Celebrating Black History Month: Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox was born on May 29, 1972, in Mobile, Alabama. Though Cox was born biologically male, she had always felt herself to be female, not really seeing a difference between boys and girls.
She attended high school at the Alabama School of Fine Arts before going on to study at Indiana University in Bloomington and Marymount Manhattan College, from which she graduated with a BFA in dance. It was after arriving in New York that she began the transition to female, and changed her focus from dance to acting.
“During my college years, I went from being gender nonconforming to being more and more femme. I would soon start my medical transition and living and identifying as female. As I started my transition, I knew I wanted to continue to perform and I often found myself performing in drag shows in the nightclub scene. I never really identified as a drag queen but it provided an outlet for my desire to perform,” Laverne states in her biography.
In 2008 Cox appeared on ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ before becoming one of the contestants on the reality series ‘I Want to Work for Diddy’. Other roles followed in TV and indie films, as well as on another reality program, ‘TRANSform Me’ (2010), before Cox landed her breakthrough role on ‘Orange Is the New Black’.
In 2014, Cox became the first openly trans person to be nominated for an Emmy (for the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series) and to appear on the cover of Time magazine. In the Time magazine story, Cox opened up about her childhood and the first moment she knew she might be transgender. “I tell this story about third grade. My third grade teacher called my mom and said ‘Your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress,’” she told Time. “Up until that point I just thought that I was a girl and that there was no difference between girls and boys. I think in my imagination I thought that I would hit puberty and I would start turning into a girl.”
Cox also works as a trans-rights advocate, hosting her own column on ‘The Huffington Post’ where, among other write-ups, she’s penned an eloquent essay on gender expression and oppression.
Cox is also the executive producer behind the documentaries ‘The T Word’ (2014), which follows the lives of several trans youth, and ‘Free CeCe’ (2016), which tells the plight of an imprisoned trans woman. Cox won an Emmy for ‘The T Word’, making her the first trans woman to win for an executive producer role.
For the February 2018 South African edition of Cosmopolitan, Cox became the first openly trans cover girl in the magazine's history.
An advocate with an empowering message of moving beyond gender expectations to live more authentically, she was also named as one of Glamour magazine’s 2014 Women of the Year, one of The Grio’s 100 Most Influential African Americans, one of the Top 50 Trans Icons by the Huffington Post, and honoured with the Courage Award from the Anti-Violence Project, and the Reader’s Choice Award from “Out” Magazine, among other accolades.
Her activism isn't just relegated to magazine covers and awards shows. Cox constantly uplifts trans folks from all walks of life on social media. She delivered a rousing commencement speech earlier this year at Pitzer College, and also pushed for IMDB's birth name policy to be change. She advocated for the trans actors in Pose to score Emmy nominations. And Cox additionally received an honorary degree from New York City's The New School in 2016 for her trailblazing work for the trans community and for her progressive work in the fight for gender equality.
Released on June 19, 2020, Cox's new Netflix documentary tells the story of Hollywood and the media's evolving view of trans people over the years, the violence that the trans community faces, as well as movies and shows that have opened up opportunities for trans people to appear on screen. “I think for a very long time the ways in which trans people have been represented on screen have suggested that we are not real, have suggested that we are mentally ill, that we don't exist,” Cox said in the documentary's trailer. “And yet, here I am. Yet here we are, and we've always been here.”
