Joe and Jada - Angie Martinez IRL - Laverne Cox: Stop Earning Love and Start Deserving It

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Emmy award–winning actress, author, and activist, Laverne Cox joins Angie Martinez to talk about the current plight of the transgender community, moving to New York City from Alabama in the early 1990's, how somatic therapy was able to help her, and dating as a black transgender woman. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or https://promo.boostmobile.com/webuilt...All lines provided by ‪Hard Rock Bet#VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Trauma survivors turn alarm bells into dinner bells and dinner bells into alarm bells. It's insane, but it's really kind of common. I think everybody, it's childhood trauma. It's different versions of childhood trauma. And then I realized, well, my mother's still alive. Maybe I can work on this with her.

Thanks for watching, guys. Today's episode is brought to you by Boost Mobile. We need to start calling it what it is. We're in this period in time. where we're like, conservatives have made us so afraid to actually just say racist, or we're dismissed when we call something racist. Oh, they're being hyperbolic. People will dismiss us sometimes,

and we just like say this is racist. But I mean, this is like, this is not a nuanced thing. None of this was nuanced racism. This was not like a microaggression. This was like, he was making watermelon and fried chicken jokes. I mean, girl. Like, it wasn't just that, are we in? Like, can we start?

But the George Floyd. Can we start? Yeah. We're on camera already. I don't know how comfortable you want to talk about this at all. You know, I hadn't planned on it, but here we are. I think we need to, you know, I've had, we jumped into conversation. I'm going to stop in a second and introduce our guests, but I do want to finish this thought

because what you were saying. Well, the past few years, I've, I felt kind of afraid because to say what's on my mind, because I was afraid to lose opportunities. And, you know, people are just not effing with trans people right now. No, but people are never effing with trans people. And we're in a fascist state. So I'm like somebody has to tell the truth. And when the history books look back, I want to be a Christian Dior, not a Coco Chanel.

And for those who don't know, like, Coco Chanel is like a known Nazi sympathizer. And you are opposed the Nazis. Anyway, some of it's in that, the new look show that was on HBO or Showtime or something. But anyway, we were talking about the Kevin Hart roast. And you jumped in the comments. I was in the comments. And I was like, he's known, Tony Hitchclips is known for making racist humor. So he's going to show up and be racist.

And then I like, I didn't watch the whole roast. I just watched. I just saw clips. And I was like, Chelsea killed it. And then I kept, you know, watching the interview, and then he said something else. And then, I don't remember, I have to actually pull up my phone, but then he was saying racial humor.

Kevin was saying racial humor. I was like, racist. It feels like when you say something that's racial, like, it's racist. It's just racist. And it's his decision, it's for him to, like, I'm assuming, And I could be wrong. People can correct me if I'm wrong.

That a roast that he's involved in, he has to prove everyone who's there. I know the jokes were pre-approved. I actually read something that there were all these jokes against Trump that were taken out. Did you hear this? I read this recently. I didn't check the sources. I, you know, I'd like to double, triple check sources. But apparently there were a bunch of jokes that were anti-Trump that were taken out.

So the people who saw it live heard those jokes. but the recorded version, they're out. So things could have been taken out. So it's an interesting decision to have a blamed racist. I mean, that Nazi rally that they had at Maddozegro Garden when Trump was running in 2024, I remember I was talking to, I was talking to someone, and they were like, oh, yeah, people are calling this a Nazi rally.

People don't like that. And I said, yes, a lot of racist people love doing and saying racist things, but hate being called racist. Yes. They don't enjoy that part. It's in that's, and the offense seems to be like calling someone racist rather than the actual racist activity.

And that really speaks to the partly, like Trump has emboldened people to just let it all hang out because he does. So he's given, he's created a permission structure for people, let it all hang out. But it also explains. exposes this, along with the recent Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, I think exposes though, what I've always known is that we've never really fully dealt with like our racist history in this country.

Oh, God, no. Like, not even close. Not even not. I mean, we, as people of color, we know this. As black folks, we know this, but like, we, I think we need to keep saying it. to keep saying it. I think we need to keep, this is why they don't want to teach history either, but I find I'm slowly working, I have this idea, like for a video essay or an essay about Justice John Roberts, because I think he is a really interesting case study of someone who,

I'm from Mobile, Alabama, and I did not know about the Supreme Court decision in Mobile versus Bolton until a few weeks ago, literally a few weeks ago, and I'm from Mobile. And that case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1980 that said that unintentional racism, like racism that you didn't intend. Right accident? Like, yeah, unintentional, you didn't intend for something to be racist in terms of a law restricting voting, but the outcome is racist. It is not a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Two years later, Congress and the Reagan administration involved, but Congress was Democratic, amended

the Voting Rights Act to say that unintentional, Like if the impact of a law restricting voting has a racist outcome, then it is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. And when you think about Jim Crow, when they were passing, when they had poll taxes and literacy tests, they weren't saying we are instituting poll taxes and literacy tests to keep black people from voting. But again, the impact is racist. is racist and is disenfranchising black voters. So according to the letter of the law of the Voting Rights Act as it stood, Calais should be a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

But the Supreme Court is also insisting, as they did in 2013 when they overturned preclearance, that racism doesn't exist anymore in America that we've moved past that. The fact that they had to keep extending the Voting Rights Act, too, suggest that at some point we're going to be past this racist thing. But we can't get past it if we don't even acknowledge that it happened. If we are constantly trying to rewrite history, the rise of all the Confederate statues, that happened in the early 1900s. That was an attempt to make people forget and to valorize the South.

The South should have been punished for succeeding from the Union. They never were punished. They were actually given reparation. Can you, I mean, like, can you imagine this? The first time I read this, like, after emancipation, instead of giving reparations to the group of people who were enslaved, created as chattel slavery for centuries, never mind the mental health piece, right?

I interviewed Dr. Joy DeGrew on my podcast a few years ago, and she coined the term post-traumatic slave syndrome. And she, like, said, you know, she was like, there was no math movement to deal with the mental health of a population that has been dehumanized and made to work for free as chattel, slaves for hundreds of years intergenerational. That's deep trauma. So no reparations, no mental reparation. We can get to get to other things, but I think it's...

I don't know, we went into right. It's all good. This is... That means because this was on your spirit today. It's on my spirit, honey. Yeah. But it's important that people know or reminded that when I'm when apartheid was abolished in South Africa, they created a new constitution. We were living in an apartheid state until 1965.

Black people did not have the full freedoms that the 14th and 15th Amendment, it gave us until 1965, when we had the Voting Rights Act, we were still not equal, like, in terms of like our franchise. So we've only really been democracy since 1965, And the moment that Voting Rights Act was passed, there were people working to overturn it. And basically they have.

And it's that and the Dobbs decision from a few years ago are reminders that these conservatives are relentless. They have a long game and they won't stop. There is constantly like systems in place. And I think that's why having a systemic critique I'm being critical of systems and ideologies is more effective than like, you know, attacking individuals. I think we love individuals, understand that we are all struggling. All trying to figure it out.

All trying to figure it out. Everyone has done the work. No. And or don't even know. Or don't even know where to start. But sometimes you have to meet people where they are too because sometimes people don't know where to start. And then sometimes what I realized with, in some situations, some people don't even have a framework to understand what we're what you're talking about, my ex.

I don't want to talk too much about him, but like he, white dude, Long Island. I saw that somewhere. You dated, he was like a MAGA supporter or something? He was not me. He was a MAGIS supporter. But how could you, with all of this on your heart and your spirit? Well, I didn't know.

I didn't know that- How could you not know? Well, in the beginning. That's interesting. That, I mean, I, you know, I think where I had been, with dating is that like I just would choose not to go there. Like when I, when I met, so when I met in the screening process was- You looked the way?

The screening process is different. I was not looking for a boyfriend. When I met him, I was literally, I was living between LA and New York. I was looking for a consistent friend with benefits in LA and a consistent friend with benefits in New York. So that's a different vetting. I'm not trying to like, I'm not trying to like be your life partner. I'm just like,

You know, is it going to be respectful? But also respectful. I even for, you know, a friend with benefit or F buddy or whatever you want to call it, I require certain levels of respect and accountability and all the things. So that was the vetting, initial vetting. And then he told me he was in commercial real estate. That was a lie. He was actually a cop.

So once I found out all these things, I was attached to him and I fell in love with them. And I didn't plan on any of that. And so I'd always imagine that, like, you can have conversations and maybe love across political differences. And so that's what I was trying to do. But that didn't work. Like, it was clear to me that there was not even a frank, that, like, he was just so dug in. I asked him at one point after we broke up. These are questions I didn't ask while we were dating because maybe I didn't want to know the answer.

I was like, have you ever got, I had a moment in your life where you realized everything that you've been told is a lie. And you had to like let go of all that and relearn everything. And he said, no, I just try to be the best person I can be. And I was like, hey guys, today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. Being rebellious doesn't mean quitting your job and moving to an island. Sometimes being rebellious means taking a few minutes to do exactly whatever it is that you want to do. And that's where Hard Rock Bet comes in, where you're, Your inner rebel plays.

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but also supporting a system that strips away her rights in? I think it's a cognitive dissonance. It's a compartmentalization. It's a, by the time, you know, 2024, I broke up with them in March, last week of March in 2024, so it was like two years, Yeah, two years ago. So, and I blocked him and then like at one point we started talking. No, after a relationship is over, I like, you blocked. Yeah.

At least for 30 days for short, no contact for 30 days. Interesting. I think because a friend of mine in a group therapy situation suggested that years ago, because when you're in a relationship, when you're talking every day, if you break up and you're still talking every day, you're not separating. Yeah. So it's a 30 days, no contact. And then like, I remember.

I remember, like, he did the contact after the 30 days. He, like, reached out, and I was like, and then I just remember sometime during the election season, and I asked him that question. It was after we broke up about, like, have you ever? So I just think what I realized for him is that the whole, he was white. He is white. He's a white dude. Blonde hair, blue eyes.

Not the smartest guy I've ever dated. Like, I, in the beginning, it was great. You're so funny. I'm just, I'm being on, in the beginning, it was great, because my life, obviously I'm very heady. I'm going on podcast, talking about shit like this. So it was like fun just like to go home, just have fun and not have it be deep.

But if he asked any of these questions of himself, he would have to like, everything that has been, been set up for him, he would have to, like, interrogate. And he doesn't, it's like, what would he be left with if he realized, like, the privilege, the system that he was working for, like, the racist system that he is, like, enforcing and his pledged allegiance to. it would shake his whole, he would have an existential crisis. But that's part of life. But like he would, it would really rock everything. So it's just too much and it's so dug in deep too with him and his family.

And it was just, that's why I'm not with them. Yeah, but it's also fascinating because I always try to wrap my rain around. How? How do people get, but you're kind of describing like, Being in a relationship with him and being, and it's, we're in a place now. I'm going to pull you out of this in a second because we would have told about this. Me too. We're in a place now where, like, because of the internet, we dehumanize a lot, right?

We like, we're kind of, we don't always think about people as full human beings because of who they voted for, or it's anonymous online, or the media has manufactured consent. I mean, the way it's a, it's really obvious how the media has, like, done a hit job on trans. people to dehumanize us and manufactured, like through sports, through language and images, language like mutilating children, men and girls' sports. What does that evoke? It's the one thing. It's the one thing. Mutilating children.

All of this language that, like, does not encourage. And then talking about trans issues, right? Like, we were, like, less than immigrants were the most discussed groups of people during the 2024 election. Yeah. But we were nowhere in sight. People weren't bringing us on to talk about these things. They created a trans boogeyman, a straw man, trans,

but trans boogey man and just, like, created all this myth myth around us. And people have dug deep into it. And it's deep watching people, like, repeat these talking points. So, like the dehumanization. And it's not just with trans people, it's with, obviously, with immigrants. They're eating cats and dogs. Black people.

And then now, it's not. It extends to murderers. Yeah, it's gross. And so like, I think, like, just for our own mental health in this moment, like, how do we, like, see each other as human beings? And a lot of that is, like, for me, it's always starting with, like, myself and what I have to work on first. Like, whenever I'm like, and I even in when I was in the comment section, like, you know, commenting on Kevin's interview, I wasn't attacking him because I'm not perfect. But we're all in a process. Like, he's a human being who has blind spots,

maybe because he needs to for the money, for who knows. But, like, even, but Kevin, though, around accountability, I remember when he, the Oscars controversy, and I think it was an old tweet where he said that if his son was gay, he would beat him or something. And he, like, he ended, he withdrew from the Oscars, and I don't think they fired him. And then I remember he would,

that he was doing it, he was talking to Little Nas X on that. Remember LeBron James had a barbershop show or something on HBO? And then he was just like, why does sexuality matter? And it was just kind of like, why does your sexuality matter feels like, you know, I don't see color. Right. It's like, I don't see color. It matters because for Little Nas X as a black man who's in hip hop, like he's going to be treated differently. I mean, we've seen all the homophobia that he's experienced.

in a perfect world, it doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter. Like, we are all human beings, but the only reason these things, and they're all social constructs anyway, but the reasons they matter is because people are oppressed because of these things. The reason that race matters is because we live in a racist culture. And so that's why we have to talk about it. Because if we want, like, if we believe that everybody should have

rights and should be seen as human and have access to health care and employment and all the things. We have to actually talk about the thing. And it shouldn't be, and the only way to really do that is to create safety. We can't, oh my God, Toray has been killing. Do you know Toray, the journalist? I do. His channel, his YouTube channel is sifting. Really?

He was talking about he had a show with that woman that Dr. Bryant. Dr. Bryant, yes. And she was, he was, the clip, he did a whole screen about her. But she was, he was saying that corporal punishment, like, you know, beating your children is not an effective thing to do. It's not right. And then most psychologists agree. And then she disagreed and said that like, it's okay to beat your children.

And all, you know, then like he pulls up a clip of like a professional saying that like, when you're beating a child, that they're actually in survival most of your Olympic brain, right? So like we have like, and we're in survival mode, when we're in fight, fight, or freeze, we can't process information. So it's actually not, you have to be in your resilience. You have to be in your prefrontal cortex, and you have to feel safe.

When we don't feel safe, we go into the fight, flight, or freeze, and then we can't process information. So the only way we can process information is like an environment of safety. It's neuroscience. It's scientific. So I'm like, let's bring back safe spaces. Do we feel like this is?

a safe space so we can like, I do. Yeah. I do. I love you. I love you. I love you. I'm just sitting here in all of you. I talk a lot.

This is inside of you all day long. I know. It's a lot. Oh my God, Laverne. I have to like check out and like watch like silly TV or something. You have so much great shit to say, so I just was letting you go. But my God, I was like, we have to get to this podcast. Yes.

And I, and my note to myself in these podcasts is to talk less, listen more. more and really being dialogue in conversation. So I'm constantly giving myself notes and trying to be better at everything I do. But you're so good though, so it's okay. It's like you're not, it's not like you're saying things that don't need to be said. I appreciate, I agree. That's why I'm saying it. Yeah, no, I get.

And having the courage to say it right now too. I think people are scared and I'm scared too. I'm scared too, but I feel like myself when I can just. Yeah, I love that for you. And I can just. It's a scary time to say anything. Get my shit off. Can we curse me?

Please do. I feel like myself when I get to say what the fuck I need to say. All right. So Laverne came here and got some shit off her chest. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now we can talk about. For references, you can jump in the comment section of the Breakfast Club's post with Kevin Hart so you know what we're talking about.

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Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or well. So today's guest is a true trail place. Actress, producer, advocate, cultural icon who has transformed conversations around gender identity, representation, and visibility and mainstream media. We know her from all the things, Orange is the New Black, and many of the shows that she has been part of.

And she's helped redefine what authentic storytelling could look like on television. Since then, she's become one of the most influential voices for LGBTQ plus rights, mental health, inclusive representation across entertainment and culture. and now also author of her new book, Transcendent. My gosh. Laverne Cox. In real life. Franklin. You say you dreamed of a career that no one had ever had.

Imagine that idea alone. That idea alone. You had this idea. You're this kid trying to figure out who you are. You want to be an actress. Nobody that looks like you, like you, has ever had the career that you have. that you have, why on earth, where on earth did it even come from? How did you even dream that up?

It, a little delusion. I, it's weird when I was writing the book and thinking about my childhood, it was so hard to write the books, I really wanted to like get to the truth of what I was experiencing and like, even if it sounded weird or childish or whatever, I needed to just say what it was. And from my earliest memories, it really was alike in relationship to when the kids, you know, during daycare, when I would get bullied by the other kids. And, you know, they beat me up and my mother was like, why aren't you fighting back? And I remember distinctly thinking to myself, I'm above fighting with these kids.

You say you're not, you aren't even a fighter, right? I'm not a fighter. I'm still, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I don't get that from you, but, okay. I mean, I fight for my rights. I stand up for myself, but I'm not like, I don't physically fight. But I felt I was above it. I felt like I was here for something bigger than that.

I really did. And I don't know where that came from, but I've always felt that. And when my mother gave me and my brother this Black History book, when we were about five or six years old, I kind of confiscated the book, and they were like these, you know, for kids. They have these little pictures and these biographies of famous African Americans, W.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, of course, Malcolm X. I remember Catherine Dunham, though, Marion Anderson, Arthur Mitchell, and Lantin Price were like, I read them over and over again in Lantin specifically. I'd never heard her sing. I didn't know anything about opera, but she had this turban and its high cheekbones. And she was just so dignified in the photo. And reading about these artists specifically, Arthur Mitchell, the first black ballet dancer to dance at New York City Ballet. Catherine Dunham started her own ballet company, Marion Anderson.

my God, broke the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera, but then when the daughters of American Revolution didn't allow her to sing at Constitution Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt was like, why don't you sing at the Lincoln Memorial? And so instead of singing for a few thousand people, there were millions of people who heard her voice. And that changed things.

And the things that these artists had to endure, at six years old, I was like, wouldn't it be cool? because I always knew I wanted to dance, and I knew I'd be a dancer in transition to acting. I knew this always, but I wanted to dance. And so at five years old, I was begging my mother for dance classes. Finally in third grade, I started to take dance.

So I was like, how cool would it be if through my work as an artist, I could make things better for people who follow me? This idea enters my head at six years old. Six, wow. And so I had stuff to do. So I didn't have time to like, couldn't be bothered with kids in their petty, whatever. What I love about the way you framed out the book.

Also, when you write a book, it's like, isn't it such a therapeutic kind of, I don't know, was it for you this experience? No. Because the book? It is, I think it is now as I talk about it, the process. I thought that memories, I had forgotten a lot of my childhood and I thought, and I thought I'd use more of the way I'd disassociated when I would be getting beat, when I'd be beaten But when my mother would yell, I would disassociate and I would just go someplace else.

I imagine I was Darcel, the lead style of gold dancer. Or Madonna. Or Madonna. I love Madonna as a kid. Then Culture Club and Boy George came along. So I would literally disassociated. And like that's not unusual for a child can't process all that. So I would like go someplace else.

So I thought I would be using that throughout the book whenever I didn't remember something I would, I would just go into whatever the fantasy was. But as I started working with my co- co-writer Felice and she's asking me questions, memories started coming back. And they were buried for a reason, like really traumatizing things, like ugly crying and just like, like, core stuff

of feeling dirty, disgusting, unlovable, unwanted, like just the, I never felt wanted. I never felt wanted. And I felt like this incredible burden, I thought children ruined people's lives. My mother had two kids that she was raising by herself, and she was always reminding us how hard she had to work and how she had no help.

She worked four jobs. I didn't actually realize until we were in high school, she was still working for jobs, which is insane. It's insane. But she was always stressed out, and my therapist thinks that she was a narcissist, And that would explain a lot too. So she could just go off at the drop of a hat.

So I was, like, walking on eggshells, like, all the time. And so in figuring, and we have, when we think about the survival things, fight, flight, or freeze, there's also 10 number friend. Some people call it fawning. That's also a survival response. Ten number friend is like, you know, with the bears in the woods, you're like, oh, bear, it's okay. What can I do to make you feel better? Everything's going to be all right. And that was me and my mother.

My brother was like, flat. He was like, give me the fuck out of here. I was like, I'm gonna make you love me. I'm gonna make everything okay. And that was a lot of my childhood, because I loved my mother so much. And I thought if I made all eight, then I was really, really, really good.

She would love me and she would want me. And but I didn't feel, and unconditional love and I love because I just was, right? Let alone all the things internally that you were discovering about yourself that was different than your brother and different than your friends

and pretty much everybody else in your school. Everybody else. I love the way you frame the book in three parts. So first part is what's wrong with me. Second part is what happened to me. And then third part is what's right with me. So good.

By the way, Just that alone is so good. I think all of us in our own lives, but that is- That framework and kind of assess. I just told my therapist this, well, I guess this is when she said to me in therapy, that is part of the journey for me to healing from trauma,

is that we are in this thing of like, what's wrong with me? Like, what's, I'm, and then even then I had teachers saying, what's wrong with you? My mother's saying, what's wrong with you? Other kids saying, what's wrong with you? So, like, I felt like something was wrong with me. And like, I wasn't right. And then,

Then it's then, like, I get to a place of like, well, what happened to me? Like, that's nothing wrong with me. I'm, I'm mating God's image or something, but what happened to me. And that is so complicated. There was a lot of things happened. I was, you know, my mother, bless her heart, was like, because of our own childhood trauma and stress, she got pregnant and didn't plan on having two kids.

And then the sperm donor, I call them, sperm donor with my father, like, never claimed that, never wanted us. And we were told to lie about that. My mother told us when we were, if kids asked, or if the teacher asked, say, your father died before you were born, and you never knew him. And so I did that until I wrote this book. The whole time?

Yeah. Out of respect for her. And, but like, thinking about, think about being like five years old. And like, that's the lie. you're told and then you just keep telling that lie. And then obviously, I won't give this part away, but then we meet him for the first time when we were in third grade and the only time.

All these years he hasn't popped up. I heard about him. You know, you're going to end up like deputy in jail and whatever, like my mother, you know, I heard about him and what a piece of shit he was. But I had never met him. According to my mother, he was a piece of shit. And based on his actions, long with the-

Based on your experience. Yeah, personal experience, yeah. So just like a lot of shame, a lot of trauma, you know, other steps that have abuse, physical abuse, sex abuse, all like, it's just, ugh. All the things. And it's, and it's, and I still, like, I guess, you know, I've never, I've never talked about this, I've alluded to this, um,

sex abuse, but like, I've never really talked about that public. really either. So to write about it, all these things. It's like, and a lot of it, too, it's like people assume if you're trans, like, someone must have touched you or something like that. But like, I think hopefully people are smart. Well, people aren't. People aren't. But now we know, like, if you study this, any of this stuff, that predators prey on kids who are like already outcast, kids who are already, don't have support and are easier to sort of, because they're already alone and isolate. And I think, and I remember, I remember thinking for years

that the sexy beast happened, that I was five years old and the sex abuse happened, but when I finally told my mother and I write about this in the book and we calculated I had to be, I had to be two years old. And I think, and for a lot of years, I was, I blamed myself. I was like, what did I do to make, you know? And I was like, I was two. Like, even in five, it wasn't my fault.

But it definitely wasn't my fault or two. So carrying those thoughts around that I did something and that it was my fault. Even as an adult? And you're such like a, you've worked on yourself. You've done therapy. Yeah. And I, I just can't imagine that you could think as adult you that child. Well, I think adult me had, it took a minute to formulate adult me.

Even when I was like, when I turned 18 and turned 21, I was still in denial about, I would, you know, people asking me about childhood, it was fabulous. Everything was fabulous. Everything was wonderful. By that time, I created this persona because I thought that's what I needed to do to be accepted and to be. So everything was fabulous and fine and wonderful. And it wasn't. And I got to a point when I couldn't be in that lie anymore. And it really, honestly, I had to deal with the gender stuff first. And when I started my medical transition in 1998, and the anxiety I had around it, I was just a sense of relief. And it was at the beginning of me, like, being able to tell the truth to myself.

And so, like, that truth, like, was like, okay, so this, yeah, my childhood wasn't great. And I was terrified and I did feel unloved and unwanted. And not safe. And unprotected, for sure, not all the things and overcompensated by making all A's and winning talent shows. It's very drama, the gifted child of people know that book. Like, I felt like I would be loved for what I did and what I could do, but not for who I am. that I had to do something to be loved, not that I was lovable because I just am.

And that's realizing that. And then that's one thing. And then finding a sense of actual worthiness because I'm a child of God and worthiness of love. That was years. That was years. And that can only really be healed in relationship to other people, particularly a therapist because it's part of its attachment theory. And then, like, I did group therapy.

And so some of the people in the group therapy helped a lot. And eventually some friends and a few romantic relationships helped. But more friends and group therapy. Yeah. Wow. Because it has to like, because there's a difference between understanding something intellectually. And then, to quote Morpheus from the first Matrix movie, there's a difference between knowing the path and

walking it. And there was a point I remember years ago, I was at the doctor's, I was the doctor's office for something. And I was getting a little counseling. It was getting old counseling. And as you can tell, I'm, I can talk my ass off and I'm kind of smart, you know, according to some people. But the doctors said, I can't wait for your core to catch up with your head. I can't wait for it. And that's what the therapy I've been doing for the past 10 years. The somatic therapy, because really when you're, it has to land in the body. Talk therapy is great, but it has, somatic means in the body. It has to land in the nervous system, because trauma lives in the body in specific places. You could say, you know, if I've experienced this,

and I, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can articulate all of the things that you're supposed to articulate. But actual healing. My body has to know it. And I need, because the hard wiring, neurobiologically, the heart wiring is to pick the abusive man because he reminds me of the bullies. Were you still doing that?

For years until when did I stop with the abuse of me? It was maybe 2011, 2012 was when I turned a corner for that. You were repeating this learned behavior as a child. Yeah. And Jennifer, my therapist, one of the things she said in therapy to me that like just blew. blew my wig back. She said trauma survivors turn alarm bells into dinner bells, and dinner bells into alarm bells.

Meaning, like, the heart wiring we have, it's like the threat we should run away from. But when you've survived trauma, and you're trying to maybe make sense of your life, I think like the alcoholic X I had in the early 2000s was so, who was the most unabusive? He was my mother. I was like trying to make my mother love me

by choosing someone like her, and I was like, I'm going to be amazing with him. He's going to love me and that's going to cure all, like, subconsciously, I didn't consciously think this. It's insane to say out loud. It's insane, but it's really kind of common. I think everybody, it's childhood trauma. It's different versions of childhood trauma.

And then I realized, well, my mother's still alive. Maybe I can work on this with her. But that's, yeah, I did. I did. And she had, she has her limitations. I have to be real about it. She has her limitations. And like, I think this is a fine.

But years after I came out to her as trans, she said, you know, like, maybe like seven years afterwards, she said, you know, I went to therapy for two years to deal with your, you know, your transness. And I was like, I was like, wow. And in my mind, I'm thinking, girl, that's the least of your problems, my transness. And that's not to be shady. I just, but it's like my grandfather grew up on a plantation. And he was beaten. And your grandmother was an abusive relationship that was abused too. With him, with my grandfather, J.P.

But also, she got married at 12 years old to flee a stepfather who was abusing her. I mean, that's, I mean, women getting married at like 12, 13 in the South, and like, the early 1800s was like standard. So she's fleeing with an abusive man and then gets into a relationship. Mary is a man who's way older than her. That's abusive. She's single. a couple kids, she gets her stuff together,

and then JP comes along. Wow. And so this is what my mother is born into. And that abuse that he learned in the plantation, he passed on to my grandmother and to his children, my mother. And that's what she passed on. And so like- You give her grace for that?

Absolutely. When I learned all this, I was just, and then even things that I will never talk about that she endured in her life, it's amazing. It's my mother's. amazing. She put her, with all that, she put herself through undergrad graduate school. She bought her, pay for a house full out, raised two kids, you know, from nothing, like from nothing. And still a lot of unprocessed trauma, which is, which makes me really sad. But I think that

like it's just so much. So many women. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IHR Radio Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate, love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca.

Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find a lot. and experience joy.

And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a breakup. Joy is an empty nester. Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you.

Listen to Joy 101 on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get podcasts. People, period, but so many black women, my mom is in her 70s, they dealt with so much, especially in the South. And the depths of, like, misogyny and racism, colliding is like, it's kind of amazing that she's even still standing. It's remarkable. And she was single, four jobs raising two kids, probably had no experience. I mean, I don't even think for them in their generation, even the word transgender was a, like, was she even, she couldn't wrap her brain around raising a transgender child

or what that would require or what type of, I mean, you see, now there's, there's so many resources. I mean, this is weird talking. I mean, when I was eight years old and Ms. Ridgeway, it's like your son is gonna end up and you want this wearing a dress, if you don't get into therapy right away, that was 1980. That's what they said.

I was eight years old. That was 1980. And what did that do to you when you hear that? I mean, I told it like as a joke for a while, a lot of years. And then when I dug deep, that was some of the stuff I started remembering. Oh, God. That's some of the stuff I started remembering when I was writing the book. And that was like the turning point for me in my childhood where like before that,

I was just kind of free. I like danced around all the time and I was just myself. And after that, it was like, me, Fannie Fannie, like Scarlett O'Hara, from Gone with the Wind, in class, started like this whole family emergency and, like, stressed my mother out. And, like, I have to go to a therapist, and my mother can't even know how she can afford a therapist.

And people are talking about her. And I was like, a, my mother didn't have time for a problem. She was trying to support two kids and make ends me. She couldn't pay rent sometimes. She didn't have time for, I didn't have time. I didn't have, so, I didn't want to be a problem. And all of a sudden, because I wanted to fan myself, like Scarlett O'Hara, I was a problem, and I had to be fixed.

And so that, so then I was like, okay, I'm gonna try, you know, that's when I started censoring myself and started trying to, like, rain in my mannerisms and rain, like, and just start looking at myself from the outside, so I wouldn't present a certain way, probably. I did a terrible job of it. I can't imagine. I did a terrible job of it. But like the shame, it was the shame that I am unworthy

of connection and belonging because I am in this way that's very natural for me. And so that was awful. And talking to my brother about it, I mean, just the intellectual part of me, I think I go between like emotion and intellect. That's why I talk too much and sometimes ramble. But my brother, like, Years later, we talked about how that affected him.

And for him, he was like, oh, I really need to, like, bush up as much as possible. Because I was, like, getting it from all sides. And what that taught him is that he really needed to, like, stay within the lines of like gender and whatever. But then he also, it- Isn't that interesting, though, how your experience. This is your experience.

I mean, this book is really your experience. Yes. But also- But even from that, their viewpoints is everything. But it within the resentment that he developed towards mother because of how she treated me. I think he doesn't talk to my mother still. And it's for his own reasons. But I think it feels like it's also partly how she treated me.

And he's forgiven her, but he just feels like he doesn't need her in his life. And I just can never imagine not having my mother in my life. It's tough. You meet your parents where they are. Have you never thought about interjecting and trying to? I was caught in the middle for a really long time. And I feel like that was a lot of the dynamic in our family. And at a certain point, I was just, I had to draw a boundary.

and I had to be like, please don't ask me about him, you know. Do you feel any guilt about that? No. I've learned not to feel guilt about taking care of myself. And this is what therapy has taught me that, like, this is drawing boundaries. Please tell me that again. I've learned to not feel guilt for taking care of myself. I don't have kids.

That's just for whoever needs that. Boundaries of like, Brenéy Brown says, the most compassionate people are the most bounderied. And I feel that in my spirit, because I do feel like there's so much, I have so much love and grace for people. And I think that's because I, my, I have boundaries, girl. Good for you. I'm working on it. I'm working on mine. It's really hard. What, what, may I ask you, what do you feel like you're struggling with in terms

of boundaries? I'm just learning them now because I make excuses for people a lot, because I have a compassionate person. I also realize everybody is just a product. You think it's for friends, excuses for family. Everybody. And so I allow things to happen around people around me. And I make excuses for people because, oh, they have this or, oh, they just because they experience this, that's why they're like that. But then in the meantime, you let that happen to you.

If you have people in your life and you allow certain behaviors, you're kind of allowing that to happen to you. Correct. You're framing it around giving people grace. which I like to give people grace. Me too. But that only works if you are conscious about the boundaries of how it affects you. But another Renee Brown moment that's so iconic. She was doing a workshop with this Episcopal Church.

In some of which she's a qualitative researcher. So she based the research on people's lived experiences. And she asked the question in the group, deacons and Episcopal ministers, do you believe people are doing the best that they can? and or do you believe people are doing the best, doing everything they can to piss you off? And, you know, people are like, I like to believe people are doing the best they can.

And then it was like, is they a person in your life who you think it's just doing everything they can to piss you off, write the person's name down? And then everybody writes the person's name down. Now can you imagine that this person is doing the very best that they can? And then, like, a few people started crying,

And Renee, it's like, why are you crying? And there was his husband and wife who wrote down the same person. And it was, I think, their daughter or niece or someone who, they had a daughter, she was a drug addict, and they were constantly giving her money, sending her to rehab, to try to get her better. And it wasn't working, and they were just frustrated and angry and, like, just resentful.

And Renee's like, if she's doing the best that she can, what then do you know? need to do, then we can't give her any money anymore. If this is the best she can do, she's going to spend that money on drugs. I can't give her any money anymore. I can't keep investing my energy and time into her because she's going to continue to disappoint me and put us in painful situations. So if she's doing the best that she can, and we assume that people are doing the best she can, then that means I can't be in your life. That if this is the best that you can do, I understand, but this is not good for me. This is going to trigger old patterns. This is going to have me twirling out.

You have to take care yourself. That's really, and so that's a place of compassion for them, but also for yourself. And it's not a mean thing. It's just like, I can't pour femininity cup. If I'm, if I can be, if I'm going to be of service in the world, I have to fill up my cup and the overflow is for everyone else. And I can't fill up my cup if I have people in my life that are draining me and sucking me dry and have me in resentment and anger. So with great boundaries, I can be more compassionate. I'm going to take that with me today. Thank you.

By the way, the What's Wrong With Me part of the book, I think all of us should take this time in our life to and write a, even if you don't write a full book, write a few chapters on like that part of your life because like how you talk about how the what's wrong with me period informed some of the men you dated informed how you're managing your mom and your relationship with your brother now kind of everything it kind of informs everything first of all there's so many i mean you talk about suicide attempt um abuse bullying even the moment i mean there's a page in here i had marked it about you going through puberty

And I can only imagine, we were talking about this before in the back, you know, when you're 13 years old and you're straight, I don't, I'm not thinking about my sexuality as a kid. I wasn't thinking about sexuality either. I was called an F word, a sissy, from my first interactions with kids. That's what I mean, that you were forced to look at sexuality. But for me, I don't think it was actually about sex when I was three years old. and when I was very, I think it was about me being feminine, right?

And like, because people conflate gender and gender identity and sexuality, because I was a very feminine kid, that's why they called me the sissy and the F word and queer all the things. But didn't that force you to think about it sooner than maybe you would have because of other people's kind of... I... So initially, it was just, it was like these kids, I don't have time for these kids, but I also like the irony of my life, is that when I was a kid, the other kids called me a girl. And when I transitioned, people call me a man.

And but that's the truth. And then like even there were so many trans women when I posted that they were like, that was my experience too. So it was about my gender expression that I was a very feminine child. And because I was assigned male at birth, they said, Sissy, they said F word, they said queer. And so like for me, I didn't even know what these were.

The first time I heard these words, I didn't know what they were. were, how does a three-year-old and five-year-old know what a sister? I knew it wasn't good. They weren't saying it with love. It was not a good thing. And then I just was like, screw them. But I also, like, knew that I was a girl, too.

But I also, like, knew that people were telling me I was a boy. So, like, I'm aware now that as an adult, like, that awareness made me question everything from a really early age. And that's a good thing. Is it a good thing? Questioning what people are telling you. Like when you know something about yourself and you know something to be true and then people are telling you the opposite, it's like what's really what's really forces you to grow up faster than you should be forced to.

I certainly didn't feel like a child when I was a child. And a lot of my, I still need to give myself to play time and still need to give myself like give my inner child. Like yeah. Yeah. I definitely did not, I was not a child when I was a child, yeah, for sure. That makes me sad for you, like that, or for children in that situation. It is what it is.

I mean, that's my life. But it's never too late to have a happy childhood. You know, that's like, one of the things I learning in therapy, but it's true. Like, years ago, a therapist is like, you know, your mother didn't lie, you have, buy yourself a Barbie and play with their and dresser, and I was just like, I can do that. I was like, yeah, and I was like, and I did, and I have, and it's awesome, and now I have a LeBerncox Barbie Barbie from Mattel. Yeah. Which is pretty awesome.

I love that. The first trans person to have a Mattel Barbie doll. So you can, that's, and that's for me, I think, one of the biggest lessons maybe from the book that I want to, there's so many things I want to say to people, but like, I, as a child, I was defenseless. I was not responsible. I couldn't consent. But once, Once I'm an adult, I'm responsible for my life. I'm responsible for how I respond to my childhood, for the situations that I put myself in. I am responsible. So I- To heal?

To heal. Yes, this happened to me because my mother did this and this person abused me and this, all the, and we were poor, all these things happened. But I'm an adult now and I'm responsible for my life and I have to take accountability for my life and responsibility for it. There are systemic things that are, that's real, But that's what's my 50%? What can I control?

And so, like, yeah, all these things happen, but I don't have to be defined by them. Another part of healing from trauma is like a lot of trauma survivors are overly defy either they deny the trauma happened, which is what I did for a really long time, or once they acknowledge it, they're overly defined by it. But building trauma resilience is like, this happened. And it's in the proper place in your timeline,

because the nervous system doesn't know if a trauma happened 20 years ago, happened 20 years ago, so once triggered the nervous system experiences that this is happening right now, which is great for acting. Terrible for real life. So, terrible, really terrible for real life. That's why you're a great actress. But you get it in the right timeline in your life so that this happened, but I'm not defined by this thing that happened to me.

I'm not defined by that. I'm defined by the choices I make and by my resilience and how I rewrite the story. Good for you. Yeah. Second part, what happened to me is the second part, where there's reflection now. You're like, hey, wait a minute. Some of this shit wasn't right. And then you're course correcting or you're trying to, you're at least trying to course correct. Or grab hold of your own life, the beginnings of that. You come to New York. It's kind of like that moment, right? Coming to New York in the 90s. Oh, my God. As like what, 20, 20, 20, I was 21 when I moved to you in 1993. 1993. By the way, New York at that time, but the gay clubs in New York at that time, by the way.

You're a native New Yorker. I'm a native New Yorker. I was in the streets in the 90s, so. Do you disclose your age? I'm 55. I'm 55. I'm 54 tomorrow. Okay, so I'm, what I'm telling you is I was in New York.

Now I'm straight, but I know I was in the gay clubs too in the 90s, because the gay clubs in the 90s was all the good parties. I feel like the parties were all the good parties were all. I feel like the parties were all. all integrated. That's what I mean. It was a time. A time was being had.

Lime light when it, and I arrived in 1993, LimeLydde Disco 2000 on Wednesdays, it was all the bridge and tunnel like straight folks and then like the club kids and drag queens. Everybody parties together in the 90s. Like I'm Café Com Lecee. Oh, Cape Con Leche Girl. That's a whole other book. Cafe Con Lece, girl.

But everybody, literally Joey Rowland, who was. one of the party promoters, I did a song called, the gays, the straight, bisexuals, transsexuals, we're here, we're all here. Cafe con lece with, it moves several different locations, but everybody partied together. Yeah, no, I know. I was in those parties.

I remember. That's why it was the time in New York. The club scene in New York was amazing at that time. So you being- What a wonderful time to be in New York, right? What a wonderful time to be in New York. But also especially if you're, you hadn't transitioned yet at that time.

So you're a young man at that time. Well, I would say I was gender non-conforming. When I moved to New York, York, I started wearing, when I went to boarding school, when I was to Alabama School of Fine Arts, I started like wearing women's and girls clothes, my color, my Salvation Armani, like, not a dress, because I was terrified of ending up a new one's wearing a dress, but like I started wearing culots and veil bottoms, and I started wearing makeup and shaving my brows and wearing lashes every day. So like that evolved. And so by the time I would move to New York, I had a lash on

every day. I had a shaved head. I would draw in my brows, had a beat face, you know. know, every day, and I had my very androgynous. We call it gender non-conforming now, but when I arrived in New York, I was gender, I was gender non-conforming, and had my look, and that's, and I was rocking it, and it was, I was harassed in the street during the day, but at nighttime, I would go to limelight, and they let me ride in, I go to Webto Hall, they let me ride in, Flamingo East, all the, all the spots. So it was like, when the night fell, I was this, I was a celebrity, I was a star. I was like the reason the party that the club kids,

like, if they weren't club kids at your party, it wasn't a party. Right? Yeah, of course. So it was a wonderful thing to be celebrated. Yes, girl. It was a wonderful thing to be celebrated for something I was bullied for. And still, you know, harassed for on the street during the day,

but at night it was magical. And I would imagine a lot of that. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. I-R-Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including I-HARP Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride.

Come together, celebrate. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone. Listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence.

Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.

Joy after a breakup. Joy as an empty nester. Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Formed your career, right? Because you're finding, you're starting to express yourself.

And Roo Paul, it just, like, become an international, like, phenomenon when I moved to New York. And Club Kids were on Joan Rivers. And, like, before I moved to New York, I remember seeing Richie Rich and Tobell, who I became friends with. And Amanda Lepore on Joan Rivers Show, and Paris is Burning had come out. So there was, it was a time to be in New York and to be in that scene. It was a time to birth you. Yeah. And kind of give you wings to become...

Yeah. I came here feeling like... I'm like, oh, my people are there. I always knew New York, even before I knew anything about Club Kids, I knew it was New York. The second I discovered fame, that TV show and movie from the 80s, I was like, New York. That's where I'm the NUTV.

Like, I remember 188, yeah, eight years old. I would have been eight, nine years old when fame came up. Did you have an understanding at that time that there was room for somebody? Because while you said there was RuPaul and there There was some repos. The Rupal was later, was in the 90s, but all you're talking about in the 90s. But I'm just saying representation was scarce. For sure.

You know what I'm saying, especially trans representation. I didn't, I, I, we didn't see that on a mainstream scale. Were you already starting to understand the idea that you could be that, that you could actually change things? Honestly, I think, I think about when I thought, when Boy George playing Culture Club became, they were huge in the early 80s. And I was like, okay. And then there was like, all this crazy and draw.

Even on Soul Train, if you look at old cliffs of Soul Train from the 80s, the stuff that got through, could you, I was just thinking about all the homophobic rappers, looking at the old Soul Train acts, to Tremaine Stewart being on Soul Train. We don't have to take our clothes, I remember Jane, Stuart. Big Old Queen, with that, you know, on the pressed out hair, laid. But, like, girl, like gay, like just, like some gay stuff was happening on Soul Train. And it just, it was the 80s though, and it was just kind of like, I mean, people, like,

Prince was around and like, people thought Liberace was straight, you know, so it was just a different time. Which is so fabulous. So I just, I believed, I didn't think about, the interesting thing is I didn't think about like, I was aware, obviously I was aware I was black, but I didn't think about these things as hindrances. I just, I felt like there was something inside me,

and I was a star and I was talented, and that I should be a, star. People like always remembered me. I had had a presence, you know, obviously that need to be cultivated into, you know, training, with training. But I just always believed that I should be a star. And then I think as I, when I transitioned and I like really started existing in trans community and hearing experiences from other trans people, I became, and then like, yes, I've been harassing the street my whole life, and bullied and stuff, but like, I was just programmed to succeed.

I was programmed to believe that I was supposed to be successful. Wow. Yeah. And the world certainly, and then it was a period in the 90s, even, you know, I just remember I would, when I worked at coffee shop, you remember coffee shop. Of course. It's still there, by the way.

No, they just closed? No, it closed in 2018. Really? It was. Well, the coffee shop was still there? On 14th Street? I'm 16, the Unions Grow West, because I worked there for 10 years. Um, they closed in 2018.

I remember I was really sad. Is there a new one in its place? It's a chase bank now. It's really sad. It's really sad. Oh, I'm thinking the cafeteria. Oh, cafeteria. Coffee shop did close down.

Coffee shop, yeah. And so. I do remember coffee shop. Wow. So wait, it was like, so yeah, when I worked at coffee shop, people would come in and I would like get like, oh, come in model for this or come and do, I would get like opportunities working there. I remember like even I was doing runway coaching for someone in the 90s, like these twins.

They were these party promoters who were twins from Africa. I forget their names. They had me like teaching girls how to model for some fashion show in my life. So you were just like already that girl. I was just, I was in New York and I was, there were just kind of opportunities for people who were different, who were drag queens or gender non-conforming or club kids. There was just, there were places to work like coffee shop.

You could, at least you could work. At least you can go and have, get a little. if you were lucky. And I was one of the lucky men who was able to like, you know, go to coffee shopping and wait tables for 10 years and then Lucky Chang. I would have loved to see you in coffee shop. I'd love to go. I used to do runway down the aisles.

And it was a time in the, I didn't even write about celebrities. You used to come in a coffee shop. I'm waiting on Wanda Sykes, Tyrese. Q-Tip was a regular. I was there with Q-Tip one time. Queen the Tifa. Queen Latifia used to come in to get, she always ordered food to go. She had a guest were head a recording studio

because I worked the graveyard. She had a recording studio, thinking, in Square. She would always come in. She'd have a fly posse, a fly woman. And she was always super sweet, and she would order her food to go. It was the Grace Jones stories. A lot of things that did not make it to the book. But there's a lot of things in the book,

which if we had more time today, we would go down many rabbit holes. And the third, just real quick, before we wrap. Of course. The third part of the book is what's right with me, which is the most inspiring, because it's like, Yes, you go through those things. And yes, I have to deal with all the shit I went through.

But like, man, I did so many things right. I did things right. You represented it in a way that nobody else had. Thank you. You just got a lot of things right. What is the number one thing that you think you got right? What I wouldn't say got right. What I always had was a sense of when I didn't believe in myself,

I was deeply passionate about art and performing. And for years, people were like, how do I get more confident like you? I was like, I've never been confident, but I have had- Fake it well. But it's not even faking it, it's the passion and the love.

When I'm passionate, you see him, you're sitting here talking to me, when I'm excited about something, when I'm passionate about something, it takes over. And so the love and the passion for performing, for learning, for getting better at what I do, that just overcame all the other stuff

because I was just so, I wanted to learn, I wanted to perform, and I want it more. And I thought, why not? I just remember for years when I, you know, watching reality shows and like watching the real world and watching something like, what would it be like if a trans person were on this show? Why wasn't a trans person on this show?

And then eventually I was on one of those shows. So it was like, it was having a vision, it was looking around, and being like, I can do this and I should be doing this. And there's, and it was, in seeing it for myself first, Coleman Domingo kind of recently said, he was talking about teaching an acting class and like, you know, a plus size girl

that come in and done a monologue from Fat Pig, this Neil LeBruitt play. And Coleman was like, why did you choose that? She was like, well, I'm, you know, I'm heavy, and I thought that would be a good monologue for me, you know, to go out in the world. And he was like, when I saw you, I saw Clea. Juliet, I saw an ingenue.

And he was encouraging her to see herself differently. And he had to see for himself as an actor that he could be a leading man, that there were other things that he could do. And so that's a lot, a lot of it was the vision and understanding of what I believed I could do and still believe I can do that I haven't had the opportunity to do yet. And you have to see it. you have to see it first. You have to have the vision first.

So I've always, for whatever reason, had that vision that I can be, you know, when I was fanning myself, like Scarlett O'Hara, yes, there was Butterfly McQueen and, you know, had Amy Daniel, but I was Scarlett O'Hara. Not that I wanted to be a white woman, but I wanted to be the main character. I wanted to be the object of desire and, you know, this hero's journey and arc.

And yeah, so at 50, before, I still have a lot of work to do. Yeah, but you've done so much. You must be, are you not proud of your accomplishments? You have to be. I am. I am. And I, and I, partly because it's so improbable that it could happen.

But what, my career shows has shown that it's possible. When you look at my resume, I say, the first trans person to be nominated for primetime made me first trans person to blah, blah, blah, blah, all the things. Because it hadn't been done. before, but I was the first, but I'm not the last. And that really is the thing that I'm proudest of. Because now other trans people see it, there's the possibilities there, and it can happen.

And they're making it happen, which is incredible. This is going to be perfect and really hard for you, because it's a speed round. Before we go, we're going to give you a speed round of IRL questions. Directors love me. I can take direction. Speed round. Speed round.

What do you like most about yourself in real life? I'm cute and adorable. I think I'm really adorable. And I really work hard to treat people well. What is your superpower? Empathy. Nice. I am no longer available for.

People, places and things that would allow me to betray myself. I'm no longer apologizing for. Anything. I heard you. I didn't realize I was strong until. Until I stepped back and took a look at what I endured. How often do you think about your legacy? What would you like that to be?

Whenever I think about this, I always think about what My Angelou said to Oprah, when Oprah said, this school in Africa is going to be my legacy. And Angelou says, my dear, you have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is every person you touch. So I know what I want to leave behind in terms of a body of work, but that really spoke to me, what My Angelou said. I think, and when I meet people whose lives have been changed because of my visibility, my work. I'm like, that is, yeah, because it's the people you would touch that,

like, you know, when you're not famous, you know, there's so many people in the trans community who aren't never famous, but their names are carried on because they touch people's lives. What is the one thing that allies can do better to be supportive of the trans community? What do we get wrong? What do we get wrong and what can we do better? I think it's about listening more than you speak. And whenever possible elevating the lived experiences and the voices of real trans people, we can speak for ourselves. We can advocate for ourselves. We just need the platform to do it. And when you see, just like when people, if you see racism happening in front of you,

you see transphobia happening in front, you say something. With love, you can say, and like with love, that's not cool. It's not cool. Yeah. That's not cool. So if you have an opportunity to elevate, you know, trans stories, because our stories rehumanize us and the dehumanization that creates a permission structure, take away rights and commit violence against people, that's what we're in now, the Limpkin Center that studies genocide says we're on a trans people in America on a slow course towards genocide because of this administration. And genocide can only happen through dehumanization. So we rehumanize by connecting with people's stories and their lived experiences. It's hard to dehumanize someone when you sit here and you're like real. And I would hope. I would hope too. Yeah.

That's my hope for the world that I would hope that. Hey, guys, you ever sign up for a phone plan thinking, wow, what a great price. And then a few months later, it's like, surprise, your bill is higher. We hate that. With Boost Mobile, you pay $25 a month forever. That's unlimited talk, text, and data starting at just $25 a month. There's no price hikes. There's no contract.

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are we not going to voice note and then one question and put the ball and you're gone and then we're out of here and we're almost on time i believe hi laverne i'm joey and my question for you is when you close your eyes and imagine you have a day off how do you decide to clean out love me and thank you for everything that you do for the community. Queen out. Is that a real term? I thought of queening out is in different terms. So the question is how, on my off days,

what do I do to queen out? Queen out. I'm learning new terms today. I was exhausted from that list of things. I was like, okay, massage, facial. And then you go to the club too? Like, that's a relaxing day. I work so much when I get a day off.

A lot of times at sleep, I've been being, I've been binging shows. I just watched the boys finally and binge that. I love just binging out on TV. And I rewatch a lot of stuff. I rewatched scandal like a few times recently. And I love just being at home by myself, like, quiet-quieting out.

A quiet chill, it's a quiet, because it's my work, I'm queening out of my work. Yeah. Right? All day, every day. All day, every day in different ways. So like, everybody should have joy. But my joy is really, it's really,

My girlfriends, it's community. I love trans people. We're so amazing. What do tell me the best thing about the trans community? Being part of it that we'll never understand. I don't even get to experience. I mean, you know, everybody has, every community has issues. But the best of us though, like my girls, my girls are smart, insightful, resilient,

anointed. Like we and like, but people have to, what people should know and understand. I used to think gender 101 should be a core curriculum in a university. The gender binary model is a Western European construct. Indigenous cultures all over the world have like, they move, even in Africa, like they move beyond male, female. They've been like in India, they have the Hidra who were like this third gender,

Mahu and Hawaii, all over the world. Indigenous cultures had third and two-spirit, different Native American tribes. And who we would think of as trans people. And those, Hidra, like the Hidra would bless your wedding and bless the christening of a child. We were spiritual leaders in so many of these indigenous cultures. And I feel that inside of me. And a lot of the trans people I know who are in touch with their light

have a spirituality and a wisdom that if we just listened, that we could learn so much. So I think that's the anointed spirituality. And I think like what really comes down to for me and my transness, it's spiritual. Like it's so funny. There's like all of the, yes, medically transitioning was necessary for me. Gender-affirming care saved my life.

It saves children's lives. But like, what it allowed was the spiritual awakening. And all my friends say the same thing, my closest friends. It's being trans is a very spiritual thing. And that's, I mean, that's amazing. Because when you're in the spirit girl, when Oprah used to do that, remembering your spirit at the end of the Oprah show, when you're in the spirit, like in church, you get the spirit, you're in the spirit.

Like, you want to tap your feet. You want to like, you're connected to like the energy, of power, a source that's greater than yourself. And like, when, when you're, you want to tap your feet, you want to, like, you're connected to, the energy, a power, source that's greater than yourself. And, like, when, when, at our best, we as trans people have that. Hey guys, support for this podcast is brought to you by Walden University. Have you ever thought to yourself,

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matters most. If you've been waiting for the right moment, this is it. Head to WaldenU.edu and take that first step. Walden University set a course for change, certified to operate by Shiv. All right, it's time for our bowl, our questions from the IRL Bowl presented by Walden University. You want to pick or you want me to pick? You pick or you're, um, you're, you pick one. Okay, or I'll close my eyes. Okay, close your eyes. Take that one in this one and then we'll go. Okay. And I, are you, am I stirring? Yeah, you go.

Lately, I've been reminding myself that health is wealth. This is getting older. This is the getting older thing. And just like, health is wealth. That I can't do anything. If my health fails me, then I'm... I know. And it's only when it goes down that you realize it and you appreciate it and you pray for it.

But it's something that I used to daily, you know, take care of myself. And that's loving myself too. That's funny. most. God give me permission to do this imperfectly and allow me to be of service. That's the prayer I say most often. Oh, say that again? That's good. God give me permission to do this imperfectly and allow me to be of service. I started doing it when I was doing a lot of speaking engagements and I'm so hard on myself and I was just like I'm not going to be perfect. And then I was also like the first trans person a lot of people would encounter and I was like,

I can't screw this up. And I was like, I'm not going to be perfect. But maybe I can be of service. I know I'm going to make a mistake. I know I'm going to mess up. I'm so good. So. There it is.

That's the final question. If God were to text you right now, what would it say? What would the text say? If God were to text me right now, what would it say? Don't worry. I got you. Just turn it over to me.

LeBern Cox in real life, everybody. Girl. I need it. I need it. Yeah. I'm going to let's the text. I need that. I'm going to just try to let that download a little bit. Thank you for today. That was beautiful. This is Laverne Cox in real life. Hey guys, thanks for watching. Make sure you subscribe, like, comments, and check out all of the other episodes we have on Angel Martinez, IRO podcast. Guaranteed human.