The Breakfast Club - Laverne Cox Talks Acting Career, LGBTQ+ Community, +More With Jess Hilarious

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Laverne Cox Talks Acting Career, LGBTQ+ Community, +More With Jess HilariousSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Morning everybody it's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha God, we are The Breakfast Club. We got our co-host with us this morning, Miss Jess Hilarious. That's right. And we have our special guest, first time here. Yes. Thank you for joining us, Laverne Cox. Welcome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so excited to be at The Breakfast Club. You have become such an important space for the culture on so many different levels politically in terms of music. And it's just lovely to be here in all of my multitudes. We're happy to have you here. Yeah. Why did you think you were banned?

Who lied and said you were banned? Who said you were banned? That's what Jason said. That's what Jason said. So we reached out. So we reached out last year when my Barbie came. And I was like, it would be great to come onto the Breakfast Club and talk about the Laverne Cox Barbie. I'm the first trans person to have a Barbie created by Mattel. And I thought it would be great.

And I think this audience is really valuable. And I think this audience, I was talking to Jason about this. And I think there's, I don't like to say there's white media and black media. But like a lot of the work that I've done, the audiences have been diverse. But it's been a majority white audience. I'm working at E! now. And it's definitely a diverse audience there. But this is a black audience. We're happy to have you.

And I I'm black and I love being black and this black excellence is I'm doing things out here and I think that it's important for this audience to know that. Talk to us about this outfit because it's giving black superhero. Thank you. Thank you for asking.

That's like motorcycle superhero. So this is Manfred Terry Mugler. It's vintage. It's from his fall 1989 Buick Winter Collection. Obviously inspired by motorcycles, inspired by cars. Terry Mugler actually has an exhibit at Brooklyn Museum right now. If people like this, there's something in the exhibit that's similar to this. I collect vintage Terry Mugler. So yes, I'm glad

you mentioned it. You have to kind of see the whole thing. Stand up for them. Sounds too rich for my blood. Listen, this is one of my favorite pieces. Thank you for asking. I collect Mugler. I'm obsessed in a good way, I think. Maybe unhealthy. They should be giving you free stuff, I hope.

No, for real. Because she gave a whole lesson just now. I was like, you know what I want to wear? I know that's right. Megan Thee Stallion has a line in Plan B, Moogler suits in my meetings. And in the video, she's wearing Al Moogler. Now, Casey Cadwallader is the executive director of Moogler now. Mr. Al Moogler died, who founded the company.

But it's run beautifully now by KC. Laverne, talk over here, because he just knows Target and Walmart T-shirts. He knows everything. That's bizarre. Act my way. Get into Mugler. The girls are wearing Mugler.

The boys are wearing Mugler. The non-binary people are wearing Mugler. Feel the fantasy, honey. Get into it. Learn it. But y'all ain't going to never get on the bike, though. Y'all just gonna wear the Mugle. Y'all ain't going.

I am not getting on the bike. Years ago when I was a waitress, so this, I met this guy. I used to work at Coffee Shop in Union Square. You remember Coffee Shop in Union Square? Oh, yeah. I do remember the Coffee Shop. I used to be a waitress there and I met this guy and like, you know, when I was a waitress, I was young, in my 20s, so I would meet guys at work, you know.

And met the dude and he waited for me to get off from work, and he wanted to go hang out, and he had a motorcycle. And I was like, sweetie, I'm not getting on this motorcycle. I was like, you can pay for me for a cab, and then we can meet at the diner. Yeah, he got me a taxi, and we met at the diner. I was not getting on that motorcycle. I had no interest. Now for a movie role, I'll do almost anything for a movie role. So if someone wants to pay me,

I'll get on a motorcycle. Yeah, if anyone wants to pay me. That's what so many of us were introduced to you when you were acting on Orange is the New Black. I told you when I first met you at the iHeart Music Festival and you were backstage and I came up to you and I was like, yo, I'm a fan. I still love Orange is the New Black.

Thank you. So acting is what you really, really want to do? Is that your passion? It absolutely is. And I'm still acting. Last year, a lot of people saw me in Inventing Anna, which was a huge show on Netflix. I played Casey Duke in that.

I have a guest spot in something that I can't talk about yet, but it's really cool. And we're prepping to do a show with Norman Lear, the legendary Norman Lear. And I'll talk over here as well. Called Clean Slate, George Wallace, the legendary comedian plays my dad. It's set in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama. It's a comedy and it's about this woman who goes back home and tries to reconnect with her dad after many years of being away.

So we start shooting that in Savannah like next month. Oh my God. I don't think there's air already for Norman Lear comedy. Norman Lear is the Jeffersons in Good Times. I don't think they're ready. One Day at a Time did really well

and he has new shows. Norman is 100 years old and he's still producing shows and people are watching. So as long as they're watching, we're going to keep creating. As long as they're watching. Yeah, Norman is amazing. He is getting to know him and just being in a room with him when we pitched the show to him was just iconic. We sat in the room with him for like 90 minutes. After the meeting, he said he was 96 at the time. He said, I learned more about life in this last hour that I should have known that I didn't know.

And I'm so grateful. And we started working together on pitching a show and it took years. And now here we are. I want to go back for people that don't know. This is Laverne Cox's first time on a breakfast club. Yes. So how did you get into acting? What made you want to act?

What got you into that mind frame as a kid break us break it down i've i've always been a performer so i started as a dancer and during pe so i'm 50 years old so back in the day right but that's so back in the day there was pe physical education and during pe i would always dance and i would have care i would have music in my dance and I would have music in my head and I would have characters in my head and I would express these characters through movement. And so I started studying dance in third grade, but I always knew I wanted to act, that I would transition to acting. And when I got to college, I was a dance major at Mary

Mount Manhattan College and started acting there. I did my first play there. I did a lot of stuff in the theater department there. And just that was in the 90s. I was like, I moved to New York in 1993. So I've been acting like since college and did my first movie my senior year at Marymount in 1996. So you knew that's what you wanted to do. I always knew but then I had

finally accepted being trans when I was in 1998 and started transitioning and I was like, well there aren't any trans actors so I don't know if I can't really be an actor and be trans and so I went to fashion school for three semesters I went to FIT and then I was like I don't really want to do this I love fashion but I don't want to do it and then like I um did a few more movies just auditioned and got a few independent films and then I started training seriously with this woman named Susan Batson who was an iconic acting coach um she's trained Oprah and Juliette Binoche and um Jamie Foxx everybody and she has a great studio here in New York and I got really serious about acting

and I just went for it and um it took years and years and years um and but finally basically 20 years after I moved to New York I got my big break in Orange is the New Black. How was that? How was auditioning for that? You know, at first, I'm sure people didn't necessarily say, I don't know if Laverne fits this or how difficult was that being turned down? I mean, it was years of no's. I mean, the reason why it took 20 years is that there were no roles for me. So at Susan's studio, she would have industry nights and I would audition for casting directors and agents. And they'd be like, you're very talented, but there's no roles for you. You're trans. It's like, maybe

you should move to LA. And so it was constantly that. And every once in a while a trans something or drag thing would come up. And a lot of times in the beginning when I was auditioning, it would say drag queen, but I would just go in and they didn't know the difference between drag and trans. And I would book or I wouldn't book. And so for years, there just weren't roles for me. And so when the Orange is New Black audition came along, I actually was going to stop acting. I turned 40 that year.

So this was 11 years ago. It was 2012. I turned 40. The big break hadn't happened. I was like, well, girl, you're 40. You're black. You're trans. Who do you think you're kidding, thinking you can do this this and i was studying for my gre to go to grad school um

i was in student loan debt it was a mess girl i was in rent arrears like i was on a payment plan to avoid eviction from my apartment i love that you looked at him being a girl right yeah when i say i love that girl girl is gender neutral so girl is gender neutral like a lot of people say dude and it's gender neutral girl is gender neutral for me so is gender neutral. Like a lot of people say dude and it's gender neutral. Girl is gender neutral for me. It's everybody's girl. I'm girl all the time. He calls me girl all the time too.

It is what it is. So the great thing about when the Orange audition had happened is that even though it was a struggle, I had been in acting class every week because I loved it. And this is what I say to people. If you want to be an actor and you don't love it, you should do something else because you're going to be too old, too young, too short, too thin, too trans, too black, too white. And so all the rejection, I kept loving it. And so I kept, even though I kind of gave up hope, I kept going to class because I love acting. And so when the audition came along, I did the audition. I booked it.

And then this juicy role came along and this beautiful writing. And I was prepared. I was ready because I had trained. I had done independent films for free, student films for free. I did everything I could to get experience. And so when this opportunity came, I was ready. And I love that Oprah says, this thing is luck. Luck is only when preparation meets opportunity.

And when my opportunity came, I was prepared. And I'm still here. And I still love what I do. And I get to do so many different things now. I love that I'm an actor, but I also get to host red carpets. And I have an interview show. That's amazing. That's what I wanted to ask you.

Do you like one more than the other? Do you like being in that live red carpet space more than you do? Because then we get to see your personality. We get to see how you bond with other celebrities and certain questions and of fun doing it. And then they asked me to, you know, be their new red carpet host. And I was like, do I want to do this? And will people forget that I act? And acting has always been that, even though I've always done a lot of different things, I know that I'm an actor first and that's what I prioritize. And that's why people even care about me. But I love it.

I love it. And I love it because we get to have fun on the red carpet. I love the fashion piece of it. And we laugh, but we also can get to have space. At the Grammys recently, I interviewed Machine Gun Kelly. And he came to the carpet really vulnerable. It was intense. I was like, what's going on here? It was a different energy than I'm used to. He cried, I think, right? it was intense i was like what's going on here it was a different energy than i used to he cried i think right and he was he was really emotional he found out in the car on the way way there that he lost the grammy and he was planning to win and he would had built up basically he said that he had built up like all of this i'm going to prove people wrong and i'm going to be valid now because i've won this grammy and he didn't win it and he actually had the courage to be vulnerable and admit that on live television. And it was a beautiful, raw moment. And I love being able to hold space for that. I have a show with E called If We're Being Honest that's on Peacock.

And it's an interview show and I get to hold space for complexity, for people's humanity. We laugh, we cry. I had this great interview with Joe Coy where we talked about him kind of repeating a pattern that his father sort of walked out on him. And then he talks in his book about how he kind of wasn't there for his kid and how he repeated that pattern. But then how he interrupted it.

And he was in tears thinking about this. There's this beautiful moment in his book where he talks about going to, he in conflict with his his ex-wife, who is the father of his child. And he goes and she's like she's broken open a piggy bank and she's like, you know, looking, you know, looking for change to buy food. And he's like, what are you doing? She's like, I don't have enough money to buy food for your child. And he saw it in that moment. They had been been fighting he saw in this moment and he broke down he's like i'm never gonna let you go through this again and it's such a powerful moment in the book and i asked him about that moment and it was a moment where he had been repeating the pattern of his absentee father but he broke that pattern in that

moment and this is the shit i love this is the stuff I love where we can like have real moments to interrupt patterns of historical trauma. You talk about that all the time. I love moments when we can have revelations and understand something new about ourselves, the guests I'm speaking with, and then hopefully the audience. And so I love being an actor,

but I feel like it's the same thing as an actor. As an actor, what we do is we mine the depths of who we are as human beings and hopefully create empathy for these characters so that people can learn about themselves. Ultimately, people don't watch television to, you know, watch you. They watch to see themselves, to learn learn about themselves and so in all the work that i get to do it's all really about that it's a space of healing you're always sending healing energy to everyone and we need a lot of healing in this world and that's what my job i feel is as an artist and as a public person is to create these spaces of healing that's why i encourage

therapy so much because i feel like it interrupts those patterns that you're talking about. Good therapy. I've been in therapy since 2000 for 23 years. Sometimes people are like, does it not work? Why are you still in it for 23 years? You may just still need it. Things are happening every day.

It's a process. It's not like healing isn't like I got it and it's done. When the pandemic happened in 2020, I was just, stuff hit me that I didn't even, and I've been in therapy obviously at that point for 20 years. But like the voices, when you're by yourself all the time, those voices that like tell you that you're not enough, that they come back and you had to do a different level of work. But what's so exciting about the work that I've done in therapy over the years is that I can hold space in an interview for complexity and for someone being raw.

I can hold space in my romantic relationships, in my friendships, that love is in my life right now and I can show up for it. I was talking to a dear friend of mine and I was asking her about her love life and she was like, I need to be in therapy before I try to be in another relationship. She was like, I think the last guy was a good guy, but I didn't know how to handle it. And I think so often this good thing might come to us

romantically, professionally, and we might not be able to receive it. Do you remember that moment? This is such an iconic moment for me when Oprah was ending her talk show and she interviewed Iyanla Vanzant. Do we remember this moment? We should go and watch this moment. When they healed? When they had their healing moment. And Oprah was like, did you understand? I was sat in the audience and I had you on stage and I won't go into the whole history but they had a falling out

and Oprah was like did you not understand that I how I you know I trusted you on my show to be on to you know be on stage in my show she and Yolanda said I couldn't receive it she was like I was broken I'm ghetto I was this and then she lived she said it like four times and she was almost in tears I couldn't receive it and the last time she said I couldn four times and she was almost in tears. I couldn't receive it. And the last time she said, I couldn't receive it, Oprah's like, I get it. I get it. So we have to get ourselves ready to receive the blessings

that the universe has for us, waiting for us. And therapy is a great way to do that. I think therapy for people, people are struggling with addiction. I think if you can't afford therapy, there are 12-step programs out there for people to go that are free. It's not just drugs or alcohol. There's codependency,

12-step. There's Debtors Anonymous. Girl, go and get your help. You can heal. It's the gateway to healing. I wanted to ask you about the red carpet thing because i wanted to ask you what did you learn in the moment with will and jada like

after you received the backlash and everything what did you learn oh hey um to be really brutally honest i learned i learned a few things i learned that the world was not ready for the evolved relationship that they were presenting us because when i you know i just jokingly said you know we're looking for you know more entanglements i love red table talk i love this miss and people thought i was being shady and like and i talked to jada afterwards she was fine she thought it was funny but the world interpreted it as mess the world saw so much of what they had put out about their relationship in an open honest way they i i feel like their intention was for us to heal, for us to see a different way to do relationships that wasn't like this traditional thing. And the world made it into mess and that the world wasn't ready.

The world was like wanting to make it into something that they weren't giving us. And it also reminded me that when you make your relationship public, it becomes entertainment for people. And it's not, they're not real people. And so I'm going to keep my stuff private. So it was that piece of the entertainment piece, but it's also like, oh, the world isn't ready for this evolved relationship that they presented us with. And that made me sad. And I think it means that we just have more work to do around letting go of traditional heteronormative,

monogamous ideas about what a relationship should look like. I think everyone can do relationships on their own terms and should do relationships on their own terms and should do relationships in their own terms And I think they're doing that and the people just don't get it How did you deal with it with all the social media and the backlash and you know cuz social media can be a nasty place They give you a lot of smoke. There is oh my god. It was I watched one video I won't say who I watched and the person went in and I was like, I'm not watching anything else So and I just didn't- Was it Jeff?

Yo, relax. We're not even doing- Girl, girl, relax. Did you make a video too? No, I didn't. Okay. But I just stopped. I just stopped.

You don't, this has happened. Luckily, this has happened before. I remember when I did, when I did Rocky Horror Picture Show and when I was cast in that and there was just an outrage and an uproar. I just stopped watching. I stopped reading. I just didn't engage with it

at all. And I think that's what I have to do. I have to just not engage with it and understand that it's not about me. And I think it's hard to feel misunderstood though and to feel that piece is very difficult, but I have to remind myself who I am. I have to remind myself what my intentions are

and not engage. But I also think it's tricky for me because I also think one needs to be open for feedback. One needs to be open to receive criticism when it's in good faith. So that's what I have to balance because I'm not above reproach and I've made mistakes. My prayer today, my prayer every day is God, give me permission to do this imperfectly and allow me to be of service. So it's not going to be perfect. And I'm a perfectionist in a bad way. So I have to let go of that. And hopefully I'll be of service.

And so I can't. I have to be able to balance like getting critique from trusted sources that elevates me and makes me better. And holding myself accountable and being held accountable, right? We all have to do that. But then not allowing trolls and people who don't have the best of intentions and are operating in good faith, not letting that in. Yeah, I'm a comedian myself. So I go through that still to this day.

And that's what I want to also ask you to. So, you know, being a comedian, we often speak on nothing is off limits you know what i'm saying like we we speak on things that you know people in this in these days these days and times may take a total different way that we're trying to you know put it out there has do you think that because a comedian has a joke um about lgbt that they're homophobic like do you like what are your thoughts on that because i got a lot of jokes about the lgbt but i have a lot of jokes about straight people too yeah i everybody i think it's really complicated i interviewed um cameron esposito on my show, if we're being honest,

and Cameron's a non-binary stand-up comic, and Cameron thinks she should be able to joke about anything. Right. But Cameron also said that a lot of comedians who have problems, who sing, they're always being canceled, and they aren't allowed to joke anymore, aren't used to getting feedback. Cameron said, like, since I've stepped on a stage,

Cameron's assigned female at birth, it's non-binary. Cameron is like, ever since I've stepped on a stage as a stand-up, I've been getting feedback. And Cameron said, you've probably been getting feedback since you stepped on the public stage. And these people, I think they're not used to getting feedback. And so feedback, so there's that piece. And I think, too, that one can say something or do something that may be homophobic or racist and not be racist, right?

But there's a difference between I am, like a statement of Brene Brown distinguishes between shame and guilt is, shame is I am a mistake and guilt is I made a mistake, right? So I think that's an important distinction to make, that someone can unknowingly, right, say something or do something that's transphobic and not be transphobic. I was on set for a show that I was doing many years ago. And one of my co-workers, who I adore and we're still friends to this day, said the T word, the T word that ends with a Y. And I wasn't upset by it, but I was like, I understood in that moment

that my coworker didn't understand that a lot of trans people would take that as a slur. Oh, I didn't even know that. See? You didn't know. And a lot of trans people would take that as a slur oh i didn't even know that right yeah see yeah you didn't know and a lot of people don't know and so i i was like girl just so you know i'm cool but a lot of trans folks if you said that word would have a problem and she was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry she sent me flowers i was like girl it's not that serious no she just didn't know and I think we need to be able to give people grace when they don't know and give them space to evolve. And I'm not language police either.

I'm not language police either. But I think that things can be transphobia exist. And there are many comics who say really transphobic things i don't necessarily believe they are transphobic but what they're doing is transphobic is phobic so it's just like something just like with racism right like i could think somebody can do something racist or say something racist not necessarily intending it um in a certain way they're words that we might not even know are problematic right and we just don't know. But it is racist.

It is transphobic. So a thing can be a thing, and we can call a thing a thing. And for me, it's about people evolving, giving people space to evolve. I'm not into, like, canceling people and cancel culture. How does it make you? I love what you said about comedians, though, because there is a difference between feedback and backlash.

And I think a lot of comedians think they're getting backlash and comedians thrive off of that. But actual feedback like is to me, there's one particular who is thriving off of it that I can think of. He loves, he loves someone. They seem to love the transphobia. Transphobic. Cause I wonder how much of it is actual feedback as opposed to backlash. they seem to love the transphobia. Transphobic comic.

Because I wonder how much of it is actual feedback as opposed to backlash. Like there are people who will take the time to teach. You know, like I salute my man, David Johns. He'll take the time to teach. But a lot of times they don't feel like they're teaching. They're just upset. Yeah. And I think it's a piece of like not being comfortable

getting feedback or wanting to, I mean, for you, it's a comic. I mean, I mean, have you been criticized or critiqued for some of your LGBTQ jokes? Most definitely. Most definitely. How did that make you feel? It made me, I was mad. I was very upset because I'm like, how can you say I'm homophobic because of this and because of that. And then it comes the thing of like, if you say

oh yo, you know, my brother gay. Oh, I got a gay best friend. Then they still put you in a box like, oh, that's like saying some of my best friends are black. And you get misgendered a lot, Jess, which I hate. What? You get misgendered a lot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

People always, you know, say I was born a man and all that. And I hate that. How does that make you feel? How does it make you feel? When people, when people misgender you as a,

as a, as a non trans woman. To be honest with you, I really do not get upset. I know I have, I don't, I don't get upset. I honestly have never got upset.

I actually started putting it in my jokes, but it's other people that will get upset for me. A lot of black women get upset about honestly have never got upset i actually started putting it in my jokes but it's other people that a lot of black women for me a lot of black women get upset about that yeah i'm gonna be totally honest with you no i i didn't get upset for that i got upset that i caught this this uh guy he was lgbs he called me the the t word that ended with a y and i called him the f word and i felt like and and but it was because i said i felt like all right slur for slur and i and he's like oh you know everybody's like oh you you're not a part of the community you can't say that what gives him the right to tell me that i'm a t word like you can't even know did he Did he know that you were? He was being smart. He knew exactly that I was a woman, that, you know, that I'm born a woman, am a woman. But, like, I got mad that, I didn't get mad that he even called me that.

I got upset because it's like, yo, you called me that and I can't call you this? Like, I don't like that. I just, I can't, I can't. I just couldn't get with that. Like, yo, you hit me below the belt and and you weren't saying it because you were you really thought that you said that because you knew that oh yeah there's a there's i think it's it was it um um one of the city girls who just has a lyric about like pretty like transgender like we it's it shouldn't be an insult to say that someone

I mean, look at me. It shouldn't be an insult to say that someone looks trans. Trans is beautiful. Hashtag trans is beautiful. But let's not really not look at how it was brought

to me like he was being smart. It wasn't brought to you. Oh, you are like he was being smart it wasn't bought to oh you are pretty trans woman what's deep to me about that just historically I love looking at history there is a history in America and I think this is why it's tricky for a lot of black women

when just the existence of trans women particularly black trans women but then when non trans women are called trans or say they look trans there's a whole history of discounting the womanhood of trans women, particularly black trans women, but then when non-trans women are called trans or say they look trans, there's a whole history of discounting the womanhood of black women in the United States of America. When Sojourner Truth declared, ain't I a woman in 1851 in Ohio, she did that in the context of a system that said, if you are black, then you're a man.

And if you're a woman woman you're a white woman and so she was invisibilized in that system and there is a history of that in the United States and black women have different builds and different body shapes and and it's beautiful but there's that history that we have to reckon with and I think that like so much of transphobia in in well in america and all over the world a lot of it in the black community i think it's also about just colonialism in general and the impact of like racism on our community the historic emasculation of black men like there's there's been literally during when black men were lynched they would you know their genitals were cut off and there's that whole history that we're trying to sort of reckon with

as americans that's deeply painful and trans people like represent that i think for some black folks um that history that trauma um and then i think it i have always believed if you have a problem with somebody else being themselves it's something inside of you. Right. That's not quite right. And that's why our healing journey is so important. And I think like I say on my podcast that like I think 50% is like, okay, there are systems in place. Racism is a system.

Transphobia is a system. We're all like raised in these systems and are affected and internalize these things that we have to unlearn if we want to decolonize our minds and liberate ourselves but what's my 50 i am responsible ultimately for my life i'm responsible for how i feel i've never been a victim and your own healing and i'm responsible for my own healing even if you didn't even if you didn't cause your own trauma i'm responsible for my head as an adult as as an adult. And I think, too, when in that moment being using that F slur, you were mad. I was upset. That reaction took in for me. I was I I decided many years ago I had an incident in a gay club and I was I was co-hosting an event and I used the F word.

I said, use some loud F words. This was years ago. After the show, these two black gay men came up to me and read me for, they read me for filth. And I'm there with my friend Ari. May he rest in peace. And I'm like, no, we're reclaiming that word. And I'm trans. And they were like, not having it.

And I talked to my friend Ari and I was self-righteous. I was like, we're reclaiming that word. We're taking the power away from that word. And Ari was like, absolutely. Then I talked to my brother. My brother identifies as a practicing homosexual. He doesn't like the word gay. He thinks it's a white bourgeois construct.

And he prefers the idea of practiced orientation. Anyway, we're twins. And I talked to my brother about it. And I expected my brother to be like yeah they were crazy and they were wrong and my brother was like that's not your word to reclaim and i was like but no but no and it's like that's not your word to reclaim and then he said it a third time and then i started crying yeah because i had to admit that i said something that was hurtful i saw the hurt in their eyes. I didn't, I immediately became defensive and that defensiveness I get, but like that, that

uncomfortability that, that moment of sitting with like, I hurt somebody and I didn't intend to, but I hurt somebody and that felt awful. So that's how it was for me when the whole community what it felt like what felt like the whole yeah community was because like that's like half of my fan base lgbt like what like my community has come hard for me too and it's painful and then sometimes it's like yo i know i didn't mean that i didn't mean to hurt all y'all you know what you're trying to hurt that of y'all. You know what that word? You was trying to hurt that one person.

I'm trying to hurt that one person. And only because he was trying to hurt me, not even, oh, I think this way about like, nah. And it was like, it was kind of hard to come back from. That was the, I was the first social media influencer to be canceled. And then by such a big community of people who supported me and was with me up until that point. What's the healing for you? Because I think for me, I think like, is there,

would I want to be in a moment where someone, I let someone have me go out of character to insult them? That's what I think. But for you, has there been healing around that? Has there been, because I think what we don't see a lot of, for me, when someone is quote unquote canceled, is we don't see the evolution of what they've learned and how they've learned it, right? Like, what did I learn from this situation? How did I hold myself accountable? What have I learned about it?

That's what, I think this is what people need when when someone's been through the meal like what have i learned from it what have you so what my like my apology was back then because it was you know that was the thing where you did something you canceled you must apologize and then they called my apology backhanded like i said before and avernum always think like this i'm like look if you want me to respect you you must respect me you get i'm saying like you must you you are in this community you can be whatever you want it don't bother me if you are lgbtq it don't matter you will respect me as who i am and i'm respect you as who you are you could have said anything oh you ugly you you called me that because that was gonna

get a reaction like you called me a slur that that if somebody said that to you you would you hate it like you can't that's the unspoken word you can't you said it yourself like other uh transgender can't even spew that word like you know i'm saying you you you said the f word them two men they ain't like that like what you're a part of the community you still can't say you have to respect me if you want me to respect you like so i when i apologized to the community i said i i meant what i said to him i said man y'all want me to respect i it starts with respect no matter if you know the person or not everybody a human being you're a human being first that's what you are first i hear you everything else after that's how i'm always be but i hear you may offer i can't make anybody do anything. Absolutely. I can't make anybody respect me.

I actually, like so much of my healing work around relationships is I can't make somebody love me. I can't make somebody treat me right. I can't make somebody see me. I can take myself out of the situation. I can put myself in a situation where someone can see me, can respect me, and is able to. Some people aren't able to respect us because they don't respect themselves. That's real. Right? So, like, so I can't make somebody do something.

And so, like, the whole, um, you will respect me thing, I'm like, people, they might not. You know, I feel like I come with nothing but love and I work my ass off. And there's so many people who are only going to see my transness and never see the excellence, see the hard work, see the talent. And I can't make them do that. I can't make them do that. Do you ever get tired of being, I don't want to say the face, but the person that everybody comes to when it's a joke that people don't like or when somebody says something in a lyric or a movie. Do you get tired of that?

I'm not anymore. There's so many more of us. And what I love about my career and what I'm really proud of is that I'm the first openly trans person to be nominated for an acting Emmy, but I'm not the last. I'm the first trans person to be on the cover of Time Magazine, but I'm not the last. There are so many more trans people with the platform now. What I am frustrated by with these legislative attacks against trans people now is that people aren't talking to enough trans people. There's like lots of pundits and people who like talk about trans issues

without a trans person in sight. There used to be a time I'm old enough where, you know, people would talk about trans issues and actually bring on trans people to talk. I can't. What I've learned is I can't speak on every issue because it's exhausting. This stuff is also traumatizing. Transphobia is traumatizing. Racism is traumatizing. Misogyny is traumatizing. And I can't live in that that space I can't live in that space all the time and I know that 2020 taught me that too oh girl trauma on top of trauma so I have to sometimes I have to go away and not speak on those things and I'm so blessed that I get to have a public platform where

I don't talk about being trans at all where I get to go on the red carpet and I talk about artists and their work. And I go on my show and I talk about artists and their work. And so it's not, it can't always be about that. I love being trans. Trans is beautiful. I always say I'm not beautiful despite my big hands, my big feet, my wide shoulders, my deep voice. I'm beautiful because of those things, those things that make me noticeably trans. But I get to occupy spaces that where my transness is not the only thing. So I I'm honored that I've been chosen, I think, by a power greater than myself to be a vessel for all of the visibility that trans people have now. And I it used to feel like a lot of pressure and I used to feel this obligation to speak up about everything and now I pray to God that like I'd say

thank you but I'm like can I wear this light more lightly and with more joy and I'm getting there I'm in and I'm getting there by staying in the love I started ending my emails like God 20 years ago stay in the love to remind myself and my fellow artists that we got into this because we love it, not because the business part of being an artist is treacherous, but I love it. And I think love is always the solution. When I talked to Cornel West on my podcast,

he said a lovely thing to me, that I'm in the tradition of love warriors that we've had in the Black community from time and memoriam. He said that they hated us, but we have taught people how to love it's black folks we consistently do that and like that for me is what it's all about it's about existing and inhabiting love and putting that out there and hopefully getting that back and i think that is the only thing with all of the vitriol and policies that are being passed that are attacking trans people they're attacking like you

know AP African American Studies and just all these things that we have to education is important I like to remind people that and everyone knows this but just good to be reminded that they didn't want slaves to read they did not want if you learn to read as a slave, you would be beaten. You would be killed. They did not want us to be educated. And right now you have a governor of Florida, a governor of Texas who wants their banning books. They don't want you to learn about things. And so in this moment, like as black people, as marginalized people, we need to educate ourselves. We need to learn critical thinking on the Internet to figure out what's misinformation and what's not. That education and learning, it's like it's a practice of freedom.

Education has always been freedom for black folks. And it is now as well. And it's extended to trans people. Trans people, we've always been here. I like to remind folks that trans folks have existed in indigenous cultures all over the world. In Hawaii, they had Mahu. In India, Hidra. In Africa, they wouldn't be called trans people now, but with colonialism. With dual spirits, I forget the name, the name of her sort of non-binary kind of folks in her court.

So we've existed throughout time, trans folks and people who didn't exist within the binary. And this gender binary thing, it's a white colonial western thing right so like let's educate ourselves about that and understand that when we're being transphobic and we're enforcing this like binary idea of man and woman we're like doing some colonial shit we're doing some like white imperialist stuff right let's like if we look at indigenous cultures and look at the way people other people have practiced things you know um, trans or gender nonconforming people held sacred spaces in India. You wouldn't

have a wedding or a christening without the presence of a hijra to bless that child or bless that wedding. And trans folks have been spiritual leaders throughout history. I do want to ask, since we're talking about it, when it comes to gender identity, should we let kids wait until they are older to make that decision?

Because I know that's a big political talking point. It is a big conversation right now. And what I say to that is that if you are not a trans child or have a parent or a parent of a child who thinks they might be trans, it's none of your business. I think what has been happening with the GOP specifically now and all the like, we have to protect kids, kids in sports, kids, this, kids, that. It's never been about kids. It's always been about stigmatizing trans people. There's a law in Oklahoma that was just introduced that would ban gender affirming care up until the age of 26. This tells me what I've already always known. That's never been about kids.

It's about making trans people not exist. Donald Trump just made a speech saying we need to ban gender affirming care for everybody. He may have misspoken, he misspeaks a lot, but he said we need to ban it for everybody. That is the plan. So I think when we are talking about someone else's access to healthcare or bodily autonomy,

it's nobody else's business, whether they're a child or an adult. The American Academy for Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society have a set of protocols and they're all well respected for treating trans kids and that should be handled by doctors, not legislators, not people who are not involved. It's nobody's business. And I think when we have these conversations about trans people and we focus on transition, body, surgery, when you're a Supreme Court confirmation hearing and they're talking about, you know, mutilating children or, you know, castrating children, that language objectifies trans people and dehumanizes us.

This whole conversation has been deeply dehumanizing. And when you can dehumanize people, you can take away their rights. And that is exactly what they're doing right now. They've done a really good job of dehumanizing trans people, LGBTQ plus people in general. And now they're taking away our rights. And no one's really doing anything about it. So our work is to rehumanize everybody, to rehumanize each other. When we dehumanize somebody else, we dehumanize ourselves.

When I interviewed Dr. Joy DeGruy, who coined the term post-traumatic slave syndrome on my podcast, she said that the healing is not just for formerly enslaved people. It's also for the people who enslaved folks. When they enslaved us, they were dehumanizing themselves. When you discriminate against other people they were dehumanizing themselves. When you discriminate against other people, you dehumanized yourself. When you allowed yourself to, you know, come out of character and respond to that dude who said that to you, that was, you were not, you were not giving yourself the dignity, the regality,ality the royalty the humanity that you deserve to be above

that in that moment and for many years a trans elder said to me it's not what they call you it's what you answer to no i get it do you feel like he was wrong absolutely all right absolutely because for a while it was so one-sided like it's like no he can say that because he's a part of i'm like no he can't and he can say whatever you want to say i'm not ever saying that i'm just saying like but at the end of the day one of my favorite one of my favorite things i've heard response was very human though absolutely very human very human and i'm not i'm very human but like and we're human beings but if we when we want to evolve and we want to grow spiritually

how do we then proceed and one of my favorite things that i heard and um from a therapist is what other people say about me is none of my business because if i'm in this constant space of like you must respect me you must we see it on reality shows all the time you got to respect me and then i'm fighting with somebody and i'm I'm fighting and I'm like coming out of character it's like this is not why God put me here God did not put me here to be reactive to somebody in some low vibrational low vibrational place um some low vibrational energy God put me here to be to be anointed to live in the anointed space that I'm that I'm I'm so I'm not coming out of character because someone's calling me something

people call me stuff all the time my whole life people have been calling me stuff you know I'm glad you're here because we can even

help Jess unpack another little bit of trauma that she went through remember Jess I saw you say this on the don't call me white girl podcast

yeah there was a guy hollering at you yeah and you was trying to fly you out I wasn't I wasn't into him

I thought you said you was into him trying to fly you out i wasn't i wasn't into him okay there was this guy he's known everybody know him he's a singer my favorite i didn't know that part. I didn't know a singer bought email. I thought he was an ass. I thought he was trying to holler at me too, girl. The ones that will act like they didn't. But yeah, he DM'd me and he was like, he wanted me to, you know, F him. Have sex with him.

Yeah, have sex with him. but he wanted me to bend him over because he wanted you to strap on no he thought i had that already came like that he thought that you were a trans woman who had not had surgery and he really wanted this experience and he didn't only hit me once no girl after the show you need to me who it is. I might know who it is, girl. Look, and she might not even be shocked. But the thing is, yeah. These things don't surprise me, no. And I was like, wow. And this was traumatizing

for you? No, I just was like, no, it wasn't. It was not. Charlamagne, you're a mess. No, but what I tell you, you're a mess. Girl, you're a mess. He was trying to insult me. He just literally thought that I was, you know, so I wasn't was you know you were trans and so he was he was really wanting i wasn't upset at all and when i seen the money i was like dang i wish i had one of those because he was exactly what he was like you were a sex worker yes he thought you

were a sex worker he thought you were trans there's people us always often assume that trans people are sex workers we're not all sex workers there's other things we can do and this is not to you know demean sex work we we you know we're sex workers should be decriminalized and all that um wow but when i told him in the middle when i was like okay so no i am you know woman he was like oh damn all right well see you like it was like you can still fly me out for the money if you but no he didn't want it i think very specific yeah very specific and he wasn't disrespectful after he wasn't and i wasn't about the sprays to put that up you know none of that but he was really like i wouldn't say disappointed

but it was like oh sounds, damn, you're not. Yeah. I think we have to, you know, it's it's tricky to talk about sex with trans folks because we're often sexualized. Right. And so to have an adult conversation about sex and sexuality and not again to elevate the humanity of trans people. This is this is my work to elevate the humanity of trans people. This is my work, to elevate the humanity of trans people. But there are straight-identified men who enjoy being pegged, having a woman strap on, who enjoy a trans woman who might give them that pleasure,

and they still identify as straight because she's still a woman, right? So I think that like a more evolved conversation that a lot of people aren't ready for is that a sex act does not define your sexuality. A sex act does not define your sexuality. So you can have a sex act that involves, you know, you know, him wanting to do what he wants to do. Right, right.

It's, nobody can tell you who you are right it's nobody can tell you who you are okay nobody can tell you who you are so you people sexuality exists on a spectrum and i think it's like really problematic when we find out that someone enjoys something sexually and then we start telling them that they are gay or start telling them of their sexuality. It is not our business to tell somebody their sexuality. If they're in the closet, if they're in denial, that's actually not our business either. Right. So there's too much of that.

I think we can allow and people are doing all sorts of things sexually. And I think it's all wonderful. I think it's great. Live your life as long as it's consensual right and everybody is an adult and it's great and i don't i think that like it's an advanced concept but separating a sex act from someone's sexuality i think it's something that's very evolved that i would love for people to be able to so charlamagne does a sex act to me that doesn't necessarily mean he's gay that's what she's saying I would love for people to be able to do it. So Charlamagne does a sex act to me. I just love the fact that there's potentially a...

Wait a minute. I thought I said if Charlamagne does a sex act to me, that doesn't necessarily mean he's gay. That's what she's saying. Sure, he is. That's ridiculous. But not regular other people. I just love the fact that a trans woman

potentially took one of Justice's prospects. That's what I... What? That's what I appreciate. He found the girl. Yeah, yeah. Don't try to see one of me. Don't talk to her today.

He wanted me. He wanted me. He didn't try to see one of me. Don't talk to him today. He wanted me. He didn't want to do it. He still wanted me to this day. You could have been like, I could strap on. Did you offer that? Yes, because the money. It was so much money. How much money was it?

How much was it? $50,000. Oh, girl. I was like, what? And listen. There's a man offering $50,000. Yes. Okay.

You can tell the girls who this is. The sex worker girls out there. There is a man, a singer offering $50,000. And they better give me a piece. How old is he? How old is he? How old is he?

Oh, he's like, he's over 50. Oh, he's like, this was like somebody we listened to like back in the Disney. Hey, stop.

Don't do that. We're still listening to them right now. $50,000. The girls, a lot of girls can use that and so i did you know i had to talk it over with my friend what's wrong with you it's so beautiful to be a black it's so beautiful to be a black trans woman and not need that money it's beautiful to make my own money. Can we talk about this, please? Yes, Barbie. Yes, can we get the Barbie? Can we talk about Barbie in the same conversation

that we were talking about this? Will Mattel be okay with us having that conversation and then talking about this? Let's woosah, woosah, woosah, woosah. I want to know, how did this doll come about? Was this a dream of yours? It was. When I found out Ava DuVernay had a doll,

I was like, I want a doll, too. When I said to my manager, my manager paul i was like i want a barbie and like i don't know if he reached out but like several years later mattel reached out and said we'd love to do a barbie um we're doing a tribute collection and i said absolutely it's like it was a dream and it was i have a i've talked a lot about this when the bar came out, but when I was a kid, I wanted a Barbie, and my mom did not allow me to play with Barbies. It was forbidden. And when I was around 30 and I was in therapy, like starting therapy, mid-2000s, I was in therapy and I told that story to my therapist,

and my therapist said, it's never too late to have a happy childhood. You can reparent that inner child. I think you should go and buy yourself a Barbie. Did you? And play with her. I absolutely did. I bought a Barbie. I played with her. I dressed her and it was healing. And then I told my mom about it. And then my mom started sending me Barbies. It's always missing. Oh, really? My mom started sending me Barbies. God, this. Oh, I'm not going to crown the breakfast club. It's really sweet. And she started sending me black Barbies. sweet. Black Barbies? Black Barbies, absolutely.

She started sending me Black Barbies, and it was just this wonderful, like, we all have a little kid inside of us that needs attention, that needs healing. And, yeah, she's been, I've been taking really good care of my inner child, and Barbie has been a huge part of that. And so what was so exciting for me about having my own Barbie is that other people can have this space of whatever age you are to like reparent your inner child or and have and know that you can be trans or non-binary and that like you exist. So we have this, can we always keep it in here? Yeah, absolutely. I brought it for you. Yeah.

When did you forgive your mom? I'm sorry. When did you forgive your mom i'm sorry just when did you forgive your mom because oh you had to be some resentment the fact that you wanted to play with barbie she wouldn't let you but you also have to understand that at that time i you know this is a while like this is probably like god around that same time 2005 2006 so i don't know how old i was i was like 30 30, early to mid-30s. And I just realized I needed to, when we hold on to resentment, it's like taking poison and expecting it to hurt someone else, that old proverb. And so I just realized she did the best she could with what she had.

And my mom is an incredible human being. She put herself through college. She got a master's degree. She was a teacher. She's retired now. My mother took care of two kids. My mother is an incredible human being she put herself through college she got a master's degree she was a teacher she's retired now my mother took care of two kids my mother's an incredible human being and she did the best she could and with what she had and i turned out pretty well and i love myself now and that's my mom is responsible for that so yeah i forgave my mom a long time i got a record

yeah call me stupid because when i first heard about the doll, you know, representation matters. We know that. But how are you supposed to know this is a transgender doll? Well, my face is on the back. It says Laverne Cox. And then my picture's on the back. So I'm trans. So, I mean, yeah.

So it's technically, I mean, it's not a trans Barbie, but it's the first Barbie to be made in the image of a trans person. Gotcha. So, yeah, it's a Barbie doll Barbie doll. Oh, and then if you read this on the back, you literally can. Yeah. Oh, is it? Okay. Got you. Yeah. Literally. It needs to be styled though. We appreciate you for joining us. No, we are. I have a question. I'm sure Charlamagne and Jess would feel the same. If there's ever

something that we have to call upon and ask a question. I'm sure Charlamagne and Jessa feel the same. If there's ever something that we have to call upon and ask a question, we want you to be a friend of the room where we can call you if you're in LA and say, hey, Laverne, there's this situation. What's your opinion? Sometimes we might not get your representation because it is what it is. It's exhausting and don't call us.

You can call me. You can call me. There's certain things I don't comment on. Like, there's certain comedians who do their thing, and I don't like to speak their names. Because I also don't want to be—for me, it's important to be critical of concepts and ideologies and mindsets, but love people. And the media is very quick to put you in—Laverne Cox fights fights this person or Laverne Cox calls out this person then all of a sudden I'm feuding with someone I am not here to feud with anybody I'm not here to like be in conflict with another famous person don't pit me against anybody so like that I can

talk about I can talk about concepts and ideas but I'm just I I'm very careful not to be people still try to pit me against folks but i don't do it and so i'm very careful about that so i'll speak about you know an idea or a concept or like or something specific if we want to talk about why something's transphobic like we can break some stuff down that's a different example that's a different conversation in dubai and people were upset uh and and we were saying there's so many states here that necessarily don't respect that anti-lgbtq right so it was like so what's the difference so we didn't understand it so that would be like what what what were your thoughts on that say you know i'm in the beehive like hardcore you're going to see bianca

no matter where she had multiple times times. Multiple times, girl. Like, please. And Beyonce actually gave me my first fashion campaign. Ivy Park, fall, winter 2017. My first fashion campaign was from Beyonce. No, that's right. Let Beyonce make her money. Let Beyonce make her money.

And then, honestly, it's, what is it? It's February, whatever. It's mid-february and this year alone over 300 pieces of anti-trans and lgbtq legislation have been introduced in state legislatures all over the country over 300 pieces so everybody who's saying that there's you know there's a lot of states here in the united states that beyonce is gonna be performing, are you just not gonna go to the concert there? Cause like in Florida, in Oklahoma, in Texas, in Tennessee, girl, Arizona,

girl, Utah. And I feel like communities, certain communities need to experience joy, right? So you gotta find those pockets of joy when you can. What perfect place in a Beyonce concert? And just because the government is discriminatory does not necessarily mean that the people there are.

Right? We live under, people live under oppressive regimes and doesn't mean that people are bad. Right? Just means the government is effed up. You are so right. Because when I went to London and I was like, oh, I was like, I ain't want to talk about the queen. And one of the promoters was like, man. And I can't say what he said.

And I was like, whoa, so y'all don't care? And he was like, nah, nah, we don't care. It depends who you talk to. It depends, you're right. But like you said, the politics and the government, sometimes their people don't even be worried about what they got going on. They agree with their people instead of who runs them.

That's my last question. I guess it's more like, even though it's a statement, I guess the challenge I have as a personality is I often wonder what's more impactful, right? Because you're Laverne Cox to me. Like you're not transgender actress Laverne Cox. You're Laverne Cox. You got a lot of things going on.

So I wonder what's more powerful. Just having you on a platform like this and just having a conversation about everything that you're doing or allowing you to speak to your transness. Cause to me, I could take it or leave it either way. I can do both. Find a girl who can do both. For me, it's like, I, the most, just living my life,

I'm 50 years old, living my life, I worked in restaurants in New York for 20 years. I did not go to the restaurant talking about my transness when I was working at a coffee shop. I just went to the restaurant and I was myself. And some people knew I was trans, some people didn't. But they got to know me as a human being. And that was the most powerful thing ever. When I'm on set, I'm not educating people or doing diversity and inclusion training I'm doing my job and showing up and doing me

has been the best way so I think it's like it's about our humanity yes I'm trans but like I'm so much more than one and every trans person is so much more than that and I and this is just our humanity, like our, like, don't reduce us to transitions or surgery. You know, I think it can be really valuable for other trans people to see, you know, trans folks transition online. But like so often people think it's all about that. And it's not. It's about a life lived. It's like, yes, I love my body.

I'm happy with where I'm at, with being done, with transition, whatever that means. But there's so much more life than like that. The issue is when people don't want to let trans people exist, when they're murdering us, when they're misgendgendering us when they don't let us be in school and and and use our right pronouns and discrimination like trying to ban us from homeless shelters and employment you know our employment rate is three times the national average um 78 percent of trans kids are bullied in schools that's the problem that's existing is not the problem people people's insecurity. You know, Leontine Price, my idol, black opera singer, would say, you know, racism is never the problem of the black artist.

It's everybody else's problem. So the work really is everybody else getting on board, you know. And people have a lot of feelings about that. I get it. I understand. People are frustrated. I understand people are frustrated. I have to use this pronoun now. And like the non-binary thing, people are confused about it. Even other trans people have difficulty with it.

And I had difficulty with they, them pronouns for a while. But like what I think it's about is understanding, particularly as black folks, is that black people were second-class citizens for a really long time in the united states and a lot of ways we still are and this whole inclusivity thing is about acknowledging that we're here that we have something to contribute and that we should have equal access and equity same thing with transfer we've always been here we've been second class citizens and so it, if we're going to acknowledge that these folks are here, let's just, like, respect them and let them be.

And it shouldn't affect you. It really shouldn't. And I think that, like, some men who get upset, like, I feel like a lot of men who get upset about trans women, it's like they want to be misogynist and they want to like holler at a girl and like know that she was assigned female at birth and they get upset and it's like that's not my problem that's not my problem that if you're attracted to me it's not like my problem that you clicked swipe right on me on a dating app like it just

unmatch and move on it's like people get so and and then i think it's not my fault i made your dick jump right you know what i'm saying and for some women people who are assigned female at birth and who are a woman identified who had issues with trans we're not here to take your spot we're not here to like we we can all we there's room enough for all of us you know a lot of this is about scarcity and there's enough for there's enough for everyone right and it's like we're not a threat we just want to exist we want to just live our lives yeah you know laverne cox ladies and gentlemen make sure y'all check out if we're being honest with laverne cox on peacock yes yes and oscar's

red carpet that's right march 12th that's right march 12th Well thank you so much for joining us We appreciate you and Don't be a stranger It's the Breakfast Club it's Laverne Cox