Best Of: Laverne Cox /Comic Ali Siddiq

Summary

Fresh Air "Best Of: Laverne Cox / Comic Ali Siddiq"

Date: June 27, 2026
Host: Tonya Mosley

Episode Overview

This episode of Fresh Air features two in-depth interviews:

• Laverne Cox discusses her new memoir, Transcendent, reflecting on her journey as one of the most visible trans women in America, her childhood in Alabama, and the persistent challenges of identity, shame, and survival.
• Comedian Ali Siddiq shares stories from his life — growing up in Houston, his relationship with his father, and his time in prison, which inspired both his standup and his new special, My Father.

Both conversations delve into personal history, resilience, generational cycles, and societal impacts, offering candid, often emotional, narratives about overcoming adversity.

---

Key Segments & Insights

I. Laverne Cox — Beyond the Spotlight

Conversation begins at 02:34

A. Visibility and "Orange Is the New Black"

• Laverne talks about her groundbreaking role as Sophia Bursette and what it meant to be the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category.
• Discusses being a guest star, not a series regular, in the early days of Orange is the New Black.
  • "I was literally a day player, guest star, day player. But I was kind of making day player rates... They wrote generously for me, I think, because that my backstory episode came. It was the third episode of the show that people thought felt like you were a cast member." (05:31–06:09)
• The emotional resonance of acting:
  • “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.” (04:34)

B. Trauma, Identity, and Family

• Laverne reads from her memoir, recounting a traumatic childhood incident of bullying and physical assault (06:56–08:58), followed by her mother's unsupportive reaction.
  • "And instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay, she made it my fault." (09:33)
  • She explains how this experience epitomized her sense of not feeling protected or safe.
• Raw honesty was the intent in writing her memoir:
  • "The reason I wrote it is to tell the truth... to not be honest and not be raw." (13:47)

C. The Effects of Societal Prejudice

• Connects personal experiences to the larger political climate of anti-trans legislation and increased bullying:
  • "In states that have passed anti trans laws... the percentage of bullying is like skyrocketed." (12:08)
  • Calls out the role of political rhetoric in normalizing discrimination.

D. Coping through Imagination and Movement

• Escaped trauma through music and dance:
  • "There was always music in my head, which is such a wonderful gift. ...For me, when I danced, there was the music. But then there was like a character, there was a person that I could play. I was like in a character. ...It just took me away." (17:02–17:40)
  • Grooving with grocery carts as a child, imagining grander stages (17:40)
• The early pull to New York as a promise of personal freedom:
  • "The second I discovered there was New York, I knew I had to be there." (16:19)

E. The School Incident & Early Therapy

• Recounts being targeted by teachers for gender expression, leading to attempted conversion therapy at age 8 or 9:
  • "After three sessions with a therapist, the solution... was to inject me with testosterone… which sounds insane to me." (21:05)
  • Relief when her mother refused the hormone treatment.

F. Building Identity in New York

• Navigating different communities—club kids, drag queens—in the 1990s.
• Internalized transphobia and the interplay between gender performance and feminism:
  • "Underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia that I'd internalized, that read as discernment." (22:41–23:16)
  • Wrestling with the fear of stereotypes while seeking authentic selfhood.

G. Closing Reflection

• Laverne underscores the power of honest narrative and her hope that telling her story gives courage and understanding to others still fighting to be themselves.

---

II. Ali Siddiq — Stories from a Life, Laughs from Pain

Conversation begins at 25:43

A. Storytelling as Memoir

• Siddiq’s comedy is rooted in true stories, many about his father and family, and his experiences in prison — described as "memoir, delivered one set at a time."
• His new special, My Father, explores the complicated, sometimes dysfunctional but often loving relationship he had with his dad.
  • "My dad always wore tailor made suits...he just wasn't an ideal father." (25:43–26:37)
  • "He just wanted to know when I was gonna say something negative about somebody else and not just him." (27:06)

B. Growing Up: Fatherhood and Contradictions

• On returning to live with his father at age 10:
  • "He asked, but I don't think he was ready. You know, people ask for a lot of things they not ready for. And I'm like, not a human, though." (28:26)
• Recalls a surreal story of his father treating his wisdom tooth pain with cocaine, kept in a Cool Whip tub in the fridge.
  • "If I would have just took one of the strawberries and put it in that Cool Whip, both thinking it was Cool Whip...He was so, so irresponsible, it's crazy." (30:53–31:25)
  • Memorable exchange about the lasting effect: "Never had a problem. I don't even remember getting my wisdom tooth taken out ever." (31:39)

C. The Path In and Out of Prison

• Started selling drugs at 14, caught at 19, ironically after deciding to quit:
  • "I was done. I was wrapped up. And I got a phone call to come help assist...But I was done. It had become like, man, what am I doing?" (33:56)
• Expresses regret and the burden of having “a debt to repay” to society:
  • "I gotta, I gotta, I owe this world something." (35:14)
• The emotional toll of seeing the consequences of addiction in the communities he once sold drugs in:
  • "I just stopped in the streets and I just started sobbing. And I remember saying, how much of this is my fault? Because I have been so destructive and reckless in my behavior." (36:04)

D. Cycles of Addiction and Reconciliation

• His father, once a seller, later became a user, creating an intergenerational echo:
  • "That was the lick that society took back." (37:40)
  • "Your mama violated my HIPAA rights...Like, he's so—even when he's doing something crazy, he's still funny." (38:21)
• Discussion surrounding the ambiguity of his father's death—officially a heart attack, rumored to be an overdose:
  • "It doesn't change the fact that he's gone. So how he went gives me no closure on it." (40:05)
  • Prefers to remember their last days together playing chess.

E. The Lingering Effects of Incarceration

• Clip from Siddiq’s “From Inside: A Conversation with Inmates”:
  • "I've been out for 25 years, almost 26 years. 67, 93, 46. I can't forget this number. It's ingrained in my head like my Social Security number. It's my slavery number." (42:23)
• On psychological scars prison leaves even after release:
  • "It's still things that you may survive, but you don't get out unscathed. You're gonna lose some skin in this game." (43:21)

F. Becoming a Comedian

• Learned standup “from zero,” without role models or knowledge of where to start, feeling accomplishment simply for achieving what he set out to do post-prison (44:34).

G. Being a Father: Breaking Cycles

• The new special, My Father, features stories about parenting his own son in a much gentler environment.
  • "I know that I am a better father than my father was. And I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be, just by my son's first concert and my first concert with my father..." (45:45)
  • Reminisces about taking his son to see Earth, Wind & Fire, marveling at his son's "bougie" life.
  • On generational change: "I love the softness of his life. I, I applaud him and I just hope that...he comes out on the other side and always is like this and...gives his children the opportunity to be a kid." (48:22–49:36)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Laverne Cox:

  • "The reason I wrote it is to tell the truth...to not be honest and not be raw." (13:47)
  • "I immediately am the character again, and I'm in the emotion of the scene." (04:34)
  • "No, darling, the music was in my head and the groove is in the heart." (00:56, 17:42)

• Ali Siddiq:

  • "It's hard to make up little things. You know, you can make up big things, but little intricate details about something..." (29:31)
  • "I've been out for 25 years, almost 26 years. 67, 93, 46. I can't forget this number. It's ingrained in my head like my Social Security number. It's my slavery number." (42:23)
  • "The softness of his life now, I hope that he continues to desire that...I just love him. I just love the softness of his life." (48:22–49:36)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:34 – Laverne Cox interview begins
• 06:56 – Laverne reads from her childhood (bullying passage)
• 13:47 – Laverne on her intent for the memoir
• 17:02 – Coping through dance and imagination
• 21:05 – School intervention and threatened testosterone injection
• 22:41 – Navigating New York and internalized self-doubt
• 25:43 – Ali Siddiq interview begins
• 30:53 – The “Cool Whip tub” cocaine story
• 33:56 – Drug dealing and regrets
• 36:04 – Facing the fallout in the community
• 42:23 – Remembering the prison “spin number”
• 45:45 – On fatherhood: Taking his son to an Earth, Wind & Fire concert

---

Summary Takeaway

This special episode of Fresh Air presents two uniquely honest life stories—Laverne Cox’s journey through trans girlhood and fame, marked by trauma and resilience, and Ali Siddiq’s hard-won redemption after prison, infused with humor and tender reflections on fatherhood. Both push listeners to consider the enduring effects of generational trauma, social stigma, and the power of self-reinvention, all while celebrating the possibility of breaking cycles and building new legacies.

Transcript

[Announcer]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu from whyy in

[Tanya Mosley]

Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR Weekend. I'm Tonya Moseley in Los Angeles. Today. Laverne Cox, for over a decade, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. In her new memoir, Transcendent, she writes about growing up in Mobile, Alabama, and the bullying and harassment she faced as a feminine child who could not conform to what was expected of her. She writes about how she got through it by, in a way, leaving her body and going somewhere else in her mind. A lot of the time that place was music and dance.

[Laverne Cox]

I just love pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery cart as if it was like a partner.

[Tanya Mosley]

Did you have headphones on a Walkman?

[Laverne Cox]

No, darling, the music was in my head and the groove is in the hall.

[Tanya Mosley]

Also, we hear from comedian Ali Siddiq. He served six years in a Texas prison and turned his life into some of the most watched storytelling and comedy.

[Announcer]

This message comes from Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Strawberry Me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Are you stuck in a job you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Are your reasons for staying really just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from Strawberry Me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your Corner and get 50% off your first coaching session at Strawberry Me.

[Ali Siddiq]

This message comes from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

[Laverne Cox]

A healthy democracy protects the rights of people with many different beliefs. One way the Constitution does that is through the separation of church and state. The Freedom From Religion foundation is an organization that works to defend that constitutional boundary. Visit FFRF US Public or text Public to 511-511 to learn more. Because protecting the First Amendment protects everyone,

[Ali Siddiq]

tax fees may apply.

[Tanya Mosley]

This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Tonya Moseley, and my guest today is Laverne Cox. Chances are you met her the way most of the world did as 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.

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Tanya Mosley]

I'd like to help you. Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST

[Laverne Cox]

and alt, which could mean liver damage. That's bull. That could mean anything.

[Tanya Mosley]

We're gonna take you off your hormones entirely until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read.

[Laverne Cox]

But that could take months.

[Tanya Mosley]

I can offer you an antidepressant. That's Laverne Cox as Sophia Bursette in 2014. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting 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. Lavern Cox, welcome to Fresh air. It's such an honor to have you.

[Laverne Cox]

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. I'm in the emotion of the scene. And so I'm immediately feeling what I was feeling when we shot this. This is 2012 that we shot it. So it was funny.

[Tanya Mosley]

I was just like, yeah, it made you laugh.

[Ali Siddiq]

Why?

[Tanya Mosley]

Did it make you laugh?

[Laverne Cox]

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

[Tanya Mosley]

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.

[Laverne Cox]

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 guest star rates the second season. I was. My salary was like a guest star rate and I had, 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 felt like you

[Tanya Mosley]

were a cast member.

[Laverne Cox]

Yes.

[Tanya Mosley]

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.

[Laverne Cox]

Okay.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

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 up here, 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 had 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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. And you get into your apartment and your mom sees you, and she doesn't say what happened to you.

[Ali Siddiq]

She.

[Tanya Mosley]

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?

[Laverne Cox]

I don't know. It was. That was my life. I mean, I think that was like just the. The physical violence of the other children that I. 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

Yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

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.

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Tanya Mosley]

You hear a lot of stories, angry,

[Laverne Cox]

a 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 you're, 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, 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

Our guest today is Laverne Cox. Her new memoir is called Transcendent. More of our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Moseley, and this is FRESH air.

[Announcer]

Weekend 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.

[Ali Siddiq]

Hello. Hello.

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

With kick to the head, it makes contact with the outside of my arm, which I brought up. In our world, 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.

[Laverne Cox]

That is, until IBM entered the octagon.

[Announcer]

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

[Tanya Mosley]

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?

[Laverne Cox]

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 old neighborhood where my mom still lives. There's trauma on those streets for me.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

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 there's. I love. I love it.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

And my twin brother, yes. Yeah. Mobile, though, when I was growing up there, I was just. I just desp. I 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.

[Ali Siddiq]

Yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

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?

[Laverne Cox]

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. So. Because for me, when I danced, there was the 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

Did you have headphones on a Walkman?

[Laverne Cox]

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 1977. Did Walkman's even exist? We couldn't afford one if it 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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.

[Laverne Cox]

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 are 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, you know, 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 that 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

And you were how old?

[Laverne Cox]

I was eight, nine years old.

[Tanya Mosley]

Eight, nine years old.

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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.

[Laverne Cox]

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. 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, 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

But really, it was.

[Laverne Cox]

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 some. 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.

[Tanya Mosley]

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

[Laverne Cox]

Thank you. This has really been wonderful.

[Tanya Mosley]

Laverne Cox's new memoir is called Transcendent. My next guest is Ali Siddiq. He's a comedian, but that word undersells it. What he really does is tell stories, true ones from his own life. And he's told so many of them that while watching his specials, I realize Siddiq is giving us a memoir, delivered one set at a time. For instance, a few years back, he went viral with the story about surviving a prison riot. Siddiq served six years for cocaine trafficking, arrested four days after his 19th birthday. He started doing standup after he got out. And nearly 30 years later, he's got more than a dozen specials, most of them independent, independent, on YouTube with millions of views. In his 2022 series, Domino Effect, he traces his Life growing up in Houston starting at 10, the year he went to live with his father and first got into trouble all the way through the choices that landed him in prison. This month he has a new special called My Father. It's about everything that passed between Siddiq and his dad before his father died in 2018. It premieres on YouTube June 21st. Here's a clip.

[Ali Siddiq]

My dad had a thing about how he dressed. My dad always wore tailor made suits. This is when he was, when he was on his note. When he was on his note because he was a it's not a lot of men can say how they, how they felt about their pops. I really wanted to look like this man. He was tall, dark, jet black, had a lot of charisma by himself. But he just wasn't an ideal. Father. My dad asked me one time, I'm sitting at his house and my daddy said, man, why you don't never say nothing bad about your mama on stage.

[Tanya Mosley]

Ali Siddiq, welcome to FRESH air.

[Ali Siddiq]

Thank you for having me, man.

[Tanya Mosley]

Your timing is great. And I was thinking when I was watching this that there is really nothing like remembering something funny about somebody after they're gone. It's like the truest way, the most purest way to grieve them. But I was just wondering, watching this, if your dad felt some kind of way about being in your act, what do you think he'd say about you doing this entire special about him?

[Ali Siddiq]

He never actually felt any type of way about being in my act. He just wanted to know when I was gonna say something negative about somebody else and not just him. You know, I get a lot of views, but it's definitely 10 views. 15 views that I missed. Cause my dad would go to the library and he would look me up on the computer and watch all of my stuff and he would call and tell me, I just seen something else. I watched about 15, 10, 15 times. So I'm always missing those 10 or 15 views that I know that I would get from him.

[Tanya Mosley]

Your daddy, he left when you were three, but you'd see him every blue moon. But then around 10, he comes back into your life. You went to live with him. And it seems like he was very much do as I say, not as I do. When, when did you first understand that contradiction?

[Ali Siddiq]

Oh, man, probably the first year I lived with him. Like, yo, he, my dad was, my dad was like, I say, I don't think he was ready. I don't think he was ready to have his son with him.

[Tanya Mosley]

But yet he asked for you to live with that?

[Ali Siddiq]

He asked, but I don't think he was ready. You know, people ask for a lot of things they not ready for. And I'm like, not a human, though. I didn't think a human was a part of that. But he definitely wasn't ready yet, you know? Cause he couldn't have been. Like, when I look back at it, I'm like, yo, bro, it's no way that you was ready for me to come live with you. Cause you hadn't calmed down yet. You know, just the story of him waking me up, saying that he was getting ready to go to San Antonio, and I'm 10, I gotta go to school tomorrow. I'm like, yo, bro, like, what you think? What am I supposed to do? That you finna go to San Antonio? He's like, just do what you been doing. Get yourself up, get ready to go to school. You know how to. Hey, bruh, that's not how this go, man. I've never been in a house by myself before.

[Tanya Mosley]

Like, what's wrong with you, Ali? I mean, is it true that, okay, you tell this story about him putting cocaine on a sore wisdom tooth? And I was wondering, is this true or is this just for laughs?

[Ali Siddiq]

100% true. 100% true. That's why I described it so vividly. See, that's the thing about when I tell a story, I want people to understand. I describe all the. Even little things so people understand that this is a true story. Cause you can't. It's hard to make up little things. You know, you can make up big things, but little intricate details about something. Like, you know who was there? James and Ivory. And James was the one that saw me sitting on the step. And he was like, what's up? Cause my dad name is Lindbergh. And he. And he called me Lil Bird. Little bird, what's going on? And I said. I told him about my tube. And then my daddy called me over and said, let me see, and put that cocaine on my tube. I said this, man, I didn't even know that's what it was. I just know it was the stuff that was in the Cool Whip tub that was in the refrigerator.

[Tanya Mosley]

Wait, he kept the cocaine in a Cool Whip tub in the refrigerator?

[Ali Siddiq]

And yeah, the big Cool Whip thing. You know how Cool Whips come in that little container? That big container.

[Laverne Cox]

Oh, yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

And you reuse them.

[Ali Siddiq]

Yeah. And he put it in. That's where the cocaine was at, inside the refrigerator. And then as I thought about that earlier, like, I told a story, and I never even realized how super irresponsible he was. I am 10. You don't think I like Cool Whip.

[Tanya Mosley]

But things that could have happened.

[Ali Siddiq]

You know the things that could have happened if I would have dipped. Cause he always had strawberries. My dad loves strawberries, right? So he always had strawberries in the house. And I was like, yo, when I thought about it, if I would have just took one of the strawberries and put it in that Cool Whip, both thinking it was Cool Whip. Cause I still would have ate it, even though I would have thought the Cool Whip was bad. I'm like, oh, the Cool Whip, it's fizzing out. And then I'm like, that's what it would have looked like to me. I said, he was so, so irresponsible. It's crazy.

[Tanya Mosley]

Okay. He dips a little cocaine on that sore wisdom tooth. What happened to you never had a

[Ali Siddiq]

problem that wisdom tooth can.

[Tanya Mosley]

Never even needed to have it taken out, huh?

[Ali Siddiq]

Never. I probably still got that tooth in my mouth right now. Never had a problem. I don't even remember getting my wisdom tooth taken out ever. Luckily, I don't have an addictive personality. I can just stop doing stuff like, hopefully that was it, because my dad was insane, and I had told that story before it ever aired on anything. And I remember he was at the show when I did it, and he was like, I can't believe you remember that.

[Tanya Mosley]

We're listening to my conversation with comedian Ali Siddiq. We'll hear more after a short break. This is FRESH air Weekend.

[Announcer]

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.

[Ali Siddiq]

Hello. Hello.

[Laverne Cox]

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.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

With kick to the head, it makes contact with the outside of my arm, which I brought up. In our world, 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.

[Laverne Cox]

That is, until IBM entered the octagon.

[Announcer]

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

[Tanya Mosley]

Let's go back to young Ali Siddiq. Before the Comedy you are 14 years old. You start selling drugs. You like to joke on stage. You say, I was a pharmaceutical sales rep. By the time, though, that the feds got you, you were 19. You were in college at Texas Southern University.

[Ali Siddiq]

And.

[Tanya Mosley]

And this is the ironic part, you were actually planning to stop selling drugs when you were caught. How close were you to quitting?

[Ali Siddiq]

I had stopped, actually. I was done. I was wrapped up. And I got a phone call to come help assist, you know, And I went out of me feeling obligated to, okay, I. You know, I can. I hold you back. But I was done. It had become like, man, what am I doing?

[Tanya Mosley]

Cause you started in the first place because you wanted money. You wanted your own money.

[Ali Siddiq]

Yeah. And I think I fight so hard now to explain that. It was a character flawless. It was like no manhood or responsibility in that, because I could have just worked for money, you know, I could have just did something else. I could have. It's. It's so many things that I could have done versus being so destructive to a community. And I remember being asked, ali, when do you think that you gonna blow up? And my honest answer was, when I pay back the. I gotta. I gotta. I owe this world something.

[Tanya Mosley]

Because you sold drugs like, you owe. You owe back because of that harm you did. That's interesting.

[Ali Siddiq]

When I pay back society for the. For the destruction. And I think that when you are a person, that's. That has really done things, and you have really changed your life, and you. You think back on these things, you can't help but to have a heavy heart. I remember I was in San Francisco. The. The homeless population is so crazy. And I'm at this Comedy Central Festival, is a comedy festival. And I'm walking from my hotel to the festival, and I'm there for days. And I keep trying to find different ways to get there not to run into homeless people. And I didn't walk five blocks down, ten blocks down, ten blocks this way. I walked every which way and couldn't. And I remember it was in the morning, and I was on my way to prayer, and I just stopped in the streets and I just started sobbing. And I remember saying, how much of this is my fault? Because I have been so destructive and reckless in my behavior. I just don't understand. Like, obviously, this is not the first generation. This is the generation that was affected by the first generation of what I did. Like, you can't conceive the magnitude of destruction that you do when you sell drugs in a community. You know, it's People doing things that they would probably never do in order that's ruining their relationships. That what child didn't get fed because they mom or they father decided to do this? And what uncle or aunt stole something? Like, what did I do?

[Tanya Mosley]

Did you and your dad ever talk about this? Cause, you know, I mean, he sold drugs and then you went on to sell drugs.

[Ali Siddiq]

We never talked about it because my dad ended up using drugs. That was the, the lick that society took back. I remember a story that I told about some young guys. I come on the. Come on the block and they had told me they had robbed these old guys. And I looked at the stuff that they had and. And I made them put it in the bag because I recognized the stuff. And then I went and took my dad and his friend and stuff back and I said, man, what a man. What were you doing over there? And my dad blamed on his friend telling me, man, I'm over there with him. He got me robbed. And my mom, I told my mom about it later and my mom said he was probably using drugs. And I said, no, he told me he wasn't using no drugs. And that's when she told me, well, I done put your dad in rehab twice since we've been apart. And so I went back and told him, I said, hey, I thought you said you wouldn't use drugs. And he said, who told you that? Your mama, man. Your mama. Your mama violated my HIPAA rights. I said, this man is nuts. Like, he's so. Even when he's doing something crazy, he's still funny. He's so crazy. So the. Unfortunately, the room around where my dad is gone is. Is an overdose. And I don't believe that. I think that that's what people wanted to say, but I don't not believe it either.

[Tanya Mosley]

The rumor that he died because of an overdose.

[Ali Siddiq]

Yeah, yeah, because he had a heart attack. And I know he hadn't been using. So if you hadn't been doing something and then you decide, I'm going to do it one time, you know, you don't know what your heart can take on that. So my dad just had a heart attack out of nowhere.

[Tanya Mosley]

You said it's a rumor. Do you believe that it might be true?

[Ali Siddiq]

Um, I leave it to not wanting to know if it is or it's not. I don't. It don't. It doesn't change the fact that he's gone. So how he went gives me no closure on it. The wound is still there. So I rather live in the our Last days of, you know, we played chess for about six hours against each other. We played chess so long that I stayed overnight another day, and then went right back over his house and we started playing chess again. And my dad was a great chess player. And I've. I've never. I beat him twice in. Since I've learned, you know, six years old. He taught me at six. I beat him twice ever. So I rather stay in that lane of me and him played chess for hours on end versus if he overdosed or not.

[Tanya Mosley]

Ali, thank you for sharing this and that guilt you feel about selling drugs that you carry that, because I feel like. I kind of feel like. I feel it when I watch you, especially in this. This documentary really, that you did called Ali Siddiq From Inside. It's this real conversation filmed inside of a Texas county jail. And I actually want to play a clip of it because it is not a comedy special. It's you in a room with inmates, and you are standing in front of them, talking to them, telling them stories for almost two hours straight about your experience being locked up. And in this clip, you're talking about the psychological effects of being locked up, which included you remembering your inmate number, which you call a spin number. Let's listen.

[Ali Siddiq]

Ask the old heads that been here before. Ask them do they remember their original spin number. This. The. That haunts me. I've been out for 25 years, almost 26 years. 67, 93, 46. I can't forget this number. It's ingrained in my head like my Social Security number. It's my slavery number. 67, 93, 46.

[Tanya Mosley]

That's my guest, Ali Siddiq, and his YouTube special from inside, A Conversation with Inmates. And what goes on to happen after you rattle off your number? The guys start blurting out their numbers, too. What does it signify that you can remember Your spin number 30 years after you were out of prison, that you

[Ali Siddiq]

did not get out of this situation unscathed. You may have survived it, but you still have wounds. I've been out 29 years at this point, even if I'm at home by myself, I' ma lock the bedroom door. I still know this number. So it's still things that you may survive, but you don't get out unscathed. You're gonna lose some skin in this game. And I think that these psychological wounds are different than my physical wounds. My physical wounds start to fade. Why haven't these wounds faded yet?

[Tanya Mosley]

I read that, you know, as you're doing your time, that's when you started to think, when I get out of here, I could probably have my hand in comedy. And I was wondering, were there. Were there people that you were also, like, watching or studying or thinking about as you were thinking about what type of comic you want it to be?

[Ali Siddiq]

Not at all. When I started doing standup, I actually didn't even know how to even start. It's like, when I think about this journey, I literally started from a place of zero. Like, I had zero information on how to become a comic. Zero information on where to go, zero. Like, I was at scratch. And so when I think about, like, I don't ever not feel successful because I'm like, yo, I did what I said I was gonna do when I got out, I was gonna become a comic not knowing how to do it.

[Tanya Mosley]

I wanna talk to you briefly about parenthood, about you being a father. You're telling me earlier that you just wanna not make the same mistakes that your dad made with your children. And I mean, you joke about this a lot, but your kids are getting a very different father than you got, which I actually want to play a clip from your latest special where you talk about taking your son Hasan to a concert to the Elements, Earth, Wind and fire when he's 11. Let's listen.

[Ali Siddiq]

I know that I am a better father than my father was. And I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be just by my son's first concert and my first concert with my father, my son Hassan, he's 11. His first concert was Earth, Wind and Fire. And he asked to go. He asked. My son came in to me and said, father, Because he's very upper crust. He said, I would like to attend a concert. I said, hassan, what concert would you like to attend? He said, I would like to go see the Elements. And I teared up. I teared up. If my son want to go see the Elements. And I said, wait, who are the Elements, Hassan? Is it some little white Internet group that you've been listening to? Hasan said, no, father. They're formerly known as Earth, Wind and Fire. I immediately ran and got them tickets. I wanted to get them tickets for me and my son. Me and my son going to see Earth, Wind and fire. He is 11. He's 11 years old. We went to this first concert, me and him, we going. We get to the concert. Hassan is the youngest person in this whole entire concert. And I know that for facts, because I am the second youngest person.

[Tanya Mosley]

That was my guest today in his latest special, my father and Ali that whole special, you marveling at your bougie kid, you know, you have built a soft life for him on purpose. But I wonder this. Cause I mean, as a parent who also grew up a certain way, do you ever look at your son and worry that the thing that made you, some of the positive things, you know, not all that, that, that challenging stuff you went through, but like the positive stuff might also be the thing like you're keeping from him too?

[Ali Siddiq]

I, No, I don't. I think that the soft, the softness of his life now, I hope that he continues to desire that. And you know, he goes through his own certain struggles, you know, cause it's a certain struggle that happens in softness as well. But, you know, whether he want oysters or crab, you know, it's a dilemma for him. So he got the, you know, you know, choices, choices. But yeah, he, I love how he's living. I love the way that he lives. I, I applaud him and I just hope that, you know, he comes out on the other side and always is like this and, and loves being a kid and then gives his children the opportunity to be a kid and always have a softness. For me, I, I need somebody to roll me around when I get old. So hopefully, hopefully he's there, you know, taking me to go eat oysters and, you know, asking me do I want to go to a Boney James concert or something, you know, just, I just, I just love him. I just love the softness of his life.

[Tanya Mosley]

Ali Siddiq, it has been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for this special and your time.

[Ali Siddiq]

Pleasure is all mine. I thank you very, very much.

[Tanya Mosley]

Ali Siddiq's new special is called My Father. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. 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 Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CB Nesper with Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Mosley.

[Announcer]

This message comes from Schwab. At Schwab, you can get everything from self directed investing to full service wealth management all in one place. No matter your investing goal, life stage amount to invest or know how you can invest your way with Schwab. This message comes from Bombas. Your feet hit the ground an average of 2,000 times in a mile. Bombas sports socks are designed to support you every step. Sprint to bombus.com NPR and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase. This message comes from Prolon. Want to look and feel your best this spring? Prolon's five Day Fasting Mimicking Diet is a clinically developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, it aims to assist the body in entering a fasting like state that helps reset metabolism, target visceral fat and support healthy metabolic markers. Get 20% off plus a bonus gift when you [e-mail] NPR.