The School of Greatness - 974 Laverne Cox on Healing Trauma, Owning Your Truth, and Being Transgender in America

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

"It’s important to hold space for the suffering and acknowledge it, but it can’t be all there is."Lewis is joined by Emmy Award-nominated actress and Emmy-winning producer Laverne Cox for a powerful conversation on gender, race, self-doubt, success, and so much more. Laverne is out with a new Netflix film, "Disclosure," which examines how transgender people have been depicted in film and television over the past century.-For more: https://lewishowes.com/974-This Les Brown interview is so powerful: https://lewishowes.com/971-Check out my impactful conversation with Kevin Hart: https://lewishowes.com/956

This is episode number 974 with the inspirational Laverne Cox. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I want to start today with two quotes from Maya Angelou. The first, you alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.

And secondly, nothing can dim the light that shines from within. Today's guest needs no introduction, but I'll give her one anyways. Laverne Cox is a three-time Emmy Award-nominated actress and Emmy-winning producer and the executive producer of the new Netflix documentary Disclosure, a film which explains how transgender people have been depicted in film and television over the past century. Laverne is a pioneering transgender activist with a staggering list of accomplishments and acknowledgments, including being the first openly transgender person to grace the cover of Time magazine and the first to be nominated for a primetime Emmy in an acting category.

Our conversation was so powerful and profound and at times painful, and I did not want it to end. We talked about Laverne's ongoing process of healing childhood trauma and what we can learn from her approach, why people wear masks all the time, and how essential it is to shed those masks no matter how hard it is to do, how we are all destined for beautiful things as long as we show up for them, and why the most important work in life is finding how to accept yourself and own who you are.

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to share this conversation with you. And if you're finding value in Laverne's wisdom, make sure you share this with someone who needs to hear it. You have the power to change someone's life by sending them this message today. And a quick reminder, click that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. Whether you listen frequently or if this is your first time here, just click on that subscribe button right now so you can be notified every week of hearing great people like Laverne. And please leave us a rating and review. If you're a fan and you haven't left one yet,

we'd love to read those after every episode. And just one more thing before we dive in. We taped this interview before I got a chance to watch Disclosure, but I have to say that it's a truly incredible, impactful documentary, and please find the time to go watch it. All right, I'm so excited about this. Let's dive in with the one, the only Laverne Cox. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited about our guest today. Three-time Emmy-nominated actress and Emmy Award-winning producer Laverne Cox with a new documentary on Netflix, which is going to blow you away, called Disclosure. Welcome to the show. I'm super glad that you're here. I'm so excited to finally be here. We've been talking about this for a minute. Probably, we connected, I don't know, probably three years ago.

I think when I wrote my book, The Mask of Masculinity, and I did the interview with Brene Brown somewhere around then. And we ended up having lunch together here in Los Angeles, having a great conversation about masculinity, about transgender statistics, about your life, about everything. And I think it's the perfect time that we finally got to connect, at least over Zoom, and share a conversation with people. You've had such an incredible life. And so much that you've overcome personally,

so much you've had to overcome in an industry of entertainment, so much you've had to overcome with, I guess, really just understanding people making assumptions about gender, about gender identity, about racism, about everything. Growing up in the South, I mean, there's just a lot that you've overcome and you've inspired so many people from being on the cover of Time Magazine to being a hit star on TV shows and producer and all these things now. So I'm just grateful for the example you set on what's possible for human

beings and what's possible for transgender individuals and how you continue to show up with love, with gratitude, with humility. And I think it's, it's beautiful. Everything you're up to. So. It's so sweet, Louis. Thank you. I appreciate that. Of course. And I love this. You actually you actually have a uh a quote on your site that i want to find really quick that talks about uh you seem like a personal development coach in my mind because of some of the things you say that you're so into bernie brown and you said if we can move from scarcity to abundance in our rhetoric and the ways we see ourselves and each other in the world i think that we can move from scarcity to abundance in our rhetoric and the ways we see ourselves and each

other in the world, I think that we can live in this world together because there is enough to go around. I love the way just you think, and I love the way that you just show up in the world. So again, I can't sing your praises enough from our interaction together. I'm curious, for people that are listening or watching who are ignorant to the transgender community, are there any basic statistics? And I have some here that I've been researching. Are there any basic statistics that you would want all people to just know from a baseline that this is necessary for human beings to know about the transgender community? Oh, gosh. I don't know. When I think about what's necessary for people to know, I don't know if I'd go to statistics. I think I probably would go to the lived experiences of trans people.

I think I would quote Brene Brown again. Stories are data with the soul. So if we can, Brene Brown, if we can lean into people's lived experiences and people's humanity, I think that's what I want people to know about trans people, because there's not just one way to be trans. There's not just one trans experience. And so you can't meet a trans person and say, oh, I heard Laverne Cox on a podcast, and this is what I should ask you, and this is what your experience must be based on what she said. Everyone is different. Every individual is different. And everyone experiences their gender in a different way. And I think that's a beautiful, awesome thing. Some people fit neatly into male and female,

and that's great. Some people are non-binary, and so they don't like, they like they, them pronouns. They don't, they feel both male and female or neither male nor female. And that's cool. And some people are like, all of it's good. I was talking to a dear friend of mine on Saturday who likes whatever gender pronoun you want to use,

they're fine with all of them because it's like, whatever. And I think that is really a space of freedom if we can lean into that and not be afraid of that. Because if you just say it without any sort of, it's really not a big deal. So I think that the thing I would want folks to know is that every trans person is different and that every person's experience, whether you're a transgender or not of your gender, it's probably different as well. And that is all good. Yeah. And you talk, you know, you share the story with me. And I know you shared it publicly that you, when you're 11,

you try to commit suicide. And I'm curious, when did you start to feel comfortable in your own body? Do you remember, was there like a moment where you said, I feel comfortable with who I am? Was there someone or something who was kind of critical and you ultimately accepting yourself? It's been incremental. If the truth is, it's a process and it's been a process over the years. And I think an acting teacher of mine, Brad Caputeria, says that sort of getting to the core of who we are, sort of like seven layer bean dip, you feel comfortable with this one layer and you can sort of peel that back and there's another layer and there's another layer under that. And so

it's a process. And so I'm getting there in a way I feel more comfortable with in my own scanning with my body than I ever have before. But I think, and I don't like to talk about the specifics of my medical transition, but there was definitely a moment when I had a feminizing surgery, I'll say, that like, I was like, oh, like, yes. Like, yes. So, yeah. So the point of that is that health care is really, really important. Access to health care for everyone, really. And Medicare for all. But also for trans folks, it's really in my own experience, it has just been incredible. It's really been wonderful. And so there was a that that was a moment when I just like, I felt this shift and I just was like, oh my God, this is like, this is what it's, this is what it is. And within that, within,

there's always internal work that needs to be done, right? There's always work that, because it's an inside job ultimately, but, but what, when the outside starts to match, it is definitely like, ah, ah. It's a relief. I think it's ultimately, for me, my transition has been about, it's been such a spiritual journey that it's like a release. It's like a relaxation. Like being able to medically transition for me.

Not all trans people want to medically transition. There's different definitions of that for every person, but it's just like this, like it's a, it's peace. It's pace Italian pace. It just was peace. Just like, I like, I like, okay. What, what, when was this? I mean, how many years? Oh gosh, that particularly, I started my medical transition in 1998. I was 26 years old when I started the medical part of transition. I didn't have my first surgery until seven years after that,

because I couldn't afford it. Everything, except for my hormone replacement therapy, every aspect of my transition I've actually paid for out of pocket, which is, it's amazing. But it's, but if that, but that means when I was waiting tables, barely paying my rent in New York, that that took a really long time to be able to sort of put money together. And I've been very lucky because some people are never able to put the money together. Right. So yeah, I pay in ideally, our healthcare should be covering some of this stuff, I think, but I'm very blessed that I've been able to. That's great. That's great. Do you feel like I hear you saying like the work is always happening, you're always diving into the inner

work. Do you feel like I'm a big fan of talking about healing trauma? Because I feel like it's a you might heal it in a big moment of your life, but then triggers come up every couple of years that you realize, okay, I'm fully not healed. How do I keep doing the work? Do you feel like you still have trauma you need to heal? And is this something that a lot of transgender friends of yours, uh, you feel like is, is hard for them to overcome healing trauma? I think it's hard for most of us to overcome healing trauma and literally my my therapeutic process i'm in therapy tomorrow what gift of quarantine and this whole sort of covid thing i went before quarantine i was like i would do

therapy when i was in la i would see my therapist and i was we were good about it but like i have stretches of time where i'd be on the road and miss therapy for like a couple months i've done therapy every week via video chat i'm in quarantine and i'm so proud of that and it works if you work it uh that's true i and so the therapy that i do with somatic therapy and it's and it's based on the community resiliency model which is all about resetting your nervous system it's all about building trauma resilience. And so there's healing from trauma, but then there's resilience to trauma. And the community resiliency model has six components that, or six tools, basically, skills. They call it skills.

And if folks go to, there's an app called iChill that sort of outlines the six tools of the community resiliency model. They're gesturing is one. It's using a gesture. It's all about connecting to your body and sensing things through your body somatically. So gesturing is a physical thing. There's a help now. It's about sort of grounding yourself in a space.

It could be a smell. It could be the touch of something. It could be sort of pushing against the wall, something that can get you back in your resilient zone. The idea is to stay in your resilience zone. There's a resilience zone, there's a low zone and a high zone, all based on the nervous system. You want to stay in that sort of resilient place. Resourcing is another tool. Resourcing is usually focusing on something that's mutual and pleasant in your life. It could be for me, often it's Leontine Price's voice.

She's an opera singer. It's her voice singing or, you know, the last time I was in love and what that sensation felt like when I was being held or cuddled or resources that can live in your body, in your nervous system that you can draw on. It's all there. You know, we just have to allow ourselves to lean into those resources. Shift and stay is crucial. Shift and stay is a tool where you basically like I might walk into a therapy session or go into a Zoom therapy session. And I'm like, oh, I'm feeling really anxious today. And Jennifer, my therapist would be like, well, where in your

body do you feel that most? And usually my anxiety like sort of exists in that pit of my stomach. And she'll invite me to ask, well, where in your body does it feel neutral or positive? And oftentimes right now, it's like often it's my ankles. I was going to say my toe or something. Yeah. So I'll like, she'll still invite me to put my attention on my toe or my ankle. And then sometimes I'm like, you know, twirling my ankle around now and I'll put my attention there. And then we'll talk a little bit more.

And then she'll ask me, how is the anxiety feeling now? Is it less? Is it the same? And almost invariably every time it's lessened. It's still there, but there's something else that's true as well. So we're in this space that shifted states about both hands. It's about like not getting rid of the anxiety altogether, but like allowing the resilience is about what else is true. Trauma resilience is about what else is true and putting it in its proper place.

Healing from trauma is really about not being overly defined by the trauma, but then not being in denial about it. Acknowledging that the trauma happened, but then not being in denial about it, that acknowledging that the trauma happened, but that it's in its proper place in your timeline. I had a, when I bought this place, it's a condo two years ago, when I went into escrow, I started having major panic attacks. Like just-

Why? Exactly. Crazy panic attacks. And so I was in therapy, just shaking and I was a mess. What was going on? And I couldn't even breathe. I couldn't see straight. It was crazy.

It was full of anxiety attack. And what kept coming up for me is what kept coming up. Oh God, it's so emotional still. But what kept coming up for me is I, it was the eviction notice I had gotten in 2012 in New York. I was living in decent rent in Manhattan, but like I was working in a restaurant and business was slow and I couldn't pay my rent. And I had an eviction notice and I had to go to housing court to avoid getting evicted.

It was the second eviction notice I had gotten in two years. And so I had so much shame about it. And buying a place like brought up all the shame gremlin of who do you think you are? brought up all the shame gremlin of who do you think you are who do you think you are buying this fancy condo fancy compared to like you know the 315 square foot apartment i had in new york who do you think you are buying this fancy fancy condo in la you're gonna it up you're gonna you know ruin everything and just that but then it was a it was a childhood incident underneath that as we started to explore in therapy and like get into this place of like, I mean, I had to, I really had to use the help now to even be able to hear Jennifer talk to me because I was in such like panic, anxiety,

high zone, stress. And then it was a childhood incident that I still can't talk about publicly, probably never will. There's a deep, deep fear of being home, becoming homeless. That goes to a childhood abandonment thing. So we had to like sort of parse all that out, right? And that's ultimately a childhood trauma that like sort of replicated this trauma into my adulthood as I, you know, if that's triggered by me buying a condo. And the beautiful thing about after we were able to process it with Jennifer, process

it in my body, do resourcing around it, do a lot of somatic work around it, do some EDMR or whatever it's called around it. EMDR is what it is, EDMR, yeah, yeah. Whatever it's called. Yes. I hear it's great. Yes. Doing work around it, just lightly.

I haven't delved deep into that yet. The next week she was like, I was onto something else. And she was like, we haven't talked about that. How is that feeling? And I said to her, I still have the sensations of it, but it doesn't feel like it's happening right now. And that's, it feels like it's in the past. And that's the thing about trauma.

The nervous system does not know if a trauma happened 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Once we are triggered, the nervous system feels like the trauma is happening right now. And so the thing of healing from trauma, creating resilience around trauma, is putting the trauma within the right timeline of our lives. And that is very delicate work that has to be done with a professional girl. I call everybody girl. I'm not offended. Girl is the new dude. Yeah, it's very delicate work that has to be done with a professional. But it is so, it's so beautiful to be able to be in this space of resilience around these things. Yes, I've had a lot of

unfortunate things happen to me, but I don't need to be defined by those things. I'm not in denial of them, but they don't define me. I love that. Yeah. Not being in denial of what happened in the past. I think when I sat with you and talked about when I was sexually abused when I was five, I didn't deny it, but I didn't talk about it. And I was shameful of it. And I was embarrassed by it. And I held on to this pain. And when I would get triggered enough times, I would release that pain and anger onto reacting to people screaming, getting in fist fights in the basketball court to, you know, putting in my aggression out in sports. And when sports was over, I no longer had a three-hour window of legally being able

to hit people with a helmet, helmet to helmet, it was like, what do I do now when I'm triggered? And I think when we talked and sat, you know, I talked about how I had like a seven, eight year journey after sports was done of putting that into business and into work and into everything else and still not being fulfilled until I finally started to release and talk about being sexually abused, which put me down the rabbit hole of Brene Brown vulnerability and really the pain that men are experiencing and then causing pain on other people in the world are using pain with their power to hurt people hurt people exactly and i think that's one of the reasons why we connected and why i think we wanted to talk now is how do you think in your perspective from your experiences

why do you think uh men cause a lot of the pain on transgender women and on human beings in general? Why do you think that is? I mean, it's bigger than the trans community. I think hurt people hurt people. But I also think there's, I mean, I think there's this sort of neurobiological sort of take on things that, you know, the fight, flight, or freeze piece. the fight, flight, or freeze piece. But I think what are men taught and what do they internalize around masculinity, around what it means to be a real man,

around power and exerting power in the world and over other people? Like, I think we as a culture have to, in a way, take responsibility. You know, it's weird because like I, you know, we don't want to blame mothers but like what are or or fathers or parents in general but what are we teaching our children and particularly what are we teaching the men that we're raising about masculinity and and what that

means and I think there needs to be a critique I mean so there's a theoretical thing around masculinity and patriarchy and you know everybody when I say critique. I mean, so there's a theoretical thing around masculinity and patriarchy and, you know, everybody, when I say patriarchy, I mean institutional sexism. And I think there needs to be a critique of patriarchy. I think that, that like some, that, that, that there needs to be an awareness of like male domination and like how the, and the pain that that can wreak. And particularly when I think about domestic violence, when I think about my grandfather was so abusive to my grandmother, to his children, insanely abusive. But I understand that now in the context

of he was raised on a plantation and he was beaten to work and that's what he grew up with. And so then that kind of brutality is passed along from generation to generation if we don't stop those cycles so there's that piece of it too so there's a lot of elements of it but i think at the core of it is the piece of vulnerability internalized homophobia and internalized transphobia because i think so much of what is underneath so much patriarchy is an underlying

misogyny that I don't want to be seen as soft or like a woman, or I don't want to seem gay. And I think that is a lot of the reasons why men who are killing trans women are killing us. It's because they don't want people to think they're gay. I think I can't always think about the story of a trans woman. I think it was 2014. Her name was Mercedes Williamson. She was about, I think she was like a 17, 18 year old trans woman in Mississippi. She was dating a guy, I forget his name, but it doesn't matter. And he was a member of a gang called the Latin Kings. And they dated for a while, her friends knew, there's abc documentary about it actually and he eventually they broke up and then he eventually murdered mercedes and apparently so his gang

members wouldn't find out that he had been dating her um and now at one point he confessed to having knowingly dated her knowing that she was trans right there's a there's a big sort of myth that men that trans women are out tricking men, and that's why we get murdered. That's ridiculous. In 2020, there are so many men seeking out trans women. There's no need. My dance card is full. It's very much, it's beautiful. But the sad thing is now he denies that he knew that she was trans but then earlier counts you know he whatever but we know his friends of hers say that he definitely knew that she was trans and that he murdered her because he didn't want his colleagues to find out and so when i think about that i think obviously gang culture is its own specific thing, right? In terms of masculinity,

in terms of whatever, who cares? Who cares? And I had two ex-boyfriends ago, what crystallized for me, he was Canadian and we dated for three and a half years. He was a lovely man. And when he was in high school in Vancouver, there were rumors about him being gay that went around and he sort of fanned the flames of that he thought it was really funny that people thought he was gay and so when we started dating he didn't care like he knew that he wasn't gay he knew that he knew that I'm a woman and he's a man and that that's not gay and he was very comfortable with himself so it didn't matter and it just crystallized to me so much that a man who dates me has to be so comfortable with himself that he doesn't care

if people think he's gay. And then I was just, then I realized that that is the issue. That, like, all the men who are attracted to trans women, and there are many who are, who don't want anyone to know about it, are afraid that people are gonna think they're gay. Why do those men hold that shame of not wanting other people to know

or make fun of them or whatever the shame is? I think it's internalized homophobia, but I think sometimes it's internalized. They don't want people to think they're gay because usually people, because people disavow the womanhood of trans women. So then they assume our partners must be gay because they don't accept me as a woman. And so the man has to be comfortable with that. But then I think there's also the piece of, even if he's comfortable with that, the then I think there's also the piece of even if he's comfortable

with that, the potential loss of social privilege and power. I think so many of them, even if they're comfortable, it's one guy that I dated years ago, when we started dating, he said he was cool. And then he got really weird. And I found out years later, even though there were different situations, he was in insurance, and he was in risk management. There was a guy in his firm. People found out he was gay and he was ostracized. He was made fun of and harassed so badly that he ended up quitting. And he saw that while he started to date me and that freaked him out. It freaked him out to such an extent that he needed to distance himself. So the ways in which our culture may punish men, the old boy network too, I mean, living in New York

and dating all the Wall Street guys I dated, the old boy network is still real. It's still a thing. And like having the potential for career advancement being stifled, all the men in the entertainment industry, right, who I know and the trans women know are secretly dating trans women, right? They're hiring trans sex workers.

And men hire sex workers for all sorts of reasons. And we know they're sleeping girl trans women know are secretly dating trans women right they're hiring trans sex workers and men hire sex workers for all sorts of reasons and they're but they're we know they're sleeping with trans women on the dl like a lot of men in show business right we know in the industry we know i know them though all those men who i know are attracted to trans women they might not be attracted to me that's fine but it's just amazing to me that men in my industry never approach me like high profile men never approach me high Like, high-profile men never approach me. High-profile men that I know are into trans women as a rather high-profile trans woman. And so much of that... Why is that?

I think part of it is about being internalized homophobia and them not wanting people to think they're gay. But I think it's also just about loss of power. Also about loss of status and privilege. And, like, because what does it mean if you are, particularly if you are a white, straight white man and like the world is your oyster. And I know there are difficulties that straight white men have. We can talk about some of those and it's not all, you know, but the world is your oyster presumably.

And then all of a sudden you find that you're attracted to a woman who's transgender and all of the baggage that comes with that from society, if you haven't done your work on yourself. Or you could lose, I don't know if you're a leading man or if you're a rapper, and you have all these women fans that you might lose if they find out that you're having sex with Laverne Cox or some other trans woman. So I think a lot of it's about the loss of privilege and power too. And people people and unfortunately people kill for that as well unfortunately people want power and privilege so badly that they're willing to kill for it it's crazy what is the i mean this is something that i grew up with in the fact of i'll speak for my experience because i don't want

to put this as all like young boys growing up whatever all we of i'll speak from my experience because i don't want to put this as all like young boys growing up whatever all we can do is speak from my own experience i'm theorizing over here exactly and in my experience from certain memories in elementary school middle school and high school specifically when it was transitioning let's say there's never like a moment you become a man except for like rituals that maybe like boy groups do with each other, you know, for example, like what,

I don't know. Like, did you have sex? Did you, uh, you know, can you drive a car? Can you drink alcohol?

It's like that, those kinds of moments that might be okay. Now you're a man because now you smoked a cigarette. Now you got drunk. Now you, which I've never been drunk or high in my life. But I remember just like these moments, right? Where it was like, oh, you're not a man unless you do this, this kind of feeling. And I remember I was a very sensitive kid and I cried a lot, went to my mom and, you know, in the middle of the night and was always very scared and just sensitive.

My sisters would always call me the sensitive jock because I would go out and destroy people in the football field, but then I would go play guitar and sing lullabies or something. I had this emotional side to me. I remember just being a very affectionate human being. I would want to put my arm around my teammates and just give them a hug and i remember vividly so many teammates shoving me away with like this anger in their eyes and their face being like don't be gay don't be a little girl don't be x y and z where do you think that came from for them when did that when did that become a thing that like my teammate week i gotta what do you think i think you're talking about it

in the sense that we all need to take responsibility from whether it's their fathers their mothers saying you know little boys don't cry whatever it is the words they heard from their parents or that they saw from their family members or the media of everything the media yeah which what you know your documentary talks about a lot of the depiction of uh or the perception of transgender people over time in in tv and film and i think it's just these these social norms like you said 100 years ago when someone was being beaten a certain way and then they did that in their relationship and then their kids saw it i think it's just these social norms we see over time which is why it's in my opinion powerful that so many people are awakening during this time to what has happened um and it's uncomfortable i think it's but it's also

very uncomfortable to come into this space of oh my i didn't know i i didn't know this i didn't realize what i was doing was hurting someone i didn't realize what I was doing was hurting someone. I didn't realize what I was doing was hurting myself. And the pain of that and sitting with the discomfort of that without numbing it, without numbing it, right. Without going to our phone, without drinking or doing a drug or beating somebody up, like to really sit with discomfort is so, and I think now I feel like the world is changing and it's becoming more spiritual it's becoming more that we can we need to be able to sit with the discomfort of what of everything that

we've done to ourselves and each other if we want to be able to change it and it's so and that's hard it's very hard it's very hard but i think that what's on the other side is so glorious what is it because you are you really free? Are you really free if you have a longing to be with a certain kind of woman and you don't want to, you won't be with her because of what someone else

is going to think about you? Is that freedom? That's not freedom. It's not freedom, but it's social suicide in other ways, which is a different type of prison for certain people.

Some people aren't able to change those circumstances, but sometimes we can change our circle sometimes i think like you know oh god here i here i go with the brené brown again but brené brown says that true belonging you don't have true belonging the opposite of true belonging is fitting in that when you try to fit in you shape shift you do everything you can so that other people can accept you but that's not authenticity true belonging is when you show up and allow yourself to be seen and you and people like may be into that yeah may not be but it's one of the scariest things to do though but you get to belong to yourself and it's and it's lonelier because it's definitely lonelier because

i you know i don't have like all this big social circle and i'm like i like my alone time too yeah yeah to be honest but it's a it's way more beautiful to be able to be in the truth of who you are than the shapeshift because i've done the shapeshift trust and believe i've done the shapeshift and i just feel yucky afterwards i feel like i get it why did i do that and why do I even want these people in my life? I'm shapeshifting for people who are obnoxious. Yeah, exactly. This is one of the reasons why, you know, when I started to really start the process of healing, start the process of sharing my shame to my family, then friends, then I started opening up publicly and sharing more about sexual abuse and trauma and things like that. I realized that I was putting on masks. You shape shift or we put, I call it the mask of masculinity, which is what men's true

essence is not having this dominance in this power and projecting something that's not their true essence as human beings, whether you're a man, woman, transgender, you're non-binary, whatever. Human being is not to put on a mask. It's a step into who you truly are. The challenge is, and I can't speak to the challenge from what you went through, but as a transgender individual, if you say to your parents who have a very traditional outlook on life, I'm the opposite sex, or this is who I really am. And you say that at nine, 10, 11, and they say, no, or they send away, or they make you wrong and bad. You have to almost try to fit in to survive, right? Until you can be free, yeah.

I mean, I think that is the sad thing about my childhood for a while. I was never really good at fitting in. And ultimately, eventually, my mother just kind of let me be in terms of just dress. I became, when I started dressing myself in middle school, it got, it wasn't so gender nonconforming. When I went to high school, then I really started wearing women's and girls' clothes. I didn't identify as trans, but we would probably use the language of non-binary

or gender nonconforming. So you were wearing women's clothes in high school? Correct. Like, not dresses. In Alabama? In Alabama. I went to the School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, which is where I was north of my hometown.

And I started going to the Salvation Army in Goodwill. And so I started wearing culottes and wide leg bell bottoms. And I started shopping in the girls department of thrift stores. And yeah, that's what I did. And I started wearing makeup in high school, but I also had a shaved head. So I wore and lashes. I started shaving my eyebrows. I guess you went to a fine arts school. Yeah, an art school. I went to a fine arts school. Was this school more accepting since it was a fine arts school? Was it a lot of shaming still?

My freshman and sophomore year, lots of shame. A lot of shaming. I think part of it is that I was an underclass person, but I think that's just kind of how. Underclassmen are just bullied in general. Yeah, exactly. But I also think that it was that I, people still, even in art school, it was, it was a lot for people at the time, at least in Alabama. And I think some of it,

and I look back and I think a lot of it had to do with race as well. There weren't a lot of black kids, at least in the dorms at the Alabama school of fine arts. So a lot, some of it was race. I think it was race. I think it was, I was there on scholarship. So I think it was race. It was class. It was me being me. And so I think with a lot of things, which is really deep when I, when I think, look back on it and I definitely internalized a lot of shame around class, around race and my gender expression that was at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. That's interesting.

We have something in common there. I went to a boarding school in high school as well. Oh, yeah? Which one? I went to a school for a religion that I grew up in for Christian scientists. I have to always preference it's the opposite of Scientology. Okay. But it's a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri,

for students of this religion, Christian science. And so I went to this boarding school. I lived in a boys' dorm with 100 other kids, and there was a girls' dorm across campus. It was always trying to, like, sneak out and, you know, get into the window of a girl and say hi or whatever. It was like that whole thing, but strict and everything. But I wanted to bring back something because you talked about,

I think it was really important, which is why do kind of the younger male generation say, don't be gay, don't be a girl, don't be, you know, not show who they truly are, which was me. I wanted to be affectionate with my guy friends. I'm a straight guy. I never wanted to kiss a man, but I wanted to like just put my arm around a buddy and just say like,

Hey man, I love you as a, as a straight guy. I never wanted to kiss a man, but I wanted to like, just put my arm around a buddy and just say like, Hey man, I love you as a, as a human being. And I didn't feel like I could ever say that or ever show just like normal non-sexual affection, which is what I would call it. I guess just like that now, do you have people in your life where you can do that? I only hang out with people that I can do that with because I have that ability now. And I also, there's, I want to make sure I get it right, but I think it was the show 13 reasons why is that what it was on Netflix? Yeah. Where there was the, the man. I have 17, but tell me. Oh, well, I don't want to ruin it for you, but there was a, it's, you know, there was

a high school athlete, football player who is bullying and gay people, right. And making fun of gay people. And we later find out that he's actually gay, but he's actually the one bullying them, beating them up in the halls and kind of projecting this masculinity. And I think a lot of, and you're asking me like, why do people do that in high school? And I think some people are afraid of being bullied themselves for those affections. Right.

And so they, it? And so they deflect. Unfortunately, a lot of the bullying I experienced when I was around between 10 and like 14, it was sexualized. And I don't know if it was because the guys were gay or if it just was like a way to humiliate me or I don't know, but it was, it was bad. It was, it was bad. And so, yeah, I don't know what the mind of, it'd be great to, you know,

talk to someone, you know, who's gone through that journey of being shameful. And I have talked to a few of my guy friends over the years who had shame around being into trans women and sort of come out on the other side. And so much of that was in acting. And Susan Batts, my acting mentor, has this theory around human behavior. When we create characters, it's about understanding human behavior. And she says that a character's tragic flaw is when there's tension between the public persona and the unfulfilled need.

And the unfulfilled need is that everyone has that we've developed around the age of five years old. And often we act as human beings in opposition to what we really need. And so that tension often expresses itself in addictive behavior and potentially bullying or character deflex or tragic flaws. And I was just thinking about like that tension between the unfulfilled need and the public persona. Like that is the space of like not allowing ourselves to be fully authentic, not allowing ourselves to be, it's a tragic flaw. You can't be in the truth of who you are.

And it's a constant tension unless you accept yourself. Did you feel like you were truly accepting yourself and who you fully were? Were you being that in your 20s and 30s while in kind of New York City, you know, working? I was trying. I was trying. I think because I was an artist, I've been on this journey as an artist. I think a lot of this is about being an artist, my sort of personal growth stuff. I think I was trying, I was doing my best, but I think I had so much trauma.

And so I built up so many defenses, so many sort of, so much armor to shield myself from vulnerability. And so it was, I was doing the best I could, but I needed to, I needed to meet the right therapist. I needed the right recovery program. I needed the right things to other tools to lean into. Because when I, I think surviving my childhood, as a childhood, I was severely bullied, deeply traumatized, didn't feel loved or wanted or like I fit in or anywhere. And I just, and I got through it, but I got through it with all of these defenses in place. I had to, the only way to survive it was I had to like build up this elaborate defense.

And so in my twenties and thirties, you know, I really, this work really started for me. I think 10 years ago was when I really kind of was like, okay, what let's, let's look at what's really going on. And so I think that what I know about my 20s and 30s is that I was doing the best I could to survive. And that when you know better, you do better. And so I don't have any regrets about any of that.

I'm like, these are the things I needed to do. There were no tools. I didn't know how to meditate. I didn't have community resiliency model. I didn't have Brene Brown's shame resilience work. There was none of meditate. I didn't have community resiliency model. I didn't have Renee Brown's like, you know, shame, resilience work. There was no, there's none of that. I had my cover. I had my elaborate cover and my armor and my mask.

And that's what I wore until I could get it. Isn't it interesting when I started to, I had a lot of, I guess, let's call it business success in my late twentiess wearing masks, but I felt deeply unfulfilled, deeply disconnected from other people and felt a lack of purpose, to be honest. I was making all this money and I overcame this adversity and accomplished things, but I was like, why am I still unhappy? And it wasn't until literally

the moment I shared being sexually abused for the first time in my life, 25 years, holding in that secret, that's when things started to shift. It took time. And seven years later of opening up, it's still a work in progress of healing and not being triggered and all these things. But it was like, wow, I just launched this podcast and a whole new brand and everything started to expand in my life. Opportunities became more effortless and abundance, which I know you talk about being more abundant mindset as opposed to scarcity. And it sounds like to me, as you started to step into who you fully are and becoming more authentic of owning yourself and believing in

who you are and not wearing these armors, it sounds like that's when you got Orange is the New Black shortly after that, a couple of years, and everything started to unfold. But even before that, the difference between you and me, there's a lot of differences, I would suggest, is that when you're an artist,

you actually, I don't think it works to be an artist, particularly an actor, not being authentic. You have to be vulnerable. You actually have to be vulnerable. You have to be authentic when you're an artist and i but i but my life definitely changed in 2007 when a woman named candace came became the first openly transgender actor to have a recurring role

in a primetime television show the show called dirty sexy money and in that moment i believed it was possible to be openly transgender and to be an actor up until then i was people knew that i was trans but i wasn't really disclosing and I was trying to have a career as an actor without disclosing my transness. When I started owning my transness, everything changed in my career. Everything changed in my life. And then taking it to the next level with my work with Brad Calcaterra, and he started this Act Out class 10 years ago. He calls it act out for LGBTQ actors where we got to deal with all the specific blocks that we created in our instruments around being LGBTQI. And that's when I really started to not just own my transness externally,

but to own the trauma. It was another layer of healing the trauma and the shame of my childhood and of my young adulthood that was necessary for me to be able to step into the purpose, the reason that I'm here, that Orange is the New Black opened up for me. Yeah. Where do you think you'd be today if you didn't start owning it and fully accepting and fully being vulnerable, I guess, 10, 11, 12 years ago? Where do you think you'd be now if you didn't do that? I don't know if I'd be alive. Wow. I honestly don't know if I'd even be here. Or if I were here, I'd be deeply be deeply unhappy lost it's just it's a scary thought honestly I mean it just it scares me because it just it feels like I think I was in such a I was

in a place where I would have sabotaged I if anything good came I would have found a way to sabotage it and so I mean it's kind of a miracle that I haven't like here that like that that I haven't like all the lovely amazing things that have of a miracle that I haven't like, that like that, that I haven't like all the lovely, amazing things that have come in my life. I haven't sabotaged them because I think that I didn't, I don't think I thought I deserved it. I didn't think I, I don't think I thought that I was worthy. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

I did not think that I deserved nice things because the whole world told me I didn't deserve nice things and nice things love I mean the love piece too is so deep when you feel like you are I mean shame for Renee Brown defined shame is the intense intensely painful belief that one has about themselves that they're unworthy of connection and belonging um she says guilt is I'm sorry I made a mistake and shame is I'm sorry I am a mistake. Deep sense, this deep feeling of unworthiness on a deep core level. Yeah, I was there. And I and Lewis, I'm not there today.

I feel a deep I really and this is a beautiful thing about quarantine, too. I spent so much time in the beginning, particularly really delving deep spiritually and meditating and journaling and trying to get clear about what lessons I'm supposed to learn from this. And I do feel worthy of love. I do feel worthy of belonging, you know, and that is a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing. I mean, I don't have a romantic partner in my life at the moment, which is actually good. It's actually really good. It's honestly, but I do feel worthy. And so then what are the challenges? And I've been thinking a lot about that. And a lot of it's just about health and like the life that I want for myself going forward. You know, when you've achieved goals and you achieve things that you want to achieve, it's like, what's next, you know? And it's not about, you know, I certainly want to make more money and I certainly want to, you know, those

material things. It's not even material, it's things like I want to own more property and I want, you know, things like that. But it's like, how do I want this next part of my life to, how do I want to be in the world? And what do I want to contribute? And how do I want to step up more and be more present? And a lot of it has to do with my having my health be really fully and securely in place so that I can step into this beautiful life we're developing do new projects and I have there's wonderful things on the horizon but I have to be able to fully show up for them and I think the lesson though for everybody everybody out there is that there are beautiful things on the horizon for everybody,

but you have to be able to show up for it. It's waiting there. I really believe that everybody's here for a reason and that it is waiting for us, but we have to be able to align with that energy because it's all energy. We have to be able to align with the energy and the reason. And I think, too, my life shifted when I started owning my transness,

but it also was when I started understanding there was something bigger than me. A year after Candace Kane was on Dirty Sexy Money, I made these postcards that said, Laverne Cox is the answer to all your transgender acting needs. And I sent it to 500 agents. I sent the postcard to 500 agents. True marketer. I love it. Right. I got the idea from this dude. I'd done a movie years earlier. And this dude who was French, and he had been in New York for 25 years, but he kept his French accent.

All of his work was doing like French voiceover. He was playing a French dude in the movie we were doing together. He did a lot of voiceover where he had the French accent. And he said, I forgot his name, but he said, Bob, your French connection. He's the answer to all your French acting needs. So I stole that from him. So I marketed myself as a trans actor,

which is, I never would have done that before Candace Kane. But then that led to me doing this reality show called I Wanna Work for Diddy in 2008. And the only reason I did it was because, well, the day before my final interview for I Wanna Work for Diddy, I was walking in my neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan and I was harassed by a group of Black guys on the street, which is part of my daily life, right? I got harassed pretty much every day. Harassed by, I mean, like, bullying,

or more like sexually harassing? Well, it often would start with being catcalled, where the guys would be like, hey, mama, you looking sexy today? And then one of the guys would realize I'm trans and say, oh, that's a man and misgender me. And then that was, I mean, that was just my life. That was like, I armored up for that living in New York. This particular day, one of the guys kicked me. And so that was like, you know, I called the police. There was a police report, whatever.

They didn't find the guys. I like went into this nearby store, called the police, terrified. By the time the police got there, the guys't find the guys. I like went into this nearby store, called the police, terrified. By the time the police got there, the guys had left the scene, yeah. Filed the report. And then the next day was my final interview for I Want to Work for Diddy.

And I thought how powerful it could potentially be to have this hip hop mogul, P. Diddy, sort of embrace me on this, his reality, should it possibly be his assistant? And maybe that could make some sort of change or inroads in the Black community that was mostly harassing me. And I don't think Black folks are more transphobic than anyone else, but I think we harass people that we see. Like, you know, crime, you know, Black-on-Black crime is this myth, basically, because white people, like, commit crimes against other white people because they're in proximity

with them, and Black people are in proximity with other Black people, and so the crimes happen there. So that, but the I-Wanna-Work-For-Ditty moment was me choosing to do something that was bigger than me. Doing a reality show at the time, my brother didn't think I should do it. All my friends were like, they're gonna explore it. Because you were an artist. You're an artist. You're an actor. You're not a...

I'm an artist. I'm an actor. But also, in 2008, everything, this is 2008, everything about trans people for the most part, except Candace Cannon, Dirty Sex and Money, was exploitative. It was like spectacle. It was like, let's humiliate the trans person. And everyone thought that that's what they were going to do to me

on that show. And I remember saying in my final interview to the executives, I'm like, I don't want to be exploited. I don't want this to be you know a spectacle I'm doing this because I want to make a statement and to generate some kind of acceptance and I was assured by the producers that that's not what they wanted to do that's not what Diddy wanted to do and it turned out really well but the lesson but long story short from the lesson from that is to be of service. The lesson from that is that when I was of service, that ended up going pretty well.

I ended up getting my own show out of it. That show wasn't a success. I needed to stop doing reality TV. It wasn't my thing. But the lesson was to be of service. So owning my transness and then being of service were the two things that really shifted everything in my life. And the shift felt like all of a sudden the alignment happened, right? Because everybody, I think, in their lives, if you are lucky, a shift is going to happen and you're going to feel in alignment with an energy that's bigger than you. And that is going to be tied to purpose.

It's going to be tied to the reason you're here. And that is a beautiful thing. And I think that is the thing. I really believe that's waiting for everybody. I really do. And everybody's not meant to sort of, you know, be on television and produce shows or whatever. We're all here for something different.

But I think when we can align with that energy, and sometimes it takes a minute. I mean, honestly, like the Orange is New Black didn't happen until I was 40 years old. And I was takes a minute. I mean, honestly, like, the Orang- Orang-New Black didn't happen until I was 40 years old. And I was about to... That crazy, yeah. I was about to give up acting, actually, because that was the year I got the eviction notice

and I was in student loan debt and credit card debt. And I was like, okay, girl, you are 40. Who are your trans? Maybe this acting thing isn't for you anymore. You're trans. Yeah. I mean, at the time, there had never been a trans person with a major acting career in the United States. So I'm like,

okay, girl, you're delusional. You, you gave it a good shot. I mean, you're 40 years of this. Yeah.

You try girl. Let's, let's get it together. So I bought GRE study materials. I was looking into grad schools. I was going to go to grad school and like, I was thinking journalism, women's studies. I was like, I don't know what I hadn't figured it out yet, but I was going to go to grad school. And like I was thinking journalism, women's studies. I don't know.

I hadn't figured it out yet. But I was trying to figure out grad school. And then the Orange audition happened. I didn't go to grad school. But the fun thing about that, though, is that literally four years after I booked Orange is the New Black, thought I was going to go to grad school, but didn't. I got an honorary doctorate from the new school. Ah, that's great. black thought I was going to go to grad school, but didn't, I got an honorary doctorate from the new school. So I, you know, grad school was just acting stardom.

That's amazing. It's amazing what you've accomplished. And I'm curious what, I've got a few final questions for you. I want to, I could talk to you for hours, but this is what advice would you, cause I have a, I think I mentioned to you a few years ago that I have a family member who I love deeply, who is gender nonconforming and they are going through and have been going through a challenging time in the last couple years just finished up college and I'm just curious your advice to your younger self who maybe was confused or struggling feeling unsure of yourself, to people who are afraid to come out as gay, bisexual,

people who are afraid to step into being trans fully publicly, all these different things that people have shame around. What advice would you give to those individuals today? Oh, the truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. And I think that like, it can, you can, it can feel isolating and alone. And I think the beautiful thing about 2020 is that we can, we can go online. It's not the same as having that friend in real life, but online there's support groups that you're not alone. And I think one can feel alone when

you're going through that. Even in 2020, you can feel alone. You're not. There's support groups online. There's a local LGBTQ center in most cities, most major cities in the United States anyway, that you can go and find a community. You can go and find somebody who is like you or who can support you and accept you. If you can't find somebody who's like you because everybody's different, you can find somebody who will like you or who can support you and accept you. If you can't find somebody who's like you because everybody's different, you can find somebody who will see you and love you. And until you do that, you can start knowing for sure there's a light inside you.

I, you know, wherever I go, I try to remind trans people that we are anointed, that in indigenous cultures all over the world, there were sacred traditions of third genders, fourth genders, where we were revered members of the culture. In India, we were called Hidra, Native American cultures here in the United States, two spirits.

In Philippines, all over the world, indigenous cultures all over the world, trans people, what we would understand as trans people, held a sacred place. In India, you would not get married without the blessing of a hijra, or you wouldn't have your baby christened without the blessing of a hijra. So we are sacred. We are anointed.

And we just must step into that. We just must step into that and know this inside. I think through all the years of confusion and messiness that I had, there was something in me that was like, I knew I was here for something bigger than all of that. And there is a light in there that we all have. And the work is to turn up the light. The work is to not let it be dimmed by anything, but actually to turn up the light. The work is to not let it be dimmed by anything, but actually to turn up the brightness on the light and shine, shine, shine. That is the thing. And as you shine that light, some people will be blinded by it. Some people cannot take the light. They can't, and

that's fine. But you'll attract the people who can. And I think that's, it's a deep thing too. And I have to remind myself of that is I'm single and dating and just, you know, I'm Laverne Cox and it's like very challenging dating. And I, but I know I'm sitting here knowing how fabulous I am. You know, I know how fabulous I am. I know how sexy I am.

I know all the things I have to offer. I can say that with such certainty now. And so what I know is that everybody can't take the light. And honey, if you can't take this light, then you're not right. You're not right. That should be on your website. If you can't take the light, you're not right. But no, but then, but that doesn't mean I i'm gonna change the light i'm gonna dim i'm not gonna dim my light i'm not going to try to put on a mask to be somebody else we're just gonna if the right we're gonna attract the right energy energetically and i think people need to know not to cut you sorry to cut you off there but to add to that i think people need to know that when sometimes when you step into your light and you turn it on you turn on who you are you're going to uh some people are going to flock to you and

you're going to burn a lot of people they're going to want to get away from you right some people can't take that because they're not in their light you know and that's what makes me so sad i mean i i've been meeting men and i just and it's i think what's made me really sad about what's going on with a lot of as i date or whatever that they, they're not in their light. They're not in there. They're brilliant. And so then it's like, they can't receive it. And it's, that's sad for them.

Not sad for me. Hallelujah. Exactly. And I think, I think the, you need, people need to be aware that when you step into that light and who you are, it might be freeing, but then you might lose a lot of people around you. The people you were performing for and wearing a mask for and having an armor for liked you for that. They don't like you for who you truly are. And you're going to lose friends, potentially family members at certain times.

Hopefully they come back around, but you've got to be prepared. And that's what I think is scary for a lot of people, the social pressure of losing friendships, family members, and that pain. Pain is necessary to become a butterfly. You're about to die before you can fly. The quest for true belonging is being willing to go it alone. And Brene Brown, Brave in the Wilderness, honey, she starts off Brave in the Wilderness with the Maya Angelou quote, I belong everywhere and no place, I belong everywhere and no place, no place at all, something like that.

But the Maya Angelou quote is basically about belonging everywhere and no place, but I belong to myself. Ooh, snap. Yeah, and when you can truly belong to yourself, you can stand alone. It's okay to be in the truth and the courage of your convictions because you belong to yourself. We all need belonging as human beings.

But that's scary. Everybody's not sophisticated enough for that. Because if we don't truly believe in ourselves, we need the approval of other people to believe in us. to believe in us. And when we fully believe in ourselves and accept who we are and lean into that, we may lose the approval of everyone around us. And we need to be ready to stand alone like that until you can attract the right people, which might take time. And this is a sermon right here. Laverne, I love this. Isn't that beautiful though? I mean, last thing I'll say is that, isn't it beautiful though, to let go of the things that don't serve us? I think it's beautiful when those people drop out of our lives.

It's really beautiful. It's dead weight. It's keeping me from flying. Purge it. Yeah. Purge what you don't need. I'm excited to watch your new documentary. It just came out, Disclosure, on Netflix.

And everyone now has netflix so go watch it tonight and when you're watching it after you listen to this interview go uh you know tag laverne on her social media while you're watching it and share with her what you're learning about it but examines how transgender people have been depicted on tv movies for the past century why did you want to do this? And why do you think people need to watch it now at this moment? I think the best way to understand, one of the best ways to understand our present is to really have a sense of the past, to have a sense of how we got here. And we have now an unprecedented, you know, visibility of trans folks in the media

and how did we get here? And the film looks at how the media has represented trans folks and how that affects how people treat us and then how we treat ourselves. GLAAD did a study a few years back that determined that 80% of Americans say they don't personally know someone who's trans. So most of what Americans learn about trans people comes from the media.

And so many of those representations have been really harmful and have kept trans people in really unfortunate places. What's been so beautiful about getting the reactions from people with this doc is that there are so many films that they love, like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, or The Crying Game, or Silence of the Lambs. They didn't know that these things were problematic and now they're understanding that they are and this isn't about canceling our old films this isn't like a you know censorship thing it's about an understanding it's about shifting hearts and

minds so that we can ultimately um get closer to each other and get closer to ourselves yeah ace ventura was that well that was right it was uh Finkel as Einhorn. Einhorn as Finkel, right? Was that the whole part you're talking about? Wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm excited to watch this. Zeke, one of the subjects everyone interviewed in the film is transgender, and most of the crew behind the scenes is also trans. Zeke, one of the folks we interviewed, he said, one of my favorite childhood film ends with the sight of a trans person making everyone vomit. And that's just a fact. That's just like, that's not a critical analysis. That's

just his favorite film as a child ends with the sight of a trans person making people vomit. Wow. So what do you want people to really learn about when they watch? What do you want them to be mindful of and aware of? What's been so impactful for people is seeing the repetition of the same stories over and over again, the repetition of tropes. And folks don't know the extent to which the media, because the media doesn't just reflect what's going on, it can shape what's going on. It can shape how people see and think about trans folks. And for over 100 years, the media has shaped how Americans think about trans people. And so then once we can understand what that media has done, we can make different media. And then we can make different choices now that we have this critical intervention about how we're going to treat the trans people that we come in contact with in our regular lives.

So that we can understand, oh, this like borderline or even propaganda about trans people but i can make a different choice so it's really about raising consciousness so that we can make different choices which is what your podcast is about right raising consciousness so people can make different choices that's it is there any question you wish people would ask you that they don't ask you? People have asked me almost everything. That is a good question. I don't know. I mean, I'm in such a place now of gratitude and of joy that I get to even come and have a voice.

It's so empowering to just come and talk about and share my experience and what I've learned, that I'm just grateful for that. So it's really ultimately not about me. Laverne is doing a pretty good place right now. Thank God. But it's really about all the other trans folks out there who are struggling for access to employment

and to housing and to healthcare, who are being harassed on the streets, who are being harassed in school. 78% of trans kids are bullied or harassed in school, 78%. There's about all of them. And so what I want everyone to be able to do, and it's not even just for trans folks, is to be able to be in a space where everybody's human.

Even if we politically disagree, right? It's even like not even about black and white white anymore as much as it's about Republican or Democrat in this world now. And it's how can we be in a space where everybody's human? Where like, okay, we disagree on this, but you're still human. And I'm gonna figure out a way to love you

and have empathy for you. That's what I want folks to be able to do across the board, not just for trans people, but for everybody, for all human beings. And how do we proceed from a place of love? And one of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Cornel West. He says that justice is what love looks like in public. Justice is what love looks like in public. And I mean, could you just imagine that like when you're when I, my imagination goes to what is justice? What does love in public look like? When I think about public policy, when I think about legislation, when I think about how

we treat each other, like, and I think that like, we can't even get to that place often because of the fight, flight, or freeze because of our own trauma. Here we are at trauma and shame. You gotta heal the past. You gotta heal the past. You always go. Yeah. Man, it's interesting. I did a, I'm going

to ask you a couple of final questions, but I did a podcast recently with a doctor named Dr. Mike. And I said, what are more, what do people need more of in the world? And he said, they need more therapy. This is a doctor, a medical doctor saying the world needs more therapy. Human beings need therapy. And if we had more therapy, we would be better human beings because we would be able to heal our traumas of the past. We'd be able to have more compassion and empathy for other people. And I thought that was a really interesting perspective from a doctor's point of view who's treating sickness and disease and ailments every day that this is something I think a lot of us all want. We all want to feel loved. We all want to feel accepted.

We all want to feel justice and fairness. There's another piece and we take this, this could take us down a totally different road, but I discovered Dr. Joe Dispenza through your podcast. He's amazing. And so much of what he talks about is how stress hormones create disease, stress hormones over time create disease, right? So then how do you,

not even knowing how to manage stress, how to reset our nervous systems can create disease, right? So that supports, again, therapy, right? And there's different kinds of therapy, but then Dr. Joe talks about, I call him Dr. Joe, talks about meditation and talks about, you know, he has his various processes. My, my therapist would call what he says, the best way to predict your future is to create it. My therapist would call that future template resourcing. I like that. Future template resourcing. So, so again, what is, I mean, I think that is a huge thing. I think that's going on in our culture in general is that we, so many of us, are traumatized.

I think we're collectively traumatized from this reckoning we're having around racial oppression. I think seeing Black people repeatedly murdered on camera is deeply traumatizing. The Me Too movement, all the sexual abuse stuff that's come up, the collective trauma around that, the collective trauma of a global pandemic, right? That like we, there's trauma on top of trauma, on top of trauma. And my therapist defines trauma as too much, too fast, too soon. And so the nervous system doesn't know what to do with that. And so, so many of us, our resilient zones are narrowed and we're so many of us are in despite, flight or freeze. And in from that place, we're not in our resilience. We're not in like the pre our prefrontal cortex.

We can't make the best decisions in fight, flight, or freeze. And so we're attacking. So we're like, we want to blame and somebody else is to blame and we can't be accountable. We can't. So it's like, how do we get our nervous systems out of that trauma survival stress place into a place where we can like feel our feet

on the ground is that we can like hear the person in front of us with some love. So that is, that's, that's the word. I think it's, I think especially right now with cancel culture just being so big and everyone's being canceled for everything from a hundred years ago to 10 years ago to yesterday, whatever. It's just like, we're canceling people. And P I feel like people are more afraid to just say how they feel in hopes of not making a mistake or not saying one thing to

be their whole lives to be ruined. And so people are more afraid to, people are speaking up louder than ever, and then people are more afraid to speak up at the same time. And that makes me so sad. And what makes me sad as a trans person is that a lot of people think that it's my fault, or at least my community's fault, right? So many people are terrified, right, to have a conversation with a trans person because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing. I think what people need to know, at least from Laverne Cotts, and I'm not an advocate of cancel culture, because I think when we cancel people, then we don't believe that there's a possibility of them being transformed. But the only when we cancel people, then we don't believe that there's a possibility

of them being transformed. But the only way we can be transformed though, is through vulnerability and accountability. We don't know how to be accountable. And so I think that is the work too. So how do we lovingly create a space of lovingly critiquing someone? I think that's the beautiful thing about,

one of the beautiful things about Disclosure, our film, we're critical of a lot of films that people love, but I'm not an advocate of discarding those films. I'm an advocate of learning from them and learning how to and having conversation about it so that we can come to new spaces of critical consciousness. And so if we're canceling people, then we, people aren't getting transformed. But then I think the only way people can be transformed though, is through safe space because we go into the fight, flight, or freeze. And the whole safe space thing, it's been so poo-pooed and so like, oh, you liberal snowflakes with safe space. But human beings, if we, so often, if we're called racist, so many people, that's like a bear in

the woods, right? That's the bear in the woods. That's the bear in the woods. So how do we create a safe space so that we can like have a conversation about race? And so a lot of people don't feel safe because the bear is in the woods and in cancel culture, that's the bear. I'm going to be canceled. So we have to create a safe space with love so that people aren't on defense so that they can actually hear us. And one of the things about racism, since we're going there, is I think we're all racist. I am a Black woman, born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, grew up internalizing all these negative ideas about myself as a Black person, about other Black people that I learned from, I think, a racist culture,

a racist ideology, a racist media, a history of racism and white supremacy in the United States. I internalized that stuff. I had to then unlearn that. I had to decolonize my mind. If I, as a Black person, can internalize racist ideas about myself and other Black people, isn't it possible and probably likely

that somebody white can do the same thing? And so then calling someone racist is not the worst thing that you can do to someone because we all are. history of white supremacy in America is racist, or this institution, because it works this way, is racist, and that becomes useful. And then, because then the human being is the human being, and we're not victims. And this is not, acknowledging systemic racism is not playing victim. It's like, this is the system, because there's always a possibility of resistance. There's been resistance to white supremacy since the beginning of this country. So there's always the possibility of resistance. So in that space of resistance with love, we can be transformed, but we, but say you're racist. And then like that becomes this thing that someone is instead of something that they've internalized that can't be changed.

I think that is the thing. And some people don't want to change. You know, some people have internalized this stuff. They believe it's the truth. They don't want to change. And that's fine. I think we can't, you know, make people do anything they don't want to do.

But I think it's an invitation. I'm inviting people because I think, what I know about racism, what I know about transphobia and all these things, and even ableism, I'm able-bodied, but pit, you know, working class people against, you know, people of color. There are people who benefit from that and sort of social hierarchy. But there are a lot of white folks who really aren't benefiting from white supremacy. They're basically feeling superior to black people of color, but are not benefiting. And people in power are basically like using that to keep them. I mean, we really

look historically, right? Because I've been doing all this research on policing in the United States. During slavery, most white folks in the South did not own slaves, right? You had to be kind of rich to own slaves. But every white person in the South was tasked, particularly white men, were tasked with making sure if a slave was like out somewhere, where are you going? Where's your master? What are you doing? So every white person was tasked, they had slave patrols. And even if you weren't officially on the slave patrol, you were tasked with policing the bodies of black people, right? And so those white working class people who didn't own slaves were sort of felt, well, at least I'm better than these, you know,

people who we're enslaving, who they call savages. And they call them savages as a way, justification for enslaving them, right? So that's how this country has worked from the beginning, that people who are not, don't really have power, white working, I would say white working class people have been used by people in power to say, oh, well, you're better than these Black people. Let's police the bodies of Black people, right? And you can be in on this even though you don't have the material privilege. And that's pitting working-class people against each other.

It's pitting marginalized people against each other. Divide and conquer. It's really sad. And it's like something we can let go of, though. We can make a choice. It's so beautiful when all the white folks i'm seeing making choices to live differently right to acknowledge this this history and to say i can i can make a different choice today and we can find a way to come together and love love each other across these differences because ultimately when

we think about power structure there are certain people people in power and they just use race, they use gender, they use trans people, right? All this anti-trans legislation is they're just using us to try to pit people against each other so they can remain in power. And ultimately, where the resources, we're not even having a conversation about Medicare for all. We're not even having a conversation about redistribution of resources because we got, you know, we can't have that conversation, right? We can't make sure that all the homeless people who are homeless here in LA have a place to live.

We can't have that conversation, but we can have the race conversation and we can like take down statues. And yeah, we can have that conversation all day. Corporations can get behind Black Lives Matter, which is amazing. Like it's great on one level, but then it's like,

but are you paying your workers, you know, like a living wage? What's going on? Anyway, girl, I've got to go. Go down the rabbit hole. But I think so much of that comes down to, there's the macro political piece of it, but then there's a piece of like,

of human beings and human behavior and the feeling of wanting to belong, the feeling of wanting and needing love and trauma and scarcity. And that trauma and scarcity stuff is not divorced from politics. It's not. It's like all of, you know, I'm so into my own sort of self-care and my psychological and emotional well-being but i've always understood that it's not divorced from a white supremacist society from a patriarchal society from a transphobic society that does not mean i'm a victim it doesn't mean i'm powerless but it does mean that i have to do some work on myself and then there are structures in place too,

that have like, I mean, it's a miracle that I have the career that I do in the face of all these things. And some people would want to suggest that that proves that there's no racism, that there proves there's no transphobia, that these things are not real. But I would, but what, what America's always done is elevate one or two people, right? Say, oh, you know, we had the first Black president. Oh, this Black person is exceptional. And so we're good. Like, right? America's always done that. But the majority of people who are of color are still struggling. The majority of poor and working people are still struggling. The majority of trans people are still struggling. Women still make, you know, pennies on the dollar that a man makes, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not enough to just elevate one person or a few people and say, oh, we're good. That's just, that's the way the system works.

The system has a lot of work to do. And so each human being out there in the world, for sure, on a personal level. But it starts with each of us though. We can change this. It starts with each of us. Absolutely. Which I think there's a lot of good

that's happening right now in terms of awareness and creating that awareness and like you said i hope i hope we can get to a safer space of being able people being able to talk with each other without shutting them down and fighting but actually being okay well let me learn more and let's connect and i think it's about and this happened to me recently i this dude that i match with on a dating app he was posting a lot of things that seemed very politically conservative, very anti-Black Lives Matter, and I was sort of like,

and I saw this, and my timeline, it made me think of a lot of things. Ultimately, most of what I see on my timeline on social media is all people who would agree with me. That's interesting. We know those are algorithms. We know that's, you know, what they're doing over in Silicon Valley. But then there's also the piece of like this,

do I, do I, I had an impulse to block. I'm like, do I block him? And I'm like, wait, what's that about? I'm like, you know, I like, I made all these assumptions about who he was based on these things he posted. And that there was no curiosity and then I was like he's a human being I we haven't met for a date he didn't seem interested but I'm following him on social media so I was just like and so I would just watch I watched

his stories for a while I watched some of the things he was who posted and then he actually posted this um sort of debunking of a video I posted about um structural racism and so I was like oh do you and I, do you agree with him? And then I just like started asking questions and I tried to just not be judgmental and create space for him so I could try to understand him. And then I was like, you know,

I feel like we might disagree on a lot of things, but I want to try to understand where you're coming from. And I want to, I just, I would like to think that I could have relationships with people who don't agree with me on everything. This is what I love that you said this, because I feel like I bring out a lot of different unique perspectives on my show.

I've had 970 episodes over seven years. And sometimes I bring people on that might be more controversial to the general audience that I have and then they just come at me like how could you even think of putting this person on your platform and sharing their perspective and I'm like listen I'm not saying I think it's important like you said for us to try to understand and listen to people from all perspectives because they have unique experiences they have unique lessons whether they're right, wrong, good, bad, whatever it may be. I think it's important for us to connect. And I'm always trying to speak to people who maybe don't have my perspective as

well, that I want to persuade to having a more positive mindset or thinking in a different way. So I think it's important for us to have those conversations with all people and not just speak to our own community and say, yes, we all believe in the same thing and be against everyone else. I don't think, and I don't have any aspirations even that I would change his mind. I think a lot of us are so deeply dug in to where we are politically, especially when it comes to certain kind of politics, particularly when it seems like it's a sort of out of sort of particular

right wing propagandistic kind of, kind of places. But I, but he's still a human being. I just, that's my, my thing is like, how do we get to this human place? Is there a way to get to a human place, even though we might not, we might not agree on something. And so I think there's like, there is the thing of like, you know know sort of people with their agendas they come on and just pushing that when they're pushing their agenda and then there's like the a slippery slip slippery slip slippery slippery or the time um a more sort of fluid place. That's a better word. A more fluid place where we can have an exchange of ideas and where we can kind of say,

well, what about this? He sent me all these videos, you know, about trying to debunk structural racism. And I sent him a video about the policing and whatnot because he was sending FBI statistics about, like, you know, who's doing all the murders and stuff. And then I sent him, I was like, okay, well, I sent him a video about Stop and Frisk.

And so I have yet to hear a response about the Stop and Frisk video. I sent him a podcast from ThruLine that's amazing, that looks at the history of policing. What is it, Khalil Jabra Muhammad is interviewed on this ThruLine episode about the history of policing in the country. And he has yet to respond. And that's fine. It's fine.

I was very open to his ideas and I tried to engage. And what was really interesting in that ThruLine podcast is how the government started using statistics to sort of say, oh, you know, Black people are inferior and they found ways to like do use statistics.

It was deep. It was really deep. So I, I, but at the same time, it's like, I'm going to, I want to operate from a place of love. It's like if you resentment and hate is like, you know, giving, you know, taking a poison pill and thinking you're going to like, you know, Yeah, exactly. I love everything you're saying. Laverne. I'm so grateful we had time to chat. I could talk for more hours, but I want to respect your time. Yeah. I want to ask you the final two questions.

No, you're good. I love that. I'll keep listening forever for you, but I want to honor your time and everyone listening. But before I ask the final two questions, make sure you guys go check out the new documentary called Disclosure on Netflix. Check it out right now. I think it's going to be very eyeopening for you and share it with Laverne and on your social media channels.

Make sure you follow Laverne on social media. You're pretty active on Instagram. I believe on Twitter as well. You're active and it's just your- Somewhat on Twitter. Not as much on Twitter. But mostly Instagram. So share this with a friend, tag her on Instagram and share this episode with people if you

enjoyed it. And I want to acknowledge you before I ask you the final two questions for your incredible courage, Laverne, your courage to share your voice, to step into who you are in face of adversity, in face of criticism, in face of bullying, shaming, all the different things that you've had to experience as a kid in an entertainment world that you're in, and being able to do it gracefully over the last decade, I would say. I'm sure you're not perfect and you make mistakes, but in the way you continue to show up and come from a place of wanting to understand people as well and not shame people,

which I think is rarely refreshing to hear from your perspective that you don't want to just automatically shame people, but you want to try to understand and love people. And I'm just really grateful that you're alive. I'm grateful that you're here as a human being in this world and that you can share all this wisdom with us. So I'm just, I'm grateful for everything that you stand for and for this time and our

friendship. And hopefully when this is all over, we can hang out again for lunch. This question I asked everyone at the end is called the three truths question. So imagine you're as old as you want to be, but it's your last day on this physical earth and you've accomplished every dream you could imagine,

whether it be your career or with social justice, things that you see come to light with anything, family, relationships, all of it, it comes true. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your life's work with you to the next place. And so no one has access to your words, your videos, your content, anything. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life experiences and the lessons you would want to leave to the world. What would you say are those three lessons you'd want to leave all of us, or what I call your three truths?

That's hard, though. How am I going to miss this on your podcast? Oh, my gosh. I'm not prepared. Three things. My three truths. What's your heart saying? Top of mind.

Top of heart. Your authentic self. Thank you. You are here for a reason. And your work is to align with the energy of the universe. And with that reason. And it is tied to being at service and it is tied to love and passion.

Worthiness is a birthright. Worthiness is a birthright. You can move through life's challenges with grace if you don't put your worthiness on the line. Worthiness is a birthright. Take it off the table. It all feels like it's about connecting to energy that's bigger than me.

That right now in this moment, it feels like it's about the connection to something bigger. It's interesting thinking about being alone and living in a condo all by myself and feeling connected through this documentary and through Zoom and feeling connected to energy that is bigger than me

and that there's a life force that is so much bigger than you that can pull you through if you just connect with it. It's right there. It is just right there. through if you just connect with it. It's right there. It is just right there. And you can just connect with it. And that energy force actually moves into the other life, right? It moves into every sphere of the universe.

It really does. So that is what my invitation would be, is for everyone to connect with the energy that is right there, that is tied to every other life force. I love that. I love that. Okay. Final question.

Final question for you. Okay. It's what's your definition of greatness? Fulfilling your higher powers or the universe's plan for you, aligning what you do in the world with a bigger energy that is greater than you. And with that is aligned with purpose. That is greatness. Laverne, you are a gift. Thank you for shining your brightness, your light, very bright. I appreciate you very much, my friend. a gift. Thank you for shining your brightness and your light very bright.

I appreciate you very much, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, my friend, so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to share this with someone that you think will find it valuable. Again, you have the ability and the power to change someone's life today by sending them this link. Just copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening to your podcast and send it to a friend.

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So make sure to go to Apple Podcasts. Click that subscribe button. Leave us a review. It helps spread the love. And make sure to check out the podcast description for links and resources to other impactful podcasts. And you can check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com slash 974 as well to see everything else we've talked about from this episode. And I want to leave you with a quote from author Vivian Green,

who said, Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain. And right now you might be feeling about learning to dance in the rain. And right now you might be feeling that there's a lot of rain. There might be a lot of lightning and thunder and earthquakes and hurricanes, lots of different things happening in your life right now.

And it's not about waiting for it to end. We don't know when certain things are going to end. It's about learning how to experience life to the fullest in spite of it, in the messiness, while you develop, while you learn, while you grow.

And I'm so grateful for Laverne for sharing with us and teaching us how she's done this in her own life. If you haven't heard recently, you are loved, you matter, and you are worth it.

I'm so grateful for you and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.