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Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I am honored to be speaking with Emmy Award-winning actress, activist, icon, and now author Laverne Cox. Welcome, Laverne.
Laverne Cox: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
We are so excited to be having this conversation with you. First, I just want to say thank you for writing your memoir Transcendent. Candidly, it was hard to listen to at times, but your bravery in sharing the trauma and abuse that you endured will undoubtedly help others who are suffering. Why did now feel like the right time to write your memoir?
Before I answer that, can I ask you, when I hear that, what was hard for you to listen to? I'm always curious about that. I mean, these are things that just happened to me, so—
Well, I think in particular, it was your relationship with your mother, and I do want to circle back to that. I think certainly the back-and-forth there over the years and the hope as a listener that things might start trending in one direction, and kind of seeing her let you down in different ways over the years. Certainly, the bullying that you experienced as a child, the sexual abuse. I think knowing that you kept that to yourself because you didn't feel safe coming forward. I think that's always a concern as a parent, at least the one that I'm having: Am I creating a safe enough environment where my children feel like they can come and tell me things that they’re going through?
I think the fact that even living in the Deep South, the type of bullying that you were experiencing and abuse was really related to your gender. And then you come up north where you think maybe things are a little bit better, and then in college you start to experience some really rough racism from maybe an environment where you thought you were finally starting fresh. Like, all of it. You were so vulnerable in everything that you shared, and I think there's so much there that, unfortunately, others who are listening are going to have those shared experiences. I think seeing somebody that is as successful as you are, as poised, as vocal in kind of standing up for others, I think hopefully that they feel safe, and like, "Wow, look at where she is” and “I can get through this moment."
Wow. Thank you for that. Of all the things you said, which were all so lovely, I thought about the parenting piece. How do we parent better? I don't have kids myself, but what I understand about my mother is that she did the best that she could, but this was intergenerational trauma. It was intergenerational patterns that she did not have the bandwidth to even address.
I think the reality for so many working people across this country and probably the world that, like, therapy and self-reflection are a luxury and it's a crazy privilege. I think about that a lot, my life now versus when I was waiting tables five days a week and I had no money. I've always given myself time to self-reflect and try to improve myself, but there is something very privileged about that, that some people just don't have the opportunity to do.
But when I think about kids now and wanting them to be safe, and even though I don't want to have any of my own—I'm not a babysitter, I'm not any of that—I do want kids to be safe, and there's so many predators. There's so many and they're so close to families, often. I would just be so freaked out all the time about who I let around my children. It's a rough world. What I do know for sure is that if a child knows that they're loved no matter what, for who they are, authentically, that goes a long way. And even though I didn't know that, with a lot of work, a lot of effort, I'm not defined by my traumas or my shame or any of that. It's never too late to have a happy childhood as an adult. I've taken responsibility for my healing and for my mental health.
That brings me back to your question. The therapy, the specific therapy I've been doing over the past decade, made me think that I was ready to delve into the subjects in the book in a real, raw way. I've had offers to do books before, and I had a book deal several years ago, and we started writing, and we were into the process and I was reading back, and I was just like, "This is bullsh-t." [laughs] And I was like, "I can't..." I didn't feel ready to spill all my tea and put all my business out there. It was right at the beginning of Orange. I wasn't ready to do that, and I wasn't ready just professionally, but I also wasn't ready emotionally, and I didn't wanna do a book if it was gonna be bullsh-t.
"What I do know for sure is that if a child knows that they're loved no matter what, for who they are, authentically, that goes a long way."
So, I felt ready psychologically, emotionally, because of the work I've done on myself. And then I also think that we need more human stories, specifically trans stories that are humanizing in an environment where trans people are being so deeply dehumanized, and that is creating a permission structure to take away rights and commit violence against us with impunity.
Well said. It is a very, very rough time out there, and I think to your point, what better time to add Transcendent to the conversation and have it stand out there for people to turn to when erasure on many different levels is happening right now. You say in the beginning of the book that the act of writing it was an excavation, an exorcism. I'm curious what your feelings were when you then went in to record the audiobook, and then what your feelings were when the memoir was released out into the world.
Well, I was very nervous about doing the audiobook. I didn't want to do it. I understood that my fans would want me to. Everyone on my team was like, "You have to do it. Your fans want it." I didn't want to do the audiobook, if I'm being honest. I talked to my therapist. I talked to my acting coach ahead of time and we tried to get some strategies in place. I alerted them that I might be texting or doing emergency calls to them.
It was day three. I think it was day three—two or three, I forget. We were on chapter six and I started reading it. And what I understand now is I went into a major shame spiral. But I read the first sentence of chapter six and I was just like, "Why am I telling people this? This is like, what is this? This is awful." I just went into this crazy shame spiral and all the unprocessed trauma, honestly, around the events in chapter six came up for me, the unprocessed trauma, and I could not do it.
My producer was like, "We can skip this chapter today." I just started crying and then I needed to take a break. I went and took a little break and then we skipped that chapter. While I was on the break, I texted my acting coach and my therapist. They both gave me great notes, but my acting coach said to me—because when I act, my job as an actor is to drop into the emotion, the circumstances, to feel it all, to live it truthfully in the moment. But narrating, I needed to take a different approach. I had an acting teacher once who said, "You hit a certain age and your instrument is just open." I'm just really, really sensitive. And my instrument is open, and so things drop in. The nervous system doesn't know if a trauma happened 20 years ago. So, once triggered, the nervous system experiences it as if it's happening right now. So, that's what was going on.
I got a technique where I was a narrator with some detachment, as much as I could. It helped me get through it. It still wasn't easy, but I could get through it. The technique of not dropping into all those emotions, being a little more detached, almost as if I'm just sort of reading facts. But I still had breakdowns. I still had to pause. It still was excruciating. It felt like torture, if I'm being honest.
Writing it was often that way as well. There were a few moments in the rewriting process with a few chapters where I felt a sort of catharsis or a certain kind of, like, taking my power back a little bit with some rewrites. But the book, writing it, too, was excruciating. There were some moments at the end that were fine, like the bell hooks quote and the healing parts are the best parts for me, the resilient parts, in terms of the writing process.
But then the best part has been talking about it. The best part has been when you had your thoughts, hearing how people are reacting to their work and to finding connections in their lives. That has been really beautiful and humbling. I keep saying humbling, but I feel so humbled by this whole process. Maybe it's because, in the writing process, I've reminded myself of all the things I've gone through and how profoundly human I am in terms of the ways in which I've struggled.
I'm just so humbled by it. I think being humbled, particularly in the job that I do, is a blessing. An opportunity to be humbled in a way that's not demoralizing but humbled in a way of being of service in some way. And getting right sized, not getting so full of myself or thinking, like, “I'm so fabulous,” because it's easy to do that in this business. That's the opposite of what I'm feeling right now. That's always a good thing for me.
I'm sorry that your time in the booth was so heavy in that way. I will say, I think your narration is so stirring. And it's interesting, I was looking at the chapters just now because I was looking at pre-chapter six, because I could really feel your emotions in what I believe is chapter three, the orphanage chapter. When your mother kind of followed through on her promise, as she used to say to you guys, to “put you out.” I think I could really, really hear what you were going through in that moment.
I do commend you because I think in sitting down to write memoir, to your earlier point, it's really easy to start censoring yourself, right? "I can leave that out. I don't need to put that in." I do commend that you just let it all out there. I also appreciate that your producer could see that you needed a break and that you figured out a way to move forward with it and take care of yourself along the way, because you don't want this to break you along the way, too, and that you figured out how to tap into your actor roots.
The resilience, even in talking about it, there was one interview—I've done so many interviews; press whore here—one of them, I think I had six in one day and I was just kind of tired. I just was going and then I started saying there's things I wrote in the book and they're written, but I actually haven't talked about them or said them much out loud beyond the audiobook. I found I was literally sitting there fully triggered in the interview and fully just retraumatized and shame spiral. So, the way I talk about the book and the way I do the interviews, I have to really take care of myself there as well.
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood as an adult. I've taken responsibility for my healing and for my mental health."
But the orphanage, I mean, my brother and I both kind of agreed that that was the most traumatizing moment of our childhood, because of the abandonment. Of all the things that happened, and a lot of things happened, it was the abandonment. I mean, there's just a deep sense of feeling unwanted and unlovable, and that it was just sort of confirmation of all that. There was a period when I didn't even know if I'd see my mother again. I couldn't process that fully as a child, because you just—I disassociated. I just shut down. And something tragic has happened in my life now, and I need to just kind of shut down. I have work to do, and I can't be in grief right now, so I’m kind of just shutting down. But reliving it and writing about it and really going there with what I felt and then checking in with my brother, "Is this how you remember it?" So, coming out of that chapter probably into six was also just raw—
Too much.
It's too much, too fast, too soon.
Well, on the topic of your mother, Gloria, I think one thing that blew me away is that you dedicate the book to her, in part. She's the first name that you say in that dedication. And then as a listener, it made me all the more surprised to hear everything from your childhood and beyond. You shared that your brother, Lamar, doesn't speak to her. Certainly, no one would've blamed you if you had walked away from that relationship as well. It sounds like now you guys are in kind of a place of understanding, a place of boundaries. You're saying that you understand the generational trauma that impacted who she became. Why was it important to you and why have you remained committed to maintaining a relationship with her? And not just that, dedicating the book in part to her?
In terms of having a relationship with my mother, there was a moment when I had to say, "If you want me in your life, you need to get my pronouns right. You need to get my name right. There's some things, if you want to be here, you have to do this." And she did. But I've always wanted my mother in my life. The idea of not having her in my life, that's just, it's just not—
Like, fundamentally who you are.
It's just not an option. It's just not an option for me. I understand why it's an option for my brother and I get it. I understand, but it's never really been on the table. I dedicate the book to her—I am who I am because of her. And I, today, I like myself. Actually, I love myself. And objectively, I've done some extraordinary things in my life. I think I can say that without sounding too egotistical or whatever. I've opened doors that were closed before. Certainly, I didn't do that alone. I had opportunities. But I did it.
I had a mother who's an educator. I think that one of the best privileges—I don’t think of my life as privileged—but having a mother who's an educator is, I think, probably the ultimate privilege, where you learn to value education and curiosity and learning. Then also that I learned very early on—that Black history book that she gave me when I was six years old. Gave us, but I confiscated it. We shared it, but it became my book. But I understood Black history early on and what African Americans, particularly African American artists, went through. And just having that historical understanding and then knowing I was an artist myself, and then my transness being a thing.
My mother is everything. Even the difficulties that I've had in my life—without a test, there's no testimony. Another thing I know for sure is that I'm not the only one who's gone through some of these things. There are other people who've experienced those things, who are experiencing those things. And so hopefully they'll know that they're not alone. Hopefully, they'll understand that they can come out at the other side with a lot of—I mean, it was a lot of work. And it continues to be. I'm not done yet. One of my best friends, we were talking, and she got to page three and she had to put it down. It was too close to home. It was too triggering.
A lot of people are going through a lot of things. There's lots of people who have kids who haven't gotten to work on themselves, don't have a framework to even work on themselves. And the grace I also have for women of my mother's generation, particularly Black women in the South, but I venture to say all women. The misogyny, and the misogyny compounded with racism. How sexual assault is just rampant. I mean, and when you think about, I forget the statistics, I think it's one in three women have been sexually assaulted or something. Something crazy. It's like a crazy statistic.
Yeah, it's insanely high.
To this day. And it was even worse back then. It was even worse. The abuse, systemically, the inter-personal. It's unspeakable. And there are things that are not my story. There are things that happened in my mother's life that I would not write in the book, that are not my story to tell, but it's kind of amazing she's even walking with some things she's endured.
And I will say, for all of her threats, she did not take away your dance classes, ultimately.
She did not. And that's what that—
Sent you and your brother to boarding school.
It's another thing that saved my life. She wanted high-achieving children. She did. She valued accomplishments.
She got them.
And that's wonderful. The only caveat I would say is that I felt that—there's a book called Drama of the Gifted Child that kind of talks about a scenario where a child becomes loved for what they do, what they accomplish, but not for who they are. And the setup in terms of not feeling an inherent sense of unconditional love. That the love is conditional based on straight A’s or winning this talent show or doing this—so, accomplishments. So, that was the scenario. That's not, in terms of love and what is ideal, feeling like you're worthy. Because your worthiness is a birthright, and you're loved unconditionally because of who you are. That was not the scenario. But the overachieving stuff, I still have a little bit of that in me. A lot of that in me.
I hate to tell you, your perfectionist tendencies do come through a bit in listening to it. And I understand, and it's okay.
I had to let them go, though, because there were things I wanted to rewrite, and at a certain point, the book was due. I was like, “Okay, it's good enough.” What is it? Was it Robert Frost? A poem is never finished. It's only abandoned along the way.
Well, that feels like a good transition, actually, to my next question. Your memoir is divided into three sections. What's Wrong with Me, What's Happened to Me, and What's Right with Me. In the What's Happened to Me section, you talk about the moment you discovered bell hooks and how she helped you understand that you had internalized racism and patriarchy. As a listener, it felt like bell helped with that reframe from What's Wrong with Me to What's Happened to Me. Is there a particular piece of literature or culture that you think helped with the transition most to What's Right with Me?
That was therapy. That was this phase of therapy that I'm doing with Jennifer [Burton Flier]. In August, it'll be 10 years that the community resiliency model that was developed by the Trauma Research Institute, it's a somatic based approach. Jennifer is interdisciplinary. She brings in some EMDR and other modalities as well.
But so much of the community resiliency model approach, and Jennifer's approach, is a place of resilience. And the What's Right with Me, for me, therapeutically, there was so many things that kept me alive that were just inherent in me. We do sort of come out who we are as people. And the blessing of having a twin brother who's been there the whole time who can affirm, as I can affirm, he's always been himself, and he affirms I've always been myself. He's more himself now. I'm more myself. So, a lot of what was right with me was just an immediate critical awareness that something wasn't quite right in terms of what people were telling me.
"I feel so humbled by this whole process. Maybe it's because, in the writing process, I've reminded myself of all the things I've gone through and how profoundly human I am in terms of the ways in which I've struggled."
I questioned things very early on, like three years old. And also a sense that I was supposed to be a star, that I was here to do something important. A lot of people, I think, feel that, and I certainly, the many, many, many years when it didn't happen, I started to feel delusional and crazy. But I knew in my gut that I was supposed to be here for a reason, and God put me here to be a star, but to be of service, to do that thing, to make things better for people who followed me. How do I get there and how do I make it happen?
Obviously, I didn't know how to do all of that, but I always knew. And so that was what was right with me, because I knew that I was here for something bigger. One of my flaws or whatever is, there's minutia and things that I just don't notice. When I started waiting tables and I was talking to my co-workers, I noticed how they would comment on what a customer did or said or the minutia of the restaurant and bitch about it or be consumed by it. I'm a bigger-picture kind of person.
I think what Brené Brown said about me that's kind of, I think, accurate, in one of the things that's right with me, it's just the way my brain works. Brené said that I'm simultaneously able to be in the arena but also in the balcony looking at everything and understanding how it all is kind of functioning. That's why I'm always interested in how things are functioning, like on a structural level, while I'm also in the thing doing the thing. So, when kids were bullying me and calling me all these things, I didn't have time for that. I was like, “I have so much to learn and so much preparation to do.” So, that was a thing that was right with me, the focus and the sense that I was here for something bigger. And being an artist really what made me pursue therapy so vigorously.
Also, my reading of bell hooks, too, it was a critical and political awakening, but it was also a mental health awakening. If you know bell hooks and if you know her work really well, that is what she was interested in: critique and understanding these systems, but ultimately for our optimal well-being so that we can empower ourselves psychologically and emotionally. She also understood the deep trauma and spoke of it and wrote of it so beautifully, of internalized racism and colorism, and how psychologically damaging all that is and the psychological damage of enslavement and that post-traumatic slave syndrome that is passed down, and what white supremacy and imperialism are continuing to do to our psyches. And she wanted us to be healed. So, therapy, but understanding that there was something—the What's Right with Me is the thing that we all kind of have.
Yeah, it's always been there.
If we can tap into it. Does that make sense?
It does, yeah. Touching on that, I did so admire your conviction as a child in the face of your trauma that you were always better than these people that were hurting you. Your mother would tell you to fight back physically and you were like, "But I am not that person. That is not how I'm going to respond." You held onto this conviction that you would get out.
It's interesting because I think about myself as an adult and I don't like arguing with people. I've never been in relationships where I'm fighting—well, the Nate one. But generally speaking, I don't want to argue with partners. I don't want to have friends that I'm arguing with. It's just not the energetic space that I wanna be in. That's just who I am. I'm a peaceful person. I'm a lover not a fighter.
Is there anything that you would want to say now, though, to your bullies, to your haters, to your abusers?
Not really. No, not really. I guess they were significant in terms of the trauma, and I definitely internalized a lot of their bullying, and I became my own bully and that's unfortunate. They're not significant. The thing is that they usually don't even remember it.
Which is scary in and of itself.
They don't even remember what they did, and so it's just kind of like, f-ck them, you know?
I will say, as a listener, when you were vice president of your middle school and you got to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and you have that sort of internal monologue moment where you're saying the Pledge of Allegiance and then shouting at them and kind of the interstitials, I loved that. That was one of my favorite listening moments. I was like, "That's right."
Oh, it was glorious. I swear to you, every single day I got to get on that intercom and recite, and they had to hear my voice every day for nine months, it was truly glorious. I cannot tell you. The f-ck yous going on in my head were just—
Yeah. It was chef's kiss. It was great. As a listener, it was great. I loved it.
Honey, yeah, it was great. It was great. That was one of the fun things to write in the book, and it was a fun thing to live.
You talk about all of the cultural touchstones that you used to escape into as a kid that really helped you in some of your tougher moments, everything from Gone with the Wind to Madonna to Boy George and, in particular, Fame. How does it feel knowing now that you and your roles are that for young people?
I'm just breathing it in. I've been on the road a lot and I've met so many people, and Orange Is the New Black is the one that just keeps coming up. And Disclosure, The T Word, the documentary work I've done. Just my voice in media as well. But what Orange Is the New Black did for so many people around the world. It was 2013 that it came out. In the years that it's come out, I've heard hundreds of stories of people coming out as trans, coming out as gay or lesbian, realizing they could have a career as an actor, coming out to their partners or husbands or wives. And it was international.
We just didn't have real human representation of a trans character played by a trans person. Certainly, Candis Cayne on Dirty Sexy Money. I don't wanna erase any of my forebears. But what they wrote for Candis, she was a mistress of this politician, and I lived and I even wrote a piece about it. It was pivotal for me. That is the thing, that Candis Cayne moment. I was an adult, but that moment made me believe it was possible for me to have this career and be openly trans. So, it was a huge touchstone for me. Then the writer's strike happened.
"Once you know that you're possible, you can't unsee. Once you see yourself, you can't unsee it."
But the reach of Orange at the time and how many people saw it, continue to see it, are rewatching it. I'll run into people, "I just rewatched Orange." It's crazy, I remember thinking, after understanding there was a post-Sopranos world—Sopranos and then Mad Men and Sex and the City, but this sort of antihero prestige TV, and it was a point when I realized Orange is that. Orange is one of those shows that kind of shifts things, and I'm a part of it and it's so humbling. I'm so grateful. And what is so beautiful is that even as we have this deeply anti-trans moment, what I know is that the genie's out of the bottle, that because of Orange and because of all of the other trans artists, models, musicians, activists who have bigger platforms now because of my work—I'll say it, but I got opportunities—that I was able to keep that door open. Once you know that you're possible, you can't unsee. Once you see yourself, you can't unsee it.
I love that, "Once you know that you're possible." I'm gonna tuck that in my back pocket. Is there a role that you would love to play?
There's several. Lady Macbeth, eventually, when it's right. She's been on the list for a very long time. And I've been talking about Dangerous Liaisons with my acting coach. The Glenn Close role, of course. I've been obsessed with that, with the film and the play. I saw the film first and have been obsessed. "Vanity and happiness are not compatible," is another one of my favorite lines from a movie, that Glenn Close says to Malkovich's character. "Vanity and happiness are not compatible." That's brilliant.
It's really brilliant.
That is the truth. I saw this in high school. "Vanity and happiness are not compatible." I like a good quote. I just love that character. Glenn is so amazing, and I need to find it my way. I'd have to try to let go of everything that Glenn does, and she's so iconic. She's so iconic in it.
I think my last question for you is just: what's next for you?
There's a solo show that I'm writing. There's a few different projects pending. There's a movie that I'm attached to that I may be doing, but we don't know about the funding yet. There's the thing I'm most excited about, it's the solo show that I'm writing with my acting coach who will be directing it. I came up with this idea, and it's just been so glorious, the writing process. I'll be playing multiple characters, and it'll be a solo show and the theme and the throughline is really cool.
I'm obsessed with—I don't know if I'm excited about it—after doing Drowsy Chaperone at Carnegie Hall last year, I was like, "I think I want to do a musical." I'm working on my chest voice and I'm working on trying to approximate some sort of belt. I'm not a belter. I mostly sing in my head voice, and I need to work on that. There's a guy who worked with an actor I worked with in Drowsy and got this actor to sounding so amazing. So, the teacher's in and out of New York, but he's in New York in July, so I'm excited about—I'm nervous about working with him.
If I'm a natural actress, I am not a natural singer. It's a thing I'm not good at it, but I have gotten better. I've gotten better. I've recorded music. I've played Frank-N-Furter with varying degrees of vocal success. There are some vocal moments. I recently rewatched it because it's on Broadway now. I mean, it's been 10 years and I have copious notes. But there are some moments where I was like, "Oh, I sound good. Oh, this acting is good." There needed to be a relaxation, and it was just so much pressure being number one on the call sheet. It was just so much pressure. I just needed to kind of relax, honestly. But I have notes.
But vocally, singing is not my thing. So, we'll see. I'm not convinced I'm going to be able to get my voice to a place where I'm happy enough with it to really go for a musical theater thing. I'm not convinced I'm going to get there. But I've made some really cool progress.
Well, when you see it's possible, to quote yourself back to you, when you see it's possible.
I love the process and I'm obsessed with vocal technique. I love opera and there's something about producing the voice and the amplified voice, and I'm just obsessed with vocal techniques. So, I'll sing. I'll always sing, but if I get to a place where I feel comfortable and solid enough that I want to do a musical...I definitely want to do Broadway, but I will only do it if I feel my voice is at the level where it should be.
Well, if and when you do book that musical, I will happily take my half day to come to that Wednesday matinee and cheer you on, because I have no doubt that you can do it.
Are you in New York?
Our headquarters are in Newark. So, I'm right there.
Yes, you are. Right now, it's really about the art and I feel like I'm in an interesting transitional period, but I'm very process-oriented right now, which is where I really like to be. There's so much uncertainty, but there's also so much possibility.
Well, Laverne, thank you so much for your time today. It was absolutely an honor to meet you and congratulations on Transcendent.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Have a lovely day.
Listeners, you can get Transcendent by Laverne Cox right now on Audible.
