Orange is the New Black breakout star and American sweetheart Laverne Cox is known just as much for her gender activism as she is for dressing hair at Litchfield Penitentiary. She recently sat down with ABC’s Byron Pitts on “This Week,” discussing her experience as a transgender woman, bullying, suicide, and her role in the community.
In the interview she shared:
“One thing I would wish for America…[are] spaces where we have real gender freedom, where we…create spaces of gender self-determination, where we don’t police people’s genders or we don’t tell people that they’re not supposed to act a certain way,” Cox said.
“I was bullied and I internalized a lot of shame about who I was as a child,” Cox said. “Bullied because I didn’t act the way someone assigned male at birth was supposed to act…
“The suicide attempt happened when I was in sixth grade and I was having all these feelings about other boys. And I didn’t want to live,” Cox said.
“So many trans folks have said that they see themselves reflected in this character,” Cox said. “Having your story told validates your experience. It’s like, ‘I’m not alone anymore, and maybe I’ll be OK.”
“I’m really, really happy that I survived,” she said. “If I didn’t survive, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Thank you for being here, Ms. Cox.
Image via AP.
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