Introduced to a standing ovation and preceded by her high-heeled gait, the audience at Colorado State University saw all woman in Laverne Cox.
On Oct. 23, every seat in the Lory Student Center Grand Ballroom was filled as Cox took the stage that First Lady Michelle Obama had spoken on just hours before. Venturing not so far from the topic of the greater good, Cox relayed her personal story to the crowd in order to bring transgender and gender binary issues to the forefront of conversation.
“It took me a long time –many, many years—to be able to truly say to myself and believe that being trans is beautiful and that if someone can look at me and tell that I’m trans that’s a beautiful thing.”
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| Cox made history appearing on the cover of TIME. Courtesy of abcnews.com. |
As part of a national college campus tour, Cox spoke on the need for freedom of self-determination for American youth, especially for the LGBT community. To have self-governance as an identity that garners little to no recognition is pivotal in a life lived happily. Cox revealed that during her transition and periodically, she is estranged and deemed “the other” in environments when her identity triggers discomfort in those around her.
Drawing on several of her favorite advocates and sociologists, such as Brené Brown and Sojourner Truth, Cox offered to the audience that the human tendency to police one another is destructive. The same woman who is now idolized for living authentically, was once “spooked”—which is the term for a transgender individual who is publicly revealed to be in a state of gendered transition—in order for her hetero-normative peers to make sense of Cox’s situation.
No anecdote was off limits during the hour-long speech, as Cox regaled the crowd with childhood stories.
“She’s just very confident both on the show and in person and I think that’s an accurate representation of transgendered women,” said Aleya Jones, a student at Colorado State University. In addition to the star-quality that Cox has, Jones offered that many people in line for the event were hopeful to learn more about the identity of transgendered people.
“I think it’s important in life to go out there and experience the things we’re unsure about, so we live in a place with people who aren’t one-track minded,” said Jones.
Known for her role as Sophia Burset, an incarcerated transgendered female, in the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”, Cox has gained notoriety for her own identity as a transgendered female over the last year. In 2014, Cox has been the first openly transgendered female to both be nominated for an Emmy and to appear in Time magazine.
Since her breakout performance on Netflix, Cox has appeared in the public as an activist for the LGBT community. On October 17, MTV and Logo TV debuted a documentary hosted by Cox, called “The T Word”. Addressing topics from dating to anti-trans violence, the documentary was created to inform audiences much like Cox is doing for college campus audiences this fall.
“We have misconceptions about people who are different from us. If we just get to know them as people, I believe that al those misconceptions will melt away.”
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I just recently started the series "Orange is the New Black" and I really like it so far. I have not done any other readings or viewing on Cox so it was nice to read this, and I wish I could of seen her at Colorado State.
ReplyDeleteAlex, I think the outreach Cox is having as a transgendered female is unprecedented. The fact that you have watched the show and come into contact with transgendered life events via Cox's character of Orange is the New Black is a social advancement. I think it speaks novels that people filled the room for this actress and advocate at CSU and shared pieces of the transgendered issues that we typically would not come into contact with is our own identities do not intersect with trans ways of life or other trans people.
DeleteI dont have much idea about Fox before reading this post, but what you did in this post makes me find her interesting and impressive. However, I hardly find the term in the class you want to refer here.
ReplyDeleteAnnie, I'm glad you might have learned something new about Cox and her identities. I am glad to know that my exploration of her as a trans woman might not have read across right away. I will make edits to be more readable for those to come, so they too can learn about the marginalization of trans people and the work that Cox is doing to bring trans members of our society into the public's consideration.
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