Laverne Cox

Summary

Fresh Air: Laverne Cox – “Transcendent”

Date: June 22, 2026
Host: Tonya Mosley
Guest: Laverne Cox

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Episode Overview

In this intimate and candid conversation, host Tonya Mosley sits down with actress and transgender activist Laverne Cox to discuss her newly published memoir, Transcendent. The episode delves into Cox’s childhood in Mobile, Alabama, her rise to fame with "Orange Is the New Black," her complicated family dynamics, the ongoing fight for trans acceptance, and her creative journey in the arts. Laverne offers a powerful exploration of resilience, vulnerability, and the ongoing challenges facing trans people in America.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Reflections on "Orange Is the New Black" and Visibility

• Impact of Sofia Bursett Role

  • Cox describes the scene played at the episode's start, noting the emotional difficulty in re-watching her portrayal ([02:15]).
  • She clarifies her guest star status and journey on the show:

    “I didn't have like a contract the first season. I was literally a day player...But I was there a lot. And they wrote generously for me.” ([03:12])

• The ‘Transgender Tipping Point’

  • Laverne reflects on the significance of her Emmy nomination and Time magazine cover, juxtaposed with the hidden struggles she carried at the time ([01:15]).

2. Childhood Trauma and Family

• Bullying and Isolation in Mobile, Alabama

  • Cox reads a poignant passage recounting being violently bullied by neighborhood boys as a child ([04:38–06:39]).
  • She describes her mother’s reaction—blaming Laverne for the violence—and how this encapsulated a lack of protection and ongoing trauma ([07:14]):

    “My mother finding out, and instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay, she made it my fault.” ([07:14])

  • Laverne’s anger and pain are palpable as she expresses:

    “I want to protect that little child. I'm so angry ... I don't know if I can be able to read excerpts from this book again.” ([08:18])

  • Discusses the increased bullying and legislative hostility faced by trans youth, referencing Trevor Project statistics ([10:19]).

• Conversion Therapy as a Child

  • After being reported by a teacher for “fanning” herself in class, she was sent to a therapist who ultimately recommended injecting her with testosterone at age eight or nine—an idea her mother, thankfully, rejected ([18:05–20:18]).

3. Writing the Memoir and “Telling the Truth”

• Why Now?

  • Laverne shares her hesitation and determination:

    “The opportunity came along and when it did, I thought that I'd done enough therapy that I could get through it... It was harrowing...” ([11:59])

  • She discusses the increase in anti-trans legislation in recent years motivating her to share another humanizing story ([12:40–14:00]).

• Role of Dissociation and Imagination

  • Escaped trauma as a child through dancing, music in her head, and imagination—tools to “transcend” her environment ([15:58–17:43]):

    “The music was in my head and the groove was in the heart.” ([16:37])

4. Complex Parental Relationships

• Honesty About Her Mother

  • Laverne details her mother's disciplinarian style, emphasis on appearances, and the repercussions for both Cox and her twin brother ([22:31–24:51]):

    “She made it about her ... that I was a bad reflection of her.” ([23:52])

• Twin Dynamics

  • Explores her and her brother’s struggles to establish individual identities under the shadow of public scrutiny ([28:22]):

    “As twins, people didn't think of us as individuals... My expression and behavior defined...how people saw us.” ([28:22])

• Brother’s Role in Laverne’s Career

  • Her twin played “pre-transition” Sofia in Orange Is the New Black due to casting needs ([25:41–27:33]).

    “Technically, it was mine, I guess, when it was determined that I wasn't butch enough to play my character pre transition.” ([25:48])

5. Gender Expression, Self-Discovery & Cultural Context

• Androgyny, Art, and Survival

  • Describes exploration of identity through secondhand fashion, inspirations like Boy George and Annie Lennox, and the influence of 1980s pop culture ([31:36–34:19]).

    “The 80s was so wonderful in that way.” ([34:21])

• Navigating NYC Queer Scenes

  • Laverne shares her transition to East Village club kid life and her complicated feelings toward drag and her own trans identity ([36:13–38:43]):

    “Underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia I’d internalized that read as discernment.” ([37:46])

6. Creative Work and Healing through Art

• Creating “Clean Slate” with Norman Lear

  • Discusses starring in and co-creating “Clean Slate,” and translating her relationship with her absent father into fiction ([39:57–41:45]).

    “It was glorious ... It’s very, very loosely based on my life.” ([42:06])

• True-to-Life Emotional Breakthroughs

  • Finds unexpected healing through her on-screen relationship with George Wallace:

    “There was sometimes when it's the character, and then sometimes it's just you... In my head, like, he's holding me. And it just wasn't acting anymore.” ([44:05])

7. On Broader Acting Roles and Representation

• Laverne addresses questions of being cast in roles not explicitly written as trans ([45:36–47:22]):

  “If the character's not written as trans, does she become trans? ... It depends ... For me, it’s really about how complicated the character is, how challenging she is to play and less about, like, whether she's trans or not.” ([45:56]) “I don’t see any limitations around what I can play as an actor ... I look forward to proving them wrong.” ([47:22])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “I saw that flicker of threat, the way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. They were disgusted by me. I was no longer a friend... I was prey.” – Laverne Cox, reading from her memoir ([04:38])
• “This was so ... It was torture to write this. And the reason I wrote it is to tell the truth, I’m like, I just don’t think it makes any sense to write a book ... and not be honest and not be raw.” – Laverne Cox ([10:17])
• “I thought I could handle it...I think half the country had banned gender affirming care for young people. I knew...we were screwed as trans people. I knew this was the beginning of a disaster.” ([12:40])
• “Music was in my head and the groove was in the heart.” – Laverne Cox ([16:37])
• “She made it about her. She made it about what people were saying about her and that people were talking about her and that I was a bad reflection of her.” ([23:52])
• “Underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia I’d internalized that read as discernment.” ([37:46])
• “There was sometimes when it's the character, and then sometimes it's just you ... And it just wasn't acting anymore.” ([44:05])
• “I don't see any limitations around what I can play as an actor. And I think...I look forward to proving them wrong.” ([47:16])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:52] – Clip from "Orange Is The New Black"
• [04:38–06:39] – Childhood bullying excerpt (read by Cox)
• [11:37–14:00] – Writing the memoir, cultural backdrop, and decision to publish now
• [18:05–20:18] – Early experience with conversion therapy
• [22:31–24:51] – Honest depiction of her mother; twin dynamics
• [25:41–27:33] – Brother’s role in "Orange Is the New Black"
• [31:36–34:21] – Adolescent androgyny, 1980s influences, thrift fashion
• [36:13–38:43] – Arrival in NYC, club kid scene, internalized transphobia
• [39:57–45:36] – "Clean Slate," healing via creative work
• [45:36–47:22] – Acting beyond trans-labeled roles, artistic ambition

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Summary Takeaways

This episode delivers a raw, emotionally charged, and ultimately hopeful portrait of Laverne Cox’s journey. With characteristic candor and wit, Cox explores the deep scars and invincible dreams shaping her identity and career. Her reflections intertwine the personal and political, offering a rare and valuable insight into the continuing struggle—and triumph—of living authentically in a world slow to catch up.

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Transcript

[A]

This message comes from takeoff by IXL, the K5 core math curriculum that continuously differentiates learning everything teachers need to personalize instruction is on Takeoff's digital platform. Learn more at takeoff by IXL.com this is FRESH AIR.

[B]

I'm Tonya Moseley, and my guest today is Laverne Cox. Chances are you met her the way most of the world did. A transgender woman in prison, doing hair and fighting for her right to gender affirming care in the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.

[C]

Listen, Doc, I need my dosage. I've given five years, $80,000 in my freedom for this. I'm finally who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand? I can't go back. I'd like to help you.

[B]

I. Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST

[C]

and alt, which could mean liver damage. That's bull. That could mean anything. We're gonna take you off your hormones entirely until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read. But that could take months. I can offer you an antidepressant.

[B]

That's Laverne Cox as Sofia Bursett in 2014. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy category and put her on the COVID of Time magazine next to the words, the transgender tipping point. For a decade now, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. But the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone, not even her therapist. She's written a new memoir titled Transcendent, and it arrives at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country. But the book makes clear that for Cox, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was. Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things, and she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life. Laverne Cox, welcome to FRESH air. It's such an honor to have you.

[C]

Thank you so much for having me. I have not heard. It's rare that I just hear the clip from Orange and it's been so long and I gosh, it brings back memories. And it's really what's interesting is even for actors out there, often when I watch a scene that I've done, it's hard for me to have distance. I immediately am the character again, and I'm in the emotion of the scene. And so I'm immediately, like, feeling what I was feeling when we shot this. This is 2012. That we shot it, so it was funny. I was just like, yeah, it made you laugh. Why?

[B]

Did it make you laugh?

[C]

No, at the end, when, I mean, the writing is so fantastic, maybe I can offer you an antidepressant. It's hilarious.

[B]

Well, Orange is the New Black was revolutionary for the time and your character. I was very surprised to learn from the book that you weren't a regular reoccurring character. You were a guest star.

[C]

Yes. And, I mean, that's really a contractual thing. So I was in, I think. I don't remember how many episodes I was in the first season, but I remember it was a day to day thing. I didn't have like a contract the first season. I was literally a day player, guest star, day player. But I was kind of making day player rates. I wasn't making like guest star rates the second season. I was. My salary was like a guest star rate and I had like, I think a seven episode guarantee. And they ended up using me for nine episodes. So I was there a lot. And they wrote generously for me, I think, because that my backstory episode came. It was the third episode of the show that people thought.

[B]

Felt like you were a cast member.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. I think people think because so much of the work that you have done feels so true to life that so much of that show might be your life. And I think it's part of what makes this book really eye opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know. I want to start with the beginning of your book.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Because you're eight years old, you decide to start at a moment when you're 8 years old. You are at a park near your family's apartment in Mobile, Alabama. You're doing your kid thing and just playing out. And there are these boys that come up to you, the Caraway Boys, and they begin teasing you. And then it gets violent. Can I have you pick up the story from there

[C]

during one of these teasing sessions? Why you talk like that? One of the Caraway boys shoved me. I don't even remember which one. They were interchangeably menacing figures. This time I couldn't keep my balance and found myself falling, hitting the gravel of the playground. I scowled, annoyed at first, but then looking up at them, I saw the switch flip in their eyes. I saw that flicker of threat, the way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. They were disgusted by me. I was no longer a friend, a peer, someone to play with. I was an easy target. I was prey. Their fist landed in unison on my face, my chest. Hmm. You see this? Look at this sissy. Like a girl. One of them sneered, half laughing in glee as they punched me. Their voices blended into one as they pelted me, hurling every name they could think of. And my instinct from as far back as the days of daycare bullying took over, rolling me onto my side and into a ball. The words rang in my ears, those from the past intermingling with those of the Caraway boys. I'd heard these words before. At first, I had not known what they meant, but now, after years of it, I recognized them. Words that meant I was different from the other kids. A girl, when I should have acted like a boy.

[B]

Laverne, thank you for reading that passage. You go on to say that you curl up in a ball and it doesn't stop. They get energized. And finally you're able to make it home. And you get into your apartment and your mom sees you and she doesn't say what happened to you. She. She immediately says, you let them beat you up like this. What did you do to make them do this to you? Why did you want to start the book off with that particular story?

[C]

I don't know. It was. That was my life. I mean, I think that was like just the physical violence of the other children that was persistent throughout my childhood. And then my mother finding out, and instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay, she made it my fault. And it just, in a way, it sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected, not feeling safe. It sort of encapsulates a lot of. A lot of the childhood. I'm, you know, reading that again. I have to say, it's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to. Yeah.

[B]

You grew up inside of people's reactions to you.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

An effeminate child, a gender non conforming teenager, a trans woman. And everything that you. You received, it was like race, gender, and class converging into one person. What really struck me from that very first story, throughout the entire book, is the shame and hatred that people carried. They took it out on you and it even happened in your home.

[C]

Mm. Yes. I'm just trying to gather my resilience and like, I guess I'm like having. There's a, like, there's like reading that. I'm just like. I'm emotional, I'm angry. It's like, it's hard to read that. And obviously I lived it. But it's hard to read about it again, I guess, and understand as an adult. Like, I'm angry at the boys, I'm angry at my mother. I want to protect that little child. I'm just so. I'm so angry. And I think, like, yeah, I don't know if I can be able to read excerpts from this book again. We'll see. I'm just, I'm so pissed. I'm so angry and I'm so hurt and I'm so.

[B]

What are the words? The anger comes from you having to experience it.

[C]

And it's, it's. There's also like the, the anger of all the kids that I've met who are trans or queer who are still experiencing this, and the anger of knowing that in states that have passed anti trans laws that the bullying, percentage of bullying is like skyrocketed in those states.

[B]

You hear a lot of stories, a

[C]

lot of stories, but that's actually, those are statistics, like those, the anecdotes, but those are the stats from the Trevor Project because, like, to manufacture the consent to pass anti trans laws that would ban gender affirming care for kids and all the menace of trans girls in sports. All like, two of them. There's the, the rhetorical piece that happens in the media that is dehumanizing and stigmatizing trans people. And it creates a permission structure. If, like your, you know, governor and your state legislators are doing, if your, you know, your teachers and, you know, pundits on TV are doing it, then like, of course kids are emboldened to do it. And that makes me so angry. And, you know, it's like the sadness is like, you know, it's just the loneliness. And I couldn't process it fully as a child and I don't know, it just really sucked. This was so. It was torture to write this. And the reason I wrote it is to tell the truth, I'm like, I just don't think it's. It makes any sense to write a book and like, to clean stuff up and to like, not be honest and not be raw. But it's just like, wow, what made

[B]

you decide to write it now? Especially because I know you probably had folks coming to you wanting you to write books at the time when you were on Orange is the New Black or you're on the COVID of Time magazine when magazines are fighting to have you on the COVID What made you decide to do it now?

[C]

Yeah, I don't know. I have an impulse to want to apologize, but I'M not gonna do that for my emotion right now. The opportunity came along and when it did, I thought that I. That I had done enough therapy that I could get through it. I thought that the memories that were buried would stay buried. And I came up with this device of when I would disassociate as a kid, when traumatic things would happen. I would pretend I was Darcelle from Solid Gold Elite. Solid Gold dancer. There was a TV show in the 80s, 70s and 80s called Solid Gold. They would count down the.

[B]

Our listeners will remember that.

[C]

I thought you say it like that. I mean, I don't. I mean, there's so many, you know, people who are way younger than me who have no idea. So I would go to these other places and I thought that I could use that device in writing the book to sort of protect myself. And then I found we started to use that device not as much as I wanted to. And then I found that, like, memories I thought were buried came back. And it was just. It was harrowing, but so I thought I could handle it. And it just felt. It felt like the right time. I don't know why. Well, I'm in a new place with my mother. It just felt like the time to do it. And it did come, like a couple years ago. And it was, I think right after 2023, it became very clear to me that we. That trans people had lost the culture and that I think half the country had banned gender affirming care for young people. I knew, and layman's parlance, that we were screwed as trans people. I knew this was the beginning of a disaster in terms of policy, in terms of stigma, scapegoating. And the dehumanization was so clear to me. And so I think I also thought, like, maybe one more human story out there can help.

[B]

I want to go back to your home and your mom and your decision to write all of this down, because the majority of the book takes place in your childhood. Tell me about Mobile, Alabama, and that home that you grew up in. How would you describe it?

[C]

Mobile. It's interesting. I go back now and I find it quaint and way too hot in the summer. But like the azaleas, there's lots of beautiful things about it. And there are all these antebellum homes that still exist on, like, Government street. And there's something quaint about parts of it. And there's just a lot of trauma, though, literally on the streets, particularly in the Oval neighborhood where my mom still lives. There's trauma on those Streets for me.

[B]

Is that a part of town? What part of town is that?

[C]

We would call it down the Bay. Down the Bay. And it's where most of the black people in Mobile live. And. Yeah, and it's downtown. It's downtown Mobile, which I think is fantastic, but because Bienville Square and like the Mardi Gras parades. Mardi Gras started in Mobile, in this country, not in New Orleans, as some people might think. And so the Mardi Gras parades happen downtown. And this I love. I love it.

[B]

And you grew up with your mother and your twin brother?

[C]

And my twin brother, yes. Yeah. Mobile, though, when I was growing up there, I was just. I just desperately needed to get out. It was awful. It felt repressive, and I just knew I needed to be. The second I discovered there was New York, I knew I had to be there. And so most of my childhood I was in Mobile, but I was in my imagination, I was in New York, or I was on a TV screen, or I was on a movie screen, or I was on a Broadway stage.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting. The book is called Transcendent. And in a way, it sounds like disassociating was your way to transcend as a child. What were some of the ways that you would try to transcend?

[C]

I always had. There was always music in my head, which is such a wonderful gift. And so I just. From the second I was walking, I was dancing and I was dancing, I danced everywhere. And it just kind of like. It just took me away. It took me away from, like. Because for me, when I danced, there was some music, but then there was like a character. There was a person that I could play. So I was like in a character. And then I was. It would be a new setting. And so like all the times we would be at the supermarket, in the grocery store, I just loved pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery cart as if it was like a partner.

[B]

Did you have headphones on a Walkman?

[C]

No, darling. The music groove is in the heart. A Walkman. This is like. I mean, you know, I was five years old. It would have been 1972, 1977. Did Walkman's even exist? We couldn't afford one if they did. The music was in my head and the groove was in the heart. And actually in the supermarkets, they would play music. And I remember loving TV show themes. I would learn the worsted TV show themes and, like sing along and dance to them. So there was always like a song and a rhythm and then a character and Movement. And it was. It was so amazing that I got to do that. I had that. That I could go there. And then when I discovered that you could study dance, it's like, I want to take dance classes. I want to take dance classes at 5 years old. And I won't give away that moment from the book. It's a little humorous moment about that. But finally in third grade, I got to start studying dance. And that really, that was the best thing ever for me.

[B]

This disassociation, this going to all of these different places. I mean, this would happen to you everywhere at home, at school. And there's a particular moment in school where you've got your little fan and you're in your classroom and something happens that kind of stays with you for the rest of your life.

[C]

Yeah, that was certainly a moment. So we had gone to Six Flags on a church trip, and I had some spending money and bought a handheld fan at the gift shop at Six Flags. And as the women in church would fan themselves and as Scarlett o' Hara would fan herself. I had seen Gone with the Wind on television. It seemed like it was always on in Alabama. Go figure. And I was having a Scarlett o' Hara moment, fanning myself in beginning of the day in third grade. And my third grade teacher, Ms. Ridge Wang, says, you there, come here and bring that thing with you. And she marches me down the hall to the fourth grade teacher and tells me to show her what I was doing with my fan. And so I proceed to fan myself the way I had in class, and she tells me to stop. And I wait, and she conferences with that teacher. And then she marches me down the hall to the fifth grade teacher and tells me to do it again. And I was like, well, maybe I didn't do it. Maybe I didn't fully commit. So I committed more and really, really dropped into scarlet. And then later that day, my mother comes in and it. And tells me she had gotten a call from the school from Ms. Ridgway. And Ms. Ridgway said that. That I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we didn't get me into therapy right away. I understand now is what some people would refer to as conversion therapy. And I guess there's different kinds. But at the time, after three sessions with a therapist, the solution or the, you know, the thing that they suggested what we do was to inject me with testosterone. And that the idea was that that was supposed to make me more masculine and I would not that there was a hormone issue. This was. This would have been 1980. Yeah, 1980. 81.

[B]

And you were how old?

[C]

I was eight, nine years old. Nine years old, hadn't even started going through puberty yet. So they were suggesting injecting an 8, 9 year old with testosterone, which sounds insane to me. My mother, thank God, said no to that. And so it was I just felt relief that that didn't happen to me.

[B]

Our guest today is actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is FRESH air.

[A]

Support for NPR comes from IBM. On Smart Talks with IBM, host Malcolm Gladwell speaks with leaders who are pushing the boundaries of AI and technology in partnership with IBM. Hello. Hello.

[C]

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I sat down with Alon Cohen, who leads research and development at ufc, to discuss the complexity of using technology to analyze fight data. With kick to the head, it makes contact with the outside of my arm, which I brought up. In our world, that's, that's a blocked strike. Yeah, but teaching a computer what exactly that means and when and how, like when my arm is up, that's a block. When my arm is down and hits my shoulder, that's not. It's those nuances that proved incredibly difficult for machines to be able to handle for a very, very long time. That is, until IBM entered the octagon.

[A]

Listen to Smart Talks with IBM wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

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[C]

And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

I'm thinking about that moment when your mother took you to this conversion therapy. And you write so compassionately about your mom, but you also are unhappy sparring in the way that she treated you as a child. Typically, I don't encounter memorists who write this way unless they are estranged from their mother or their mother is dead. And that's neither case for you.

[C]

No, I'm sorry. I'm laughing because it's like, it's crazy. She hasn't read the book yet.

[B]

How would you describe the kind of mother your mother Was to you.

[C]

How would I describe it? That's an interesting thing, because it was. The way I approached the book is I was like, this is what happened, and this is how it made me feel. But characterizing how my mother was to me, My mother was a disciplinarian. She constantly corrected my grammar and my brother's grammar, which I'm insanely grateful for now. Insanely grateful for. My biggest pet peeve is when people say less when they mean fewer. Anyway, like, it's just. It's still great. So my mother was. She was critical of appearance and overly concerned about how she appeared to the world. That was almost like a driving force to her, her not being embarrassed and her people not talking badly about her. And in small towns, people.

[B]

And so you. That teacher calling to say that you were fanning in the classroom and this is a problem. I mean, that became a problem for her.

[C]

She made it about her. She made it about what people were saying about her and that people were talking about her and that I was a bad reflection of her. And then this therapy thing, too, was like, who's gonna pay for it? Isn't she? You know, like, there's no money, Like, So I was all of a sudden a problem, and. And I understood it being a big problem for me, but then even talking to my brother about it and him just sort of watching all of that happen, there was sort of a horror for him. You know, I've tried not to speak for him in this book, but, like, just. I think he won't mind me saying this because he's told me watching all of this policing of my gender expression and this, like, attention that I was getting that wasn't positive or affirming. Like, the message that was sent to him is that, like, I can't be anything like that. I have to, like, suppress the thing. Anything that might evoke that kind of attention that Laverne is getting.

[B]

How did that affect your relationship? Because, you know, we who are not twins have this idea of what twins are like, the closeness that you feel, the. You know, the connection.

[C]

I mean, there's a closeness now. It's healthier now than it's ever been with my brother. But I think the dynamic. We were not a touchy feely family. We weren't a family that said, I love you. So. Like, my brother and I, so we didn't do that. Like, we didn't. Like, that wasn't our relationship. But what we did, we bonded most around music, art. There were periods when I would be in dance class and he would come and watch and critique, and he would give me his notes. And, you know, now it's like, we talk a lot of politics, but then we also talk a lot of art.

[B]

Your brother actually was in Orange Is the New Black. Was that your idea? Was that his idea? How did that come about?

[C]

Technically, it was mine, I guess, when it was determined that I wasn't butch enough to play my character pre transition. And I think what's interesting about that now is their. I think, Jody. I think the writers.

[B]

Jodie Foster, who was a guest director.

[C]

Yes. Jodie directed my backstory episode, and that episode got me my first Emmy nomination. So it was my character's backstory. And the initial idea was that they needed to hire another actor to play me pre transition. And I was like, I would. I'm an actor. I would. You know. And Ginger, to her credit, said, I don't want to re traumatize you. And I was like, no, I'm an actor. I can do it. And so they weren't convinced. So we did a hair and makeup test for the character throughout her transition. And the end of the day, we got to the butchest of the looks. And I remember, like, you know, they put a fake mustache on me. I mean, I can't grow facial hair or anything, obviously. And I went to Jody. She was in a meeting, and I, like, really? You know, I was like, you know, and she looked at me and she was like, we're gonna have to hire someone. So then they started bringing in these very butch black male actors, and they would stand them next to me and take a photo. And then I was like, why don't you just do an audition? And then asked my brother if he'd be open to it. And he said, how much does it pay? And then he ended up going in for the audition. But he had an advantage because, you know, he kind of looks a little bit like. So he booked it and did it, and he had regrets about it for a while because he has his own work and his own life, and he, you know, wants to be defined by his work and not mine.

[B]

He's in a lot of attention from it.

[C]

Yeah. And people knew that work, and they didn't know his work. But we're in a really great place around all that now, and he's in a great place with all that.

[B]

Your brother was the first person to tell you you were an actor and not a dancer.

[C]

Yeah. Which is incredible and amazing, and I'm so grateful for that. And he's genuinely, genuinely proud of me and has an immense amount of respect for me as I do for him. And that is wonderful. It has been dysfunctional and in some ways might still be, but there is an unconditional love that we have for each other.

[B]

It sounds like it. It was dysfunctional, though, in part because this world ripped you guys apart. It was the world's reaction to you that caused a rift because as children, he had to navigate that and you had to navigate that.

[C]

And we felt like as twins, people didn't think of us as individuals. Like we were like one person, the twins. And so I was more flamboyant, invisible. And I got attention because I just did. And so my expression and behavior sort of defined in a lot of ways how a lot of people saw us. My brother has a, you think I have a huge personality. My brother's personality is even bigger. And he is very much himself. And he, like me, has fought to be himself authentically. And so he does not want to be compared to someone else. And I get and understand that. And it's, yeah, it's interesting because, like, you know, he was just always into and it was very important for him to have his own identity. And I totally didn't understand that. And so he went about doing that, you know, when we were in boarding school together. And I felt abandoned, certainly.

[B]

I just to let people know, you and your brother applied to a prep boarding school, an art school outside of your city in Alabama for ninth grade. Like the moment you all could, you left home.

[C]

Yeah, the first two years of freshman, sophomore year, we were both there. And then he went back home to Mobile and finished high school there. And I stayed. And now I understand. And it was actually wonderful just to be it was wonderful to be away from him. And I think it was wonderful for him to be away from me. So we could just just like not be twins anymore. We could, like have our own identities. It was actually kind of glorious.

[B]

If you're just joining us, my guest is Laverne Cox. Her new memoir is called Transcendent. More of our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.

[D]

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[B]

After that childhood of being bullied from like K through eighth grade, K through 12.

[C]

K through 12. Yeah. Even at the art school, like it got better junior and senior year, but it was still there.

[B]

This is when you start to step into, we call it gender nonconforming, but it was the androgynous era for you you were stepping into, trying to figure out an identity, needing to, it felt

[C]

like at the time, needing to express myself, you know, honestly. After the conversion therapy there was, I had internalized so much transphobia and like ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress was presented to me as the absolute worst thing that could happen to me. And in my young mind I imagined I would be on the street and I would be homeless and a person who needed to like do unfortunate things to survive.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So it just presented as something that was the absolute opposite of like the straight A student that I was, the human being that I was who was determined to be successful. So I didn't, I didn't wear skirts and dresses until college because I was just like, well, I can't, you know, I internalized, I can't wear a dress or skirt in high school. But I did start wearing girls clothes that I would purchase from the thrift stores in Mobile and in Birmingham. And it was such a fun, wonderful exploration and it felt like an extension of, I remember, I think it was in high school I had read about Oscar Wilde. You talked about creating yourself as a work of art and I loved that as a concept, you know. And I think it was this also

[B]

around the time when, I mean androgynous musical artists were pretty big. Was this like the 80s?

[C]

It was certainly the 80s. And it was post like the heyday of Culture Club. Culture Club's first album came out in 1983. So I would have been 11 years old. And that was Like, Boy George was pivotal for me in my childhood. And Annie Lennox and just the whole British New Wave that was filled with androgyny and gender bending of all sorts. Even looking back at old episodes of Soul Train, there was some real gay stuff going on. The 80s, like, stuff that would never fly right now, got through in the 80s. Even Jermaine Stewart, who is a wonderful artist who. We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time. Oh, yeah, he was. I don't know if he was openly gay. He. He unfortunately passed away in the late 80s or early 90s. He. He had HIV, AIDS. And then his. This song was sampled later by LMAFO, I think. But he, like, he had it. You know, his hair was pressed out and it was laid. His hair was laid. He was. He had been a member of Shalimar.

[B]

Always wondering what Cherry Wine was, though. Never could figure out, girl, okay, so

[C]

you are my generation, you know, Cherry Wine. That's a deep cut, girl. Yes. Yeah, I don't know what cheering mind is either, but he was a queen on Soul Train. Like, just.

[B]

These were the people watching.

[C]

But it was. The 80s was so wonderful in that way.

[B]

You made your way to New York. You wanted to be a dancer, you wanted to be an entertainer.

[C]

I always knew that I would transition to acting because dancers, you know, have a short shelf life. And so I imagined musical theater and brought. And Broadway and then film and television is what I thought. And I thought I would, you know, maybe be in the chorus or something, but I could never book roles as a dancer when I would audition for things. And I remember the year before I moved to New York, I was at Indiana University, and every year I auditioned for the Grand Ole Opry because there were always auditions in regional auditions wherever I was. And that year, I remember the dance captain asking me to show the other because I learned. Picked up the choreography quickly. She asked me to show the choreography to the other people auditioning. And I was just like, oh, maybe this means that I'm finally gonna get the job. And I didn't get it that year. And I got to New York and I did tons of open calls and never booked anything as a dancer. And I, you know, I was never masculine enough. By that time, I had gotten a very good technique as a dancer. Maybe, you know, I wasn't the best dancer, but I was very. I was technical. I could pick up choreography. You know, I could do six pirouettes. And I had technique, but I didn't have an ideal. And I never Figured out how to appear masculine while I was dancing. And so butchered up was the subtext of it all.

[B]

It's so fascinating to read about your early days in New York. And it sounds like you were pretty discerning about what scenes you were part of because you didn't see yourself fitting into the drag queen world. You understood and appreciated what they did and you understood what these other groups. Like, there were all these other groups and you were part of a club kid group.

[C]

I was. So there was a very. Like in the early 90s, there was kind of. There was the downtown kids, there were the uptown kids. Like, I was a downtown girl. I was East Village, really East Village. Because the gender non conforming thing, the androgynous thing that I was doing when I moved to New York in 1993, fit better in the East Village. By the time I made it to New York, I was wearing dresses, lots of vintage things, but I had a black vintage dress that I would wear. And then I would incorporate dance wear so I could go out and dance and really do my thing. So a good chunky heel, platform heel. And my head was shaved and I shaved my brows and drew them on. And a lot of people, and I thought, Grace Jones, his look was very androgynous. The drag scene I wasn't in. But I also, like, I had internalized transphobia. And like, for me there was. Because by this time, by the time I made it to New York, I'd also read bell hooks. And so I had. And I'd read other feminist writers who were very skeptical of drag and this performance of womanhood that was sort of seen as mockery by some feminist. And so I was sort of contending with that and trying to like, navigate my newfound feminist politics with like, my gender and not wanting to sort of, like, feed into some sort of retrograde idea of womanhood. So there was also. That was introduced in college, but underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia that I'd internalized that read as discernment.

[B]

But really it was.

[C]

It was a lot of. It was like I was terrified of ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress. Because I think in my mind too, if I embraced the womanhood, the girlhood that I knew I was, and in my mind I thought that, like, on top of, like, you know, all the stigma that you are a degenerate or something, that I think I internalized about trans people. It's also that I didn't think I could be smart, even though I loved smart women. There was some I think there was just I was never presented with images of drag performers or trans women on television, if I ever even saw trans women on television at the time that were articulate and intellectual. And even as I entered the club scene, there were so many really, really smart drag performers who were just brilliant artists. But I needed time to, like, let all that stuff go. And I just needed time.

[B]

Let's take a short break. We'll continue our conversation with Laverne Cox in just a moment. Her new memoir is called Transcendent. This is FRESH air.

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[B]

You co created this series and starred it's on Prime Video called Clean Slate. And you play Desiree, a trans woman who comes home to Mobile, Alabama, after more than 20 to a father who'd been estranged from her, played by comedian George Wallace. And it was one of the last things the legendary Norman Lear made before he died. And here is a scene of Desiree with her father trying to find their way back to each other. And Wallis speaks first.

[C]

Look at us picking up right where we left off after all these years. Well, it will be a process.

[D]

What's gonna be a process?

[C]

You know, unpacking all our stuff.

[D]

Well, you ain't got but one suitcase.

[C]

Okay. My therapist says that our past and our presence are linked. Like with me, I have a pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable men and that is linked to my past and to, well, you know, the first emotionally unavailable man in my life. Well, who the hell is he? Does he live around here? Do we need to go pay him a visit? Okay, let's try something. Are you open to writing a letter to me as a 10 year old girl I always was. But you were unable to see. Say what name? Dr. Vera Rishi Guerrera says Doctor who? My therapist. Have y' all been up there talking about me behind my back? Maybe I need to write his ass a letter. She's a she. Well, maybe I need to write her ass a letter. So I think I'm just gonna retire to what I imagine is my completely unchanged childhood bedroom. That's where you got it wrong. I put it in a ceiling pan.

[B]

That was my guest, Laverne Cox, with the George Wallace in the prime video series Clean Slate. And it's so funny. It's a great series, but you have so much compassion in it. In the same way that I see the way you write about your mother. There's compassion there while also just showing the truth, you know?

[C]

What a joy I've never. It's interesting. I've never just listened to that scene. I've watched it, but I've never just listened to it. What a joy it was working with George. I just go back to, like, how incredibly funny he was, but also how sensitive he was and how. Oh, just. It was glorious. And it's very, very loosely based on my life and with the sort of question is, like, what if Laverne never became famous and had a father and went back home to Mobile?

[B]

Is that healing to write from that place? Because you write in great detail about the truth about your father, which for many years, you had told a different story, that you had never met him, that he had died. And the truth is, you did meet him, and it was a pretty traumatic thing. And so watching this series, it kind of feels like. It feels like a writing of the truth, but a rewriting in a way that kind of takes back something.

[C]

It was the writing of it, the creating of this series. Like, first with Dan Ewing, our co showrunner and co creator, and then with George, like, for years before we got a deal. That part was fun. Coming up with storylines and episodes and pulling things from my life, that was fun. But when it was time to actually act it and relive it, I was triggered again. Hello, Trigger. I was triggered a lot because we added a lot of things from my life and we gave George a lot of the characteristics that my mother. I mean, my mother's funny, but she's not that funny, so. Oh, George is hilarious. And so, yeah, I never obviously had a father in my life, so we had to endow that. But something interesting happened by the end where I felt this very dysfunctional but sort of paternal relationship with George that In the moment of the show felt strangely healing in a way that I didn't expect, particularly in the last episode. I.

[B]

What do you mean? Why?

[C]

Yeah, there's a scene where I just. Where I needed my dad, and he was there. And it was everything that Desiree needed as a child, that she was able to finally get from him as an adult. Care and feeling seen by him and feeling protected in a way that he had not done when she was a child. There was sometimes when it's the character, and then sometimes it's just you. And. Yeah, that's certainly what I needed as a child. And so there was a moment I just. There was a moment I just start. I cry, and in my head, like, he's holding me. And it just. Like it just wasn't acting anymore. It was George and me. It was. I don't know, it was. I can't. Like, I don't have words for it, but it was. It was really beautiful, a beautiful experience for me as an actor. It's a scene I can't watch. I probably need, like, three more years to be able to watch it with some perspective. But how wonderful. Cause, I mean, George is like an icon as a comedian, and there's. The comedy in this show is wonderful, but there's a lot of drama in Clean Slate. And he was just so dialed into that huge heart and that love and that generosity, and it was such an honor to receive it. All of that love that he has inside that he surrendered to the character and to our circumstances as father and daughter.

[B]

Do you ever have a desire? You know, you are sitting in who you are, and you are representing who you are in this lane. As a trans woman, do you ever want to branch out and do other types of roles that I already have.

[C]

I've been very.

[B]

Or do you feel like it's there for you? That material?

[C]

It may not exist yet, but I know that there are artists out there who I maybe haven't met yet who will. Who are writing it. You know, Shonda Rhimes cast me to play Casey Duke, who is a real life human being and a brilliant woman who I got to meet. And she's not transgender. In Inventing Anna, I'm not fully clear if the character I played in Promising Young Woman is trans or not. It doesn't suggest that she's trans, so the audience can make the decision. And I always. I always have wondered if with Casey, it's explicit that she's not trans, but if the character's not written as trans, well, like, if the character's not written as black, and I play her, the character becomes black. If the character's not written as trans, does she become trans? Because I'm playing her, and I think in some cases maybe, and in some cases maybe not. It depends on if there's source material, if I'm playing a real person. And so for me, it's really about how complicated the character is, how challenging she is to play and less about, like, whether she's trans or not. I certainly I don't see any limitations around what I can play as an actor. And I think what I what I'm most excited about is if people see feel that that's a limitation, I look forward to proving them wrong. Yes, I'm very excited about that.

[B]

Laverne Cox, it's been such a pleasure to meet you and thank you for this conversation.

[C]

Thank you. This has really been wonderful.

[B]

Laverne Cox's new memoir is called Transcendent. Tomorrow on FRESH air, actor Wendell Pierce, you know him as Bunk in the Wire, and now he's taking on one of Shakespeare's giants, Othello. But it was playing Willy Loman on Broadway that took him somewhere personal, drawing on his own father to build that role. Pierce talks with us about his father and the men he plays. I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram at nprfreshair. You can also subscribe and watch some of our interviews on our YouTube page. This is Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tonya Mosley.

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