From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
This is Modern Love.
And today I'm talking to actor Laverne Cox.
Growing up in Mobile, Alabama, Laverne Cox did not fit in, and she didn't want to.
From a very early age, she knew she was going to be a star.
And unlike many kids who grew up thinking that, Laverne was right.
Decades later, she'd break through as Sophia Bursette on Netflix's Orange is the New Black, and she'd become the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in an acting category.
Today, Laverne and I talk about her new memoir, Transcendent.
She tells me the story of how she became the star she always knew she was, the men she loved along the way, and how she learned finally to fully love herself.
Laverne Cox, welcome to Modern Love.
Thank you so much.
I literally just started thinking about that Hall & Oates song, Method of Modern Love, right?
It's Hall & Oates from the 80s.
I'm old.
See, I don't know this.
I'm not going to lie.
I do not know this song.
Can you sing a little bit of it, would you?
I don't remember how it goes exactly.
Method of modern love, method of method, method.
I've never heard of it.
There's a Bowie song.
And you're doing a podcast called Modern Love and no one's ever mentioned that song.
And Laverne, here's the thing.
I was going to lie and say I know that song, but thank goodness I didn't.
Thank goodness I didn't.
Lying is not... It's not journalistic.
It's true, but it also...
God, the truth is so much better.
The truth is so much better.
That is a wonderful way to get into this conversation.
We're here to talk about your new memoir, Transcendent.
It is vulnerable and honest.
It helped me understand you in a very intimate way.
I'm excited to dive in.
And you mention in the introduction that you're sharing many of these stories for the very first time.
People in your life, even those closest to you, I'm seeing this reaction.
Are you nervous?
When you say that, I've been feeling good about it.
But when you say that it's a little like It is that old bit of shame of like I I mean, I start the book off with an exercise that one of my acting teachers would give us.
Tell us something you don't want us to know about you.
It's an improvisational exercise and then he would give us a character and The idea was to be vulnerable and to release shame.
And usually after that exercise Brad would yell cut and have all the students in the class close their eyes, except the actor on stage and him.
And he would say, has anyone here felt like Laverne?
And invariably, almost every hand would go up.
And the power of that is that when we have our secrets and our shame, we often feel alone in it.
It makes us feel like we're the only one who's ever experienced this, and if anybody finds this out, they'll think I'm just horrible and awful, and you realize that you're not alone.
And those hands are empathy.
And as I often quote Brene Brown, empathy is the antidote to shame.
Can I ask you, like, why did you think now was the right time to write this memoir?
Well, an offer came and I thought this is a couple of years ago.
I thought that with the therapy I've been doing for the past now 10 years, I thought I was ready, that I processed a lot of the trauma, that the memories that were buried were buried for a reason and wouldn't come back.
And I just thought I could...
And I felt ready to tell the truth.
I had a book deal, like in 2014, over a decade ago, and we started the process and we had a draft of a few chapters and it just wasn't working.
It wasn't and I wasn't ready to be real.
And a lot of that was actually about protecting my mother.
But also like it was so early in my career in terms of like the public getting to know me.
And I just I just wasn't ready to like.
I just don't think there's a point of writing a book if you're not going to be vulnerable.
Tell the truth, hopefully.
Talk about things that are uncomfortable.
Talk about things that may have been painful, but also the good things too.
You're talking about your mom.
I want to dig into that.
Tell me about your relationship to her.
My mom was very...
My mother's a lot of things.
She was very stressed out, taking care of two kids by herself, often had literally four jobs.
I kid you not, taking care of us.
And she was always stressed about money.
My mother was also very concerned about what other people thought of her.
And us, our behavior being a reflection on her and and we were tasked with cleaning the house when I was, when we were growing up, and it was never up to par.
It was never ever, ever good enough.
There was always something that wasn't dusted or vacuumed properly, leaves that weren't raked sufficiently um, Always.
And you were growing up alongside your twin brother, Lamar.
My twin brother, absolutely.
A lot of it like, particularly when I'm in grade school.
We were the first, Our first elementary school, Council Elementary School.
My mother thought that the program wasn't great for us.
And she... Education was very important to her.
She was the first... of her siblings to finish college.
And so council wasn't a great school.
And so she found this school called Woodcock Elementary, but we had to lie about our address to go to that school.
Apparently people go to jail for that now.
So we couldn't take the bus there.
So she had to like drive us there or get someone else to drive us.
A few times we walked home.
She has four jobs.
Stressed out.
So we would wake up and she would be yelling at us that we'd be late.
So I would wake up to yelling.
I would wake up to her yelling.
And just my mother was always stressed out.
So she would be yelling and... telling us what a burden we were.
I felt like such a burden constantly that I ruined this poor woman's life by being born.
So she would yell at us that we were going to be late, and she would yell at us in the car on the way to school.
And so so much of my life and childhood felt like trying to make sure I did everything right so that she wouldn't go off.
And it was really... I wanted desperately for her to see and love me.
And so I felt like I had to.
If I perfected, if I made all A's, if I you know when I did I eventually did and won this talent show and cleaned properly, that she would love me and that she would see me and want me.
I never felt wanted by her.
Laverne, I just have to say that's really.
You're saying all these things and it's really heavy to even hear.
I mean, to start off.
I'm saying it very casually.
You are saying it casually.
I'm trying not to drop into it like I would as an actor in therapy.
Sure.
But that's the truth.
I mean, waking up, it's very visceral.
Waking up every day to the sound of being yelled at.
Yes.
Have that continue until you got to school, to always feel like a burden, to feel like you need to achieve to earn your mother's love.
I mean, you write about this so vividly, and it is really, really difficult.
Yes, it was.
When you got to school...
There was no reprieve.
When I got to school, particularly at Woodcock, it was like I was walking the gauntlet out of the car for my mother there.
And it was immediately like sissy, F word queer, punk girl like, just like being called all sorts of derogatory names, names by other kids.
And that started, that's my very first interactions with other kids.
Daycare, I think it was maybe three.
I did not know what gay was.
I didn't, well, they didn't say gay.
They said sissy and the F word.
I did not know what these words were, but three-year-olds did somehow.
And so I knew that it wasn't good because of the tone of it.
And so yeah, my very first interactions with kids were like where I was being bullied and called names because I was was very feminine always.
And that was a problem for the other kids, apparently.
Did you want to fit in?
Was that a desire you had?
No, no.
What became clear to me writing the book and thinking really a lot of writing this book was like trying to really go back to what I was really thinking honestly, even if it sounds bad, or just being honest about it.
And I...
And the kids would often say, oh, you think you're better than us.
And I did.
I did.
You talk about that as your armor.
And it was an armor, and it's a very childish thing, obviously, and I was a child.
But there was something—I always felt like I was supposed to be a star.
I wasn't interested in fitting in because I thought these children were—
Silly and basic.
I didn't use that term then, but basic and silly and frivolous.
And I'm supposed to be a star.
I have to prepare.
I have to study.
I have to train.
I have things to do.
I don't have time for all of your bullying and silliness.
I need to be, I need to prepare.
I'm locked in.
Yeah.
But it is an interesting thing you're describing which is like you are.
There's all this messaging from your mom, from the kids at school, that you are not worth much.
Right.
Correct.
And then at the same time, you have this deep, visceral knowing that you are meant to be a star.
How did you hold those two things at once?
Well, the interesting thing is I was...
I was encouraged in certain areas.
When I started dancing, when I started studying dance in third grade at Culture in Black and White, I started entering talent shows and winning or getting second place.
And so there were many trophies.
I was always a good speaker.
And so I would always and I love being up in front of people.
So when we started going to Bethel AMU Church and when I got baptized when I was seven years old at Bethel, I would always summarize the Sunday school lesson like every Sunday.
I loved it.
So what do you mean summarize?
Like to who?
So we would have Sunday school and then we would have the main church service.
So right after Sunday school we would have the main church service and the pastor would ask a young person to summarize the Sunday school lesson that we had for that week.
And I always volunteered.
The hand was always up.
Your hand was always up.
I was that kid.
And I loved just summarizing the lesson.
I loved just getting up and speaking in front of people.
And I didn't realize that that was preparing me for so much.
That, that was like that was training, the 10000 hours they talk about, like me standing up in church every Sunday.
Summarizing the Sunday school lesson.
So I was encouraged because I spoke well from adults and then like the...
The dancing was tricky because I was winning talent shows and I was showing initiative.
But then I was also like, those dance classes are going to make your child gay.
So it was a mixed thing.
And the kids made fun of me because I was always dancing.
So that was a mixed bag.
But the encouragement.
When I would make all A's, my mother didn't.
She was like That's what you're supposed to do.
It wasn't like a celebration.
It was like, why should I celebrate you for what you're supposed to do?
But I...
There was this—as a child, I felt like if I kept achieving enough, I would be worthy of her love and acceptance.
And maybe the world, and maybe the world.
And for me, the world—so I didn't want to be accepted by the other kids, but I wanted to be—
My brother said this thing many years ago.
I don't want to see the world.
I want the world to see me.
And I think that's always kind of been, for whatever reason, me.
Is that laughter?
Is that tears?
It's such a weird thing to say out loud because it feels I don't know, like I don't know how this comes across, but like this is just the truth.
I mean, I think it comes across as complicated, which means it's real.
You know what I mean?
You at the same time as you are being, You have this understanding of yourself.
Is there's something wrong with me, right?
You also... Is that how it was?
It was...
In terms of the bullying.
The kids said things were wrong with me.
My mother would say things were wrong with me.
The men that my mother would date would suggest something was wrong with me.
And I didn't think that until third grade.
So describe to me what happened.
You were in third grade.
I was in class, and I probably had a really rough morning at home with my mom.
And we had gone to Six Flags on a church trip and my mother had given me a little bit of spending money.
And at the gift shop at Six Flags, they had –
They had these fans.
These fans, I remember, was hanging there.
I just, I will never forget walking in and seeing this fan.
And in church, the women had these paper fans.
And I had seen Gone with the Wind.
Like, when I saw it, Scarlett, you know, I was not Mammy.
I was Scarlett O'Hara, honey.
And Brett Butler and Ashley wanted me.
And...
So I got had the fan.
And so like there was something I would go somewhere.
I would, I would, I would.
I took the fan out and I started fanning myself and I just would go to this like I would be a Tara.
I would be a Tara.
I would be in some gorgeous place.
Victorian antebellum outfit before I had to make it out of curtains.
And I would just be the object of desire and longing.
And it just was, it was everything.
So I was just in my Scarlett O'Hara fantasy, just like going, you know.
You brought the fan to school, it sounds like.
Oh, yes, of course.
I mean, why not?
It's a great, I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's like your pencil, you got your fan, of course.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, yeah.
It's a school supply, baby.
Why wouldn't I?
No, it's a great question.
So, yeah, I'm fanning myself in class.
And then, you know, my full Scarlett O'Hara Gone with the Wind fabulous fantasy.
And Miss Ridgway looks at me and says, come here and bring that thing with you.
And she she marches me down the hall to the fourth grade teacher.
And she said, show her what you were doing with that thing.
And I did.
And I show her what you were doing with that thing.
Yes.
Yes.
Huh.
Meaning to, you know, fan myself.
So I did.
And I didn't feel like I didn't.
And she's like, OK, stop.
And then she had me wait outside.
Did you understand why she was asking you to do that?
No.
OK.
No, not at all.
And I felt like and then she then she marches me to the fifth grade teacher's class.
And I felt like, OK, maybe I didn't commit enough.
So.
I really dropped in.
And she said, show her into the fifth grade.
You just show her what you were doing with that thing.
And I really dropped it.
And I felt my invisible hair blowing in the wind and I just committed, you know, and she's like okay stop, go back to class.
And I think my mother didn't pick us up that day.
Somehow someone else brought us home or we walked home.
And I just remember her coming storming in saying that she had gotten a call from Miss Ridgeway saying I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if you don't get me into therapy right away.
So your mom comes in.
Yes.
Angry.
Yeah, very angry.
And she says that the teacher said what to you?
She said that Miss Ridgeway called me on the phone and said your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we don't get him into therapy right away.
So did you understand why she'd taken you to the different teachers to use your fan?
I mean, did you put the pieces together?
This was... All I knew is... I'm eight, nine years old.
All I knew is that...
I'd been taken to show what I was doing with my fan, and now my mother was yelling at me.
And this ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress.
In my mind, I thought I would be homeless in a dress.
Begging for money and like a criminal.
That's what, those are the images that came to mind.
And you said your mom was very aware of appearances, and it feels like this, this anger that she did you understand why she was angry?
She didn't have time for this.
She didn't have time for any problems from us, right?
This is a problem that she didn't have time for.
She had to figure out how to pay the light bill.
She had to figure out how to pay the water bill, the rent, how to put food on the table.
She didn't have time for this.
And people were talking about her, right?
So then it's like, this is a reflection on her.
And her being a bad parent or in some way.
And so I became, I was a problem.
Like this behavior was a problem for her.
And I. I'm so sorry.
And I was failing her.
And I was a disappointment.
And I... We can take a moment.
Yeah.
We can take a moment.
Yeah.
Then it was like, okay, what's wrong with me?
Up until then, I was just very free.
I would dance during PE.
I would dance everywhere.
I was just free.
And then this moment was...
It was like this emergency.
And I had to be handled.
I had to be fixed.
What are you thinking about right now?
How...
There was no one to say that who you are is beautiful, that you're lovely just the way you are.
There was no one to love me.
That was always who I was.
And that's a part of me, my imagination, my sense of play.
I'm an artist after all.
And that was not something that was celebrated or that I was lovable for.
And I was just thinking how unloved I felt and unwanted and a burden, and how awful it was that I was born.
Oh.
These are really hard things to say out loud.
And I really appreciate you going there.
It's just what it was.
I mean, I just, I have to say, like, I'm thinking of Little Laverne with the fan.
What happened to the fan after that?
Did you bring it out again?
No one's ever asked me that.
Not until college.
Not until college.
You kept it, though.
You kept it.
Oh, yes.
But not till college, not till I was, um... Oh my God, I hadn't even thought about that.
See, these are the things that come up when you write a book.
Like, I... I didn't.
I didn't.
Mm-hmm.
Can I just say, and we will get there in the timeline, but I am so happy to hear that you brought it out again in college.
I mean, I just really, actually, you know what?
Whatever about the timeline.
Tell me about dancing with that fan again.
Oh, my God.
It was everything.
And it became something I would dance with at the club.
Oh, my God.
You can't.
I had that one and then I got one that would clack.
So then, when I would go to Bullwinkle's, and certainly when I moved to New York, I had it at the club.
And so I would dance with it at the club.
It was something I just had with me.
For the first two years I was in New York, I always had a fan when I went to the club.
That feels triumphant to me.
It really does.
Yeah.
It's, there was a, the triumph was like, I was away from her and it was just like, fuck me.
It's like, fuck you.
I don't know who we're able to curse, whatever.
You are.
So say it.
It was like, fuck you.
Fuck everybody.
I'm doing what the fuck I want to do.
So that was like, yeah, that's what it was.
I hadn't, I wasn't in therapy yet in college.
I hadn't dealt with any of the trauma.
Like I was in that, like my childhood was fabulous.
Can you imagine?
All the shit that I went through in my childhood and I just was like running around like everything was fine.
But Laverne, because you had to, right?
You had to.
I had to.
How else could you move forward?
Yeah, you had to.
And children don't have tools to like process.
The disassociation was the only thing I could do.
And to be in denial until I could become an adult and reparent the child that still existed in me and process some of this stuff.
Stay with us.
In your 20s, you moved to New York.
Yes.
I was 21 years old.
21.
Kind of a cliche movie moment.
Small town girl moves to New York to chase her dreams, finds her people.
Tell me about that.
Were you meeting people who you felt like understood you?
So when I moved to New York in 1993, I was already RuPaul, had already released Supermodel of the World and had become a national sensation.
So drag was like all the rage.
The club kids of New York City had been on Joan Rivers' talk show and Geraldo and like everywhere.
And so when I went to New York and knew that there was this club scene with people who were doing fun, looks that were androgynous or drag or whatever it was like,
This is where I need to be.
All the things I've been bullied for my whole life, I was celebrated for.
Describe that.
Describe walking into a club in 90s.
Tell me what you're wearing.
Tell me what it looks like.
Tell me how people respond to you.
I think about Limelight on Wednesday nights, Disco 2000.
And Disco 2000, for those who don't know, Limelight.
That's me.
I'm sorry.
That's why I'm asking because I really don't know.
Well, Limelight is still there.
I don't know if they call it Limelight.
It was a church.
It's on 20th and 6th Avenue.
It's a former church that they converted into a nightclub.
It had several floors.
There's a basement, main floor, and like several floors.
And in every different room, there's different kinds of music playing.
The main floor was like techno.
And then there was the Kenny Scharf room where all the club kids were.
It was, you know, roped off.
And the club kids, the club kids were the people like me.
I didn't really know anyone but like because of my look, I would go.
There would be literally lines around the corner.
And were you in the line or were you walking past it?
I...
Walked past the line.
There's kind of no way you were in the line.
I asked that question.
I was like, you're not waiting there.
Absolutely not.
You're just not.
And what was beautiful is even though I didn't know people, like Kenny Kenning.
Who's that?
Legendary door person.
You, but the British, you, come, come.
I'm Laverne, I'm Kenny-Kenny.
What are you wearing?
Describe.
What was like a typical outfit?
At that time, I was really into everything with Salvation Armani.
I love that.
Salvation Armani.
Goodwill.
It was all thrifty.
So I loved I had a shaved head.
A lot of peel box hats with the shaved head lashes like out to here.
I was shaving my brows and drew them on with liquid liner and black lipstick.
When you're on the dance floor, are you feeling like Well, I'm just thinking about that question during that turning point when you were young?
What is wrong with me?
Were you still asking that question when you were dancing when you were in New York?
Oh, God, no.
What is so...
What was so magical about that particular time in New York and when?
I can you know I haven't been dancing in a while.
And I talked to Honey Dijon about this, the legendary DJ.
It's church.
It actually, a really good night at the club.
It was spiritual.
It was church.
It was, you're one with the music.
You're one.
There's an experience that is transcendent.
There's a transcendent experience.
And that's what I've always... been looking for.
And there are moments that I have that when I'm acting, too.
When you're in character and you're in a scene and you completely lose yourself.
Can I ask you, like, when you were at the club...
Were you flirting with guys?
Like, what was happening in your romantic life at the time?
When I first moved to New York, I didn't.
I didn't go to, I didn't even, it didn't even occur to me.
You were so locked into the dance.
Which is really funny because I told this to my brother and my brother's like people are looking at my gloves.
I was like...
Like about three years, three or four years in, I was like, really?
Because I was dancing.
It was about my look.
I don't have time for this.
It was about my look.
I was dancing.
So no, not at all.
Okay.
Those first few years, it was about being seen.
Sure.
It was about my look and it was about performing and getting lost, hopefully feeling like I would be discovered somehow in the club.
And I did have moments when people would see me in clubs and I would end up in a fashion show or end up in a movie, or you know, those things did happen.
You said that so offhandedly, but that's never been my experience in a club.
I will just say that.
They weren't big movies.
They weren't big fashion shows.
Don't say that.
Yeah, those things happened.
But when did dating start to come on your radar?
Dating... So...
Oh, God, that's a really good question.
So I like when I was in Indiana, I did date a man.
It was weird because, like I didn't, I wasn't.
What I realize now is that, like I wasn't, I wasn't in my body.
Like so when I when I when I had sex.
Then, and when I was dating, I was, it was sort of about pleasing them.
It wasn't about my own pleasure.
And I was very I don't know if I said this in the book I like didn't even have an orgasm until, like No, you didn't say that in the book.
Yeah.
I didn't even have an orgasm until like, I think my... sophomore year in college.
Huh?
With a partner, yeah.
No, no.
Oh, even so?
I was alone.
Oh, my God.
I hadn't had an orgasm alone because I didn't masturbate because I was so...
I was so like, I was so disconnected from my body.
God, I can't believe this again.
This is the podcast to say it on.
It's so weird.
Like, can you can you like even reading my book back?
I was like, wow.
Why am I saying this out loud?
But you know exactly why you said it.
Because someone will hear this or read this and say this and say but I didn't.
But I didn't.
I was when I went through puberty, I was just I was traumatized by it.
And so I.
The only way I could stand that existence is to like I.
It was like I was floating outside my body, so it was just weird like so I.
So dating when I moved to New York was I wasn't dating um, And that was a conscious choice, or just sort of you were closed off from that.
I was closed off.
Sure.
I was close and I was very ambitious and very, you know, just like focused on being a star.
But then when I, and then eventually my brother told me people were hooking up at clubs.
And you're like, why didn't you tell me sooner?
Yeah.
And then I then I started then like probably 96 ish or so.
I remember kind of going out and kind of like looking and, you know, flirting a little bit.
And I was.
I was becoming, I was less androgynous and more femme and I felt a little bit more feminine.
Yeah.
And then that's when I kind of started like flirting and and looking for boys and allowing them to find me.
You call this your.
I mean I want to hear about this because you call it your.
Samantha Jones sex in the city era.
This is this time.
And you are, are you, when did you start your medical transition?
My medical transition started in 98.
Okay.
But like a few years before that, I kind of I had grown my hair out and I was very, I was very femme.
Hmm.
I was wearing dresses and makeup every day, heels every day, but I wasn't on any kind of, you know, feminizing anything.
So I was very, I read as a person assigned male at birth who had a long weave and whatever.
So I got lots of attention.
On the street, negative.
And so, like it was, the cognitive dissonance of my life and so many lives of trans femme people is like I'd be called a man and harassed on one street corner.
And then the next street corner, hey, sexy mama, like, can I holler at you?
How did you, I mean, that feels, it feels like whiplash.
How did you, did you center yourself in some way?
How?
Center myself in my, center myself in my 20s with a trauma, shame-based.
There's no centering.
Center myself.
Girl, no.
I'm glad you laughed at that.
Yeah, okay.
No.
I... Well, tell me this.
Like, when you started getting more into your body and you started dating...
Can you tell me about those relationships you were having with men?
They weren't relationships.
Before medical transition, when I was very femme but feminine, presenting but hadn't started.
Estrogen It was, it was all sex.
It was just I was sexualized.
I was still it was a story.
The story I was telling myself is that I'm not lovable.
Oh, but a lot of men seem to want to fuck me.
So that's better than nothing.
So it was a very dysfunctional unhealthy sad deeply, deeply sad series of encounters and years of just
And what's interesting is, when I did start medical transition, I started like That's when I started to kind of come back into my body.
Sure.
It was 1998.
And then I, like, actually started pursuing actual dating.
And I think that like there was something about.
There was something about I had to like be in the truth of, like my womanhood.
It was like I think there was like me deciding to medically transition subconsciously was me thinking I deserved more, that I deserved to maybe have a life, to be in the world in a way that was integrated and that was authentic.
And like...
I didn't understand.
Consciously, I didn't think I'm choosing myself by medically transitioning in 1998 at 26 years old.
But like, I think like, I started to think that like, I... deserve more.
I deserve better in terms of how I'm being treated by men and the world and myself.
Really, the beginning of medical transition was the beginning of me.
Like telling the truth to myself.
It was not like... It was the very beginning.
It was like a baby step.
I didn't even know what a baby step it was until like years later when I just realized.
But it gave me...
It gave me like permission to like ask myself what I want, who I am, and to like really just stop running.
Because I've always known I was a girl.
Like, just to stop being in denial.
Like, to stop, like, girl, like, you know, you know who you are.
Like, just...
Just get over it.
And I was just it was a lot of fear.
It's just tremendous amount of fear.
But like it was.
I mean, it's like you are loving.
It seems to me like you are loving yourself in this way you haven't before.
And you're opening yourself up to love.
I was going to continue to be on the planet.
If I was to continue to be on the planet, I could not go on the way that I was going.
If I was going to continue to live, I couldn't keep living the way that I was living.
So that was really what it was.
It was like, I have to do this or I have to go.
So I decided to transition because I guess I wasn't ready to go.
And that's really the truth.
That's really the truth.
And thank God.
Thank God.
Truly.
I mean, I'm thinking about little Laverne again.
I'm thinking about how she always knew that she was going to be a star.
And it's around this time that you're coming a bit more into yourself.
You do book a role on Orange is the New Black.
Well, there's a lot of other roles before this.
We don't have so much time.
We got to get through.
I started medical transition in 1998 and I booked Orange is the New Black in 2012.
Okay, so understood, understood.
So you were 40 when you booked Orange is the New Black.
Correct.
But when I turned 40 and I turned 40 May 29th of 2012 and then booked Orange like late August of that year
But when I turned 40, I was just like, I was in rent arrears.
I was in credit card debt.
My life was a disaster.
I wasn't a star.
And I was just kind of like, you need to fucking get real.
You're an old, you're old.
Huh.
You are delusional.
Like, no, I really was just like, I was like, you're crazy.
And people have been telling me I was delusional.
But I just was like So you thought, maybe they're right until And then.
But when I hit 40 I was like
You're insane.
You have spent 20 years in New York chasing this dream, and you are a Black transgender woman.
What?
You're crazy.
Like, I just was like, Laverne, you need to get real.
Like the fantasy that you have concocted for yourself is not look at your life.
You are on a payment plan in government subsidized housing.
You have... You're in debt.
You don't have any savings.
You don't have any future.
Like, what... You're old.
What are you doing?
It was like... It internalized ageism, but it was also like...
What am I going to do?
It's existential.
It is.
It was very existential.
I mean, that's, and then you book this role and it's not, your life completely changes.
Can I ask, how did your mom, we started our conversation talking about your relationship with her.
How did she react to your fame?
My mom was the president of the usher board.
So even before Orange, even before Orange, she would make little cards and she would pass them out in church.
So everyone's going to be on TV at this time or that time.
So there was a lot of bragging.
Literally one of her church colleagues or fellow church members said you're living vicariously through your daughter.
She said, what if I am?
What if I am?
So there was...
It was something to brag about.
It was something to brag about.
She said she was proud of me.
And I think she was and is.
And this is so weird.
It's so weird to say all this stuff.
I'm in an interesting place with my mom.
Because the truth is, I still don't think my mother fully sees me or fully understands me.
Absolutely not.
She doesn't have the capacity.
And that's okay.
My mother did the very best that she could.
And...
She is a remarkable woman.
The things that by putting herself through undergraduate and graduate school, raising two brilliant children
It's just like she did the best she could.
And I'm...
I'm not for everybody.
I'm a complicated gal.
And my work is to meet her where she is.
And I've forgiven her everything because I understand she did the best she could.
And everything that happened, I get to use it in my work.
And without a test, there's no testimony.
And in writing this book and sharing all this...
I'm not the only one who's gone through all this.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.
I want to pivot us because there's one more relationship.
Your mom relationship complicated, but you landed it in a place of love.
Again, a good but a complicated good.
And I want to talk about... Unconditional love.
Unconditional love.
I want to talk about...
Or close on a relationship your book closes on, which is you were talking about how you had these encounters with men that were not fulfilling for you.
But there is a relationship you discuss that happened in your 40s.
He was younger.
Yes.
What drew you to him?
I mean so we met in 2019 and I was living in LA, but I was going back and forth between LA and New York shooting Inventing Anna.
And so I was on the apps.
So you met this guy on an app.
I swipe right because I think he's hot, you know?
And we matched in like November 2019.
Didn't get to meet up.
Pandemic happens.
He starts reaching out. really consistently after the pandemic start happens.
And we met July 1st.
And just, I felt immediately comfortable with him.
He was so charming and funny and disarming.
He looked even better in person than he did.
That never happens, yeah.
He was fine.
His picture's a bit like, he had this...
He was very manly in his photos and he like works out six days a week.
But in person, he had this boyish like charm that was like just very disarming.
So he was gorgeous.
He was stunningly gorgeous to me and funny and I felt safe with him.
And...
Can I ask about that?
Why?
Why did you feel safe with him?
After a while, like I, just there's some people you just like.
Honestly, it was just instinct after after all my years of therapy, after all of my experiences of like identifying when I didn't feel safe.
So that's the safety piece is like I learned to set boundaries.
So feeling safe with this man was after years of practice, listening to my body and learning to trust myself.
You're trusting yourself.
You're trusting your instincts.
And then it's a few weeks into dating that this guy tells you something that really shocks you.
It was more than a few weeks.
It was several months.
We met in July, and he told me October.
Was it October or November?
It was November.
October or November, I forget.
That he was a cop.
There was a cop that he had lied to me until he told me he was in commercial real estate.
And he said he didn't feel safe telling people he was a cop.
And when he met me, he didn't know me from a can of paint on Tinder.
So when he said he didn't feel safe, I actually, there was something about that that I just got.
Yeah.
I got and he told me about like he had had to go off social media because like people he had arrested like threatened his family.
And I was just like...
Telling some random person that, like, you're a cop, I got the feeling not safe.
So I didn't, I don't know.
I wasn't upset that he had lied.
I understood why he lied to me about that.
Yeah.
But he had lied.
Well, it's interesting to me that you recognize something in his feeling unsafe to share that with you.
And that's probably, I mean, I'm very empathetic.
So I...
I sometimes I might give too much grace.
Depends.
It depends.
But at that, by this point, by November, like I, we were, we had made this connection.
I was, I really liked him.
I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
So I did.
Did it give you pause, the lie about the relationship?
It sounds like... Will you tell me, did it give you any pause or make you reconsider?
It was... Immediately, I remember immediately feeling like... thinking about how he felt.
Like how, this is 2020, right?
So he was, you know, people were spitting on him and calling him a racist every day.
There were all these protests.
So I thought about, like, his level of feeling safe or not safe.
That's where I immediately went.
And...
And I was like, I really like this guy.
And I was like this guy has made me feel.
By this point he had made me feel better than any man I'd ever met.
Like I felt like a sense of I mean, the sex was incredible, but there was it was beyond that.
It was I it was a spirit.
It was spiritual.
And I say that to this day.
I felt a spiritual, emotional and physical connection all at the same time.
And I never felt that before.
I was in sheer bliss with this man.
And, you know, things would come up and we would agree to disagree about some political things.
And...
Problematic, but not, like, offensive.
Just, I felt ignorant.
And, like he had been, The way he grew up and the algorithms he was getting the information he was consuming.
They had been propagandized too.
And so I tried to give him grace there.
I would... understand that his facts were not facts, that they were wrong, I would express that.
And I would, you know, offer to look things up and cross-reference sources.
Was he engaging with you?
He was because most of the people in his life believed the same things that he did.
So he kind of enjoyed talking to someone who believed different things.
It didn't necessarily change his mind, but he enjoyed the banter of it all.
Yeah.
It's a few years you've been dating him for a few years that these discussions that it sounds like you've been having but then sort of putting to the side because you were so in love.
Yeah, I was so in love.
And the love and the connection was bigger than...
His ignorance, I would say, around politics.
At a certain point you have this conversation, a few years into dating, where you can't just put it in a box, put it to the side anymore.
And it does.
Well, the initial thing that happened was he was playing softball a lot.
And he was like, babe, I'm really good at softball.
You should come watch me play.
And I was like, absolutely.
I'd love to come support you.
Just let me know when, if I'm in town, if I'm available, I'm there.
And one Sunday we're hanging out and he's like, oh, I have softball tomorrow.
I was like, oh my God, I'm available.
I'm in town.
Where am I going?
You know?
And he's like, oh, my dad's going to be there.
And I'm like, And, you know, and this is three years and three months in.
And he was like, oh, but he doesn't know about you.
And that'd be awkward.
I was just like, why?
I'm like, why?
Actually, it would be perfect.
We both be cheering you on.
It would be great.
And he was like, I don't think so.
And then I was just like like I had been in relationships where I've been kept a secret and I was not doing that again.
I like my last two boyfriends.
I met their friends and family and it was fine.
It's like really not a big deal.
Sure.
Um, and he was making it one and it just seemed really stupid.
And so I gave him like a timeline of like meeting a friend or family member within, like you know, six to eight weeks.
That deadline came and went.
And then, um...
Things went south.
I don't know.
Are you willing to talk about that conversation you had when you were on vacation, that sort of The vacation when Yeah.
Oof.
So we were in Miami the last week of March 2024.
Long story short, we find... I think the second day we were in Miami, we find out that one cop...
But he didn't know very well.
But a fellow police officer, a New York City police officer, was shot.
And then several hours later, he dies.
And...
My boyfriend at the time went into a tailspin emotionally and he was angry.
He was drinking.
So it was just all really hard.
And then the next day we find out that Trump had donated money to the widow and then that Trump wanted to go to the wake.
And then because...
He was in Miami with me.
He couldn't go to the wake.
I was like, if you were in New York, would you go to the wake?
And he's like, absolutely.
And I was like You understand that this?
And I said you understand this man doesn't give a fuck about police.
He's just using you.
And he was just like, well, he's with me.
I'm with him.
I'm just like... He's talking about Trump.
Trump, yeah.
And I just...
That was a line for me.
It was just kind of, it really, I was like...
I just felt I found it really unacceptable.
And I said to him this is something I haven't said publicly, but I was like I've been invited to all sorts of things from politicians.
And I understand that they're using me.
And I've said no to them because I understand that.
And then he just went off into some crazy ass shit.
Partly because he was drunk.
Later on, he told me that he was trying to push me away.
But then he just said some crazy shit that became untenable.
And I had to...
He said, I knew that it was over.
There's so much you've shared today.
I really appreciate it.
I really do.
Yeah.
What comes up for you after all that?
Oh, my God.
Well, I know I keep returning to this image, but I am thinking of you, of young Laverne in Mobile.
Yeah.
And I think where I want to you know it's interesting what you're articulating because it's so clear you loved this man so much.
Yes.
And I also, not to get cheesy with it, but maybe to get cheesy with it, you loved yourself more.
And so you chose to end this relationship.
The deepest love, I think you write in the book that you'd experienced love.
Because a boundary had been crossed and you'd learned to honor that.
Yeah.
I just refused to betray myself again.
And when you mentioned Little Laverne, I smiled because I was like this is adult Laverne taking care of Little Laverne, making sure that she's safe, that she's not put in situations that make her feel unsafe again, because she's felt unsafe most of her life.
So that I...
I love her and I'm, and I'm expressing that love, um, and care for her.
So that like, so that just makes me smile.
Like as much as like that breakup was traumatizing and then talking about it publicly.
You know like so many people turned on me because I dated a man who was a cop and voted for Trump three times.
Um, And I get that.
I get why people were upset with me about that.
But you know, I have to say this every time I mention this is that I never adapted or promoted any Trump policies or any Republican policies.
I've remained committed to fighting for trans liberation, for Black liberation, for reproductive rights, for a living wage.
And so...
I fell in love with someone who has opposing political beliefs.
But I think sometimes people think, just because you are in a relationship with someone, you're cosine their politics.
And maybe some people do.
I don't know.
But people and people don't know me.
And hopefully people.
If they read this book, they'll understand that a little bit more about who Laverne Cox is.
I'm not myself if I don't tell the truth.
That's part of like, I have to tell the truth because I don't feel right.
Laverne, I want to.
No, no, no.
It is important.
And I want to close on this question, which is we've been talking about little you.
Yes.
And I know you because we talked about closing our eyes and visualizing.
I wonder if you'd humor me.
Mm hmm.
You could do that.
I will do that to the best of my ability.
You want me to close my eyes?
Yes.
And I would love if you could say something to her.
Mm.
Mm.
You are safe, Laverne.
You are safe.
You are protected.
You are seen.
You are loved.
You're so adorable.
You're so infectious and just really, really special.
And you should always know that.
And don't let anybody tell you that you're not.
And I just love you so much.
I love you.
I love like how quirky you are, how your mind works, how just whimsical you can be to just like break into dance randomly.
You are so special and you should know this.
You should know this every single day.
And you are lovable and you are loved and you are worthy of the very, very best.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Laverne.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Before you go, I just wanted to say if you enjoyed this conversation, you can also watch it on YouTube.
We're filming more and more of our interviews and you can find them on the New York Times podcast YouTube page.
That's youtube.com slash NYT podcast.
The Modern Love team is Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Lynn Levy, Reva Goldberg, and Sarah Curtis.
This episode was produced by Elisa Gutierrez.
It was edited by Lynn Levy.
Our mix engineer was Daniel Ramirez.
Original music in this episode by Alicia B Etup Rowan Nemisto, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker and Dan Powell.
Dan also composed our theme music.
Special thanks to Sophie Erickson and Dahlia Haddad.
The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones, and Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.
If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to The New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes.
I'm Anna Martin.
Thanks for listening.
