 2011 for defending herself in a racist, anti-trans attack that left one of her assailants dead.
She was praised by the LGBT community and became a hero for standing up for herself in a country where trans women of color face extremely high homicidal rates.
More than 53 percent of LGBT homicides in 2012 were trans women with 73 percent of those being people of color.
“She refused to be a statistic,” Cox said about McDonald. “But CeCe said I will not go out like that. … Trans women of color are not supposed to survive. But CeCe survived.”
McDonald’s time in jail was met with challenges trans inmates often encounter, including fighting to be released from solitary confinement and for the correct dosage of hormones.
Cox’s character on Orange is the New Black had to fight for the accurate dosage of her hormones in the show’s first season, putting a face to the battle trans inmates across the country fight all too often. But Cox said McDonald’s persistence in standing up for herself, her rights and her identity as a trans women led the nation to fight for her, too. And to love McDonald.
“The way in which CeCe advocated for herself and the way in which her support committee advocated for her is a template for how we can do activism all over this country,” Cox said. “And it started with CeCe. It started with her having this profound sense of love for herself that everyone around her felt. …Love for a black trans women. It’s beautiful.”
Cox called loving trans people “a revolutionary act,” because it encompasses listening to their needs and accepting them for who they are and not how mainstream society often thinks of trans people.
Mentioning the Katie Couric interview that went viral where Cox schooled the journalist about how trans people are more than their genitals and focusing on transitioning dehumanizes the trans community, Cox said it was a teachable moment, one that Couric later explained was an important lesson for her.
“For me, that moment was a really amazing example of creating change,” Cox said to applause.
But the interview was more than two well-know trans celebrities refusing to discuss their bodies in place of telling their stories. Cox said it was a time when the mainstream media started discussing who trans people are and what they should be asked about on camera.
“But never before have I seen in mainstream media a discussion about what is appropriate and not appropriate to ask trans people,” Cox said. “That is a change that we really, really need.
“The conversation about trans people in mainstream media has centered on transition and surgery,” Cox added. “Transition and surgery conversation becomes the big takeaway, become the sensational moment, and our humanity is left in the dust. And so much of the injustice that too many of us experience is not talked about.”
Some of the injustice comes from the misunderstanding of trans healthcare and its necessity.
“Healthcare for trans people is a necessity. It is not elective, it is not cosmetic, it is life-saving,” Cox said. “But we are more than our bodies.”
Other examples Cox mentioned was the criminal justice system that arrests trans people for fighting back when they are assaulted, like CeCe, and police who use stop-and-frisk tactics to profile trans women of color as sex workers for what they wear and where they are.
“Criminalized for wearing a short skirt in the wrong neighborhood,” Cox said. “That shit is fucked up.”
Cox brought her message of love back home, concluding her speech by explaining that discussions of love and acceptance will eventually bring injustices against trans people to an end. It’s a lesson she’s taught herself, that loving herself will help her overcome obstacles and will spur others to advocacy.
“The whole self-love thing has always been kind of baffling to me. I’ve always been like ‘Love myself? How the heck am I supposed to do that?’” Cox said. “And I believe now I’m starting to understand a little bit what it means, that I don’t internalize all the negative things and negative stereotypes that people have about trans women of color. I don’t do that number on myself anymore. I don’t date men anymore who are ashamed to be seen with me. I am starting to believe in the deepest core of myself that I am beautiful, I am smart, I am amazing.”
