974 Laverne Cox on Healing Trauma, Owning Your Truth, and Being Transgender in America

This is episode number 974 with the inspirational Laverne Cox. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. [Speech] I want to start today with two quotes from Maya Angelou. The first, you alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone. And secondly, nothing can dim the light that shines from within. Today's guest needs no introduction but I'll give her one anyways. Laverne Cox is a three-time Emmy Award nominated actress and Emmy winning producer. and the executive producer of the new Netflix documentary Disclosure, a film which explains how transgender people have been depicted in film and television over the past century. Laverne is a pioneering transgender activist with a staggering list of accomplishments and acknowledgments, including being the first openly transgender person to grace the COVID of Time magazine and the first to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category. Our conversation was so powerful and profound and at times painful, and I did not want it to end. We talked about Laverne's ongoing process of healing childhood trauma and what we can learn from her approach, why people wear masks all the time, and how essential it is to shed those masks, no matter how hard it is to do, how we are all destined for beautiful things, as long as we show up for them, and why the most important work in life is finding how to accept yourself. and own who you are. Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to share this conversation with you. And if you're finding value in Laverne's wisdom, make sure you share this with someone who needs to hear it. You have the power to change someone's life by sending them this message today. And a quick reminder, click that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. Whether you listen frequently or if this is your first time here, just click on that subscribe button right now so you can be notified every week of hearing great people like Laverne. And please leave us a rating in review if you're a fan and you haven't left one yet, we'd love to read those after every episode. And just one more thing before we dive in, we taped this interview before I got a chance to watch Disclosure, but I have to say that it's a truly incredible, impactful documentary, and please find the time to go watch it. All right, I'm so excited about this. Let's dive in with the one, the only, Laverne Cox. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm super excited about our guest today. Three-time Emmy nominated actress and Emmy award-winning producer Laverne Cox with a new documentary on Netflix, which is gonna blow you away called Disclosure. Welcome to the show. I'm super glad that you're here.

I'm so excited to finally be here. We've been talking about this for a minute.

Probably we connected I don't know, probably three years ago, I think when I wrote my book, the Mask of Masculinity, and I did the interview with Brené Brown somewhere around then, and we ended up having lunch together here in Los Angeles, having a great conversation about masculinity, about transgender statistics, about your life, about everything. And, I think it's the perfect time that we finally got to connect, at least over Zoom, and share a conversation with people. you've had such an incredible life and so much that you've overcome personally, so much you've had to overcome in an industry of entertainment, so much you've had to overcome with, I guess, really just understanding people, making assumptions about gender, about gender identity, about racism, about everything. Growing up in the South, I mean, there's just a lot that you've overcome and you've inspired so many people from. being on the COVID of Time magazine to being a hit star on TV shows and producer and all these things now. So I'm just grateful for the example you set on what's possible for human beings and what's possible for transgender individuals and how you continue to show up with love, with gratitude, with humility. And I think it's beautiful everything you're up to.

So that's so sweet, Louis. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Of course. And I love this. You actually have a a quote on your site that I want to find really quick that talks about, you seem like a personal development coach in my mind because of some of the things you say that you're so into, Brene Brown, and you said, if we can move from scarcity to abundance in our rhetoric and the ways we see ourselves and each other in the world, I think that we can live in this world together because there is enough to go around. I love the way just you think and I love the way that you just show up in the world. So Again, I can't sing your praises enough from our interaction together. I'm curious for people that are listening or watching who are ignorant to the transgender community. Are there any basic statistics? And I have some here that I've been researching. Are there any basic statistics that you would want all people to just know from a baseline that this is necessary for human beings to know about the transgender community?

Oh, gosh. I don't know if when I think about what's necessary for people to know, I don't know if I go to statistics. I think I probably would go to the lived experiences of trans people. I think to quote Renee Brown again, stories are data with the soul. So if we can, Renee Brown, if we can lean into people's lived experiences and people's humanity, I think that's what I want people to know about trans people because there's not just one way to be trans. There's not just one trans experience. And so you can't, meet a trans person and say, oh, I heard Laverne Cox on a podcast and this is what I should ask you and this is what your experience must be based on what she said. Everyone is different. Every individual is different and everyone experiences their gender in a different way. And I think that's a beautiful, awesome thing. Some people fit neatly into male and female and that's great. Some people are non-binary and so they don't like they like they/them pronouns. They feel both male and female or neither male nor female. And that's cool. And some people are like all of it's cool. I was talking to a dear friend of mine on Saturday who likes whatever gender pronoun you want to use, they're fine with all of them, because it's like whatever. And I think that is really a space of freedom if we can lean into that and not be afraid of that. Because if you just say it without any sort of, it's really not a big deal. So I think the thing I would want folks to know is that every trans person is different and that every person's experience, whether you're transgender or not, of your gender, It's probably different as well. And that is all good.

Yeah. And you talk, you know, you share the story with me and I know you shared it publicly that you, when you're 11, you try to commit suicide. And I'm curious, when did you start to feel comfortable in your own body? Do you remember was there like a moment where you said, I feel comfortable with who I am? Was there someone or something who was kind of Critical and you ultimately accepting yourself?

It's been incremental. If the truth is, it's a process and it's been a process over the years. And I think an acting teacher of mine, Brad Calcaterra, says that sort of getting to the core of who we are, sort of like seven layer bean dip, you feel comfortable with this one layer and you can sort of peel that back and there's another layer and there's another layer under that. And so it's a process. And so I'm getting there in a way I feel more comfortable in my own skin and with my body than I ever have before. But I think, and I don't like to talk about the specifics of my medical transition, but there was definitely a moment when I had a feminizing surgery, I'll say, that like I was like, oh, like yes. So yeah, so the point of that is that health care is really, really important access to health care for everyone, really, and Medicare for all. But also for trans folks, It's really, in my own experience, it has just been incredible. It's really been wonderful. And so there was a, that was a moment when I just like, I felt this shift and I just was like, oh my God, this is like, this is what it is, this is what it is.

Really.

And then within that, then there's always internal work that needs to be done, right? There's always work that, 'cause it's an inside job ultimately, but what, When the outside starts to match, it is definitely like, it's a relief. It's a, I think it's ultimately for me, my transition has been about, it's been such a spiritual journey that it's just, it's like a release. It's like a relaxation, like being able to medically transition for me, not all trans people want to medically transition. There's different definitions of that for every, I'm a person, but it's just like this, like it's a it's peace, it's pace, Italian pace, it just is peace, just like.

I like, okay, what one was this? I mean, how many years?

Oh, gosh, that particularly, I started my medical transition in 1998. I was 26 years old when I started the medical part of transition. I didn't have my first surgery until seven years after that because I couldn't afford it. Everything and except for my hormone replacement therapy, every aspect of my transition, I've actually paid for out of pocket, which is amazing. But that means when I was waiting tables and barely paying my rent in New York, that took a really long time to be able to sort of put money together. And I've been very lucky because some people are never able to put the money together, right? So yeah, ideally our healthcare should be covering some of this stuff, I think. But I'm very blessed that I've been able to. That's great.

That's great. Do you feel like, I hear you saying like the work is always happening, you're always diving into the inner work. Do you feel like, I'm a big fan of talking about healing trauma because I feel like it's a, you might heal it in a big moment of your life, but then triggers come up every couple of years that you realize, okay, I'm fully not healed. How do I keep doing the work? do you feel like you still have trauma you need to heal? And is this something that a lot of transgender friends of yours, you feel like is, is hard for them to overcome healing trauma?

I think it's hard for most of us to overcome healing trauma. And literally my, the, my therapeutic process, I'm in therapy tomorrow. With gift of quarantine and this whole sort of COVID thing, I went before quarantine, I was like, I would do therapy when I was in LA, I would see my therapist and I was, we were good about it, but, like, I have stretches of time where I'd be on the road and therapy for like a couple months. I've done therapy every week via video chat in quarantine and I'm so proud of that and it worked if you work it. That's true. And so the therapy that I do with somatic therapy and it's based in the community resiliency model which is all about resetting your nervous system. It's all about building trauma resilience. And so there's healing from trauma, then there's resilience to trauma. And the community resiliency model Community Resiliency Model has six components that, or six tools, basically skills, they call it skills. And folks go to, there's an app called iChill, iChill, that sort of outlines the six tools of the Community Resiliency Model. There, gesturing is one, with using a gesture, it's all about connecting to your body and sensing things through your body somatically. So gesturing is a physical thing. There's a help now is about sort of grounding yourself in a to a space, it could be a smell, it could be the touch of something, it could be sort of pushing against the wall, something that can get you back in your resilient zone. The idea is to stay in your resilient zone. There's a resilient zone, there's a low zone and a high zone, all based in the nervous system. You want to stay in that sort of resilient place. Resourcing is another tool. Resourcing is usually focusing on something that's mutual and pleasant in your life. It could be for me, often it's Leontyne Price's voice. She's an opera singer. Her voice singing or, you know, the last time I was in love What that sensation felt like when I was being held or cuddled or resources that can live in your body, in your nervous system that you can draw on, it's all there. You know, we just have to allow ourselves to lean into those resources. Shift and stay is crucial. Shift and stay is a tool where you basically, like, I might walk into a therapy session or go into a Zoom therapy session. And I'm like, oh, I'm feeling really anxious today. And Jennifer, my therapist, would be like, well, where in your body do you feel that most? And usually my anxiety, like, sort of exists in that pit of my my stomach. And she'll invite me to ask, well, where in your body does it feel neutral or positive? And oftentimes right now, it's like, often it's my ankles.

I was going to say my toe or something. Yeah.

So I'll like, she'll invite me to put my attention on my toe or my ankle. And sometimes I'm like, you know, twirling my ankle around now. And I'll put my attention there, and then we'll talk a little bit more. And then she'll ask me, how is the anxiety feeling now? Is it less? Is it And almost invariably every time it's lessened, it's still there, but there's something else that's true as well. So we're in the space that shifted states about both hands. It's about not getting rid of the anxiety altogether, but allowing the resilience is about what else is true. Trauma resilience is about what else is true and putting it in its proper place. Healing from trauma is really about not being overly defined by the trauma, but then not being in denial about it. acknowledging that the trauma happened, but that it's in its proper place in your timeline. I had a, when I bought this place, it's a condo, two years ago, when I went into escrow, I started having major panic attacks. Like, just, exactly, crazy panic attacks. And so I was in therapy just shaking and I was a mess. What was going on? And I couldn't even breathe. I couldn't see. It was crazy. I was, it was full on anxiety attack. And, What kept coming up for me is what kept coming, oh, God, it's so emotional still. But what kept coming up for me is I, it was the eviction notice I had gotten in 2012 in New York. I was living in decent rent in Manhattan, but like I was working in a restaurant and business was slow and I couldn't pay my rent and I had an eviction notice and I had to go to housing court to avoid getting evicted. It was the second eviction notice I had gotten in two years. And so I had so much shame about it. buying a place like brought up all the shame gremlin of who do you think you are? Who do you think you are buying this fancy condo fancy compared to like, you know, the 315 square foot apartment I had in New York that I could pay for? Who do you think you are buying this fancy, fancy condo in LA? You're gonna it up. You're gonna, you know, ruin everything and just that. But then it was a childhood incident underneath that as we started to explore in therapy and like get into this place of like, I mean, I really had to use the help now to even be able to hear Jennifer talk to me because I was in such like panic, anxiety, high zones, stress. And then it was a childhood incident that I still can't talk about publicly, probably never will. There's a deep, deep fear of becoming homeless that goes to a childhood abandonment thing. So we had to like sort of parse all that out, right? And that's ultimately a childhood trauma that like sort of replicated this trauma into my adulthood as I, you know, if that's triggered by me buying a condo. And the beautiful thing about after we were able to process it with Jennifer, process it in my body, do resourcing around it, do a lot of somatic work around to do some EDMR or whatever it's called around it.

EMDR is what it is. EMDR, yeah, yeah.

Whatever it's called.

Yes. I hear it's great, yes.

Doing work around it, just lightly, I haven't delved deep into that yet. The next week, she was like, I was on to something else, and she was like, we haven't talked about that. How is that feeling? And I said to her, I still have the sensations of it, but it doesn't feel like it's happening right now. And that's it, it feels like it's in the past. And that's the thing about trauma. The nervous system does not know if a trauma happened 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Once we are triggered, the nervous system feels like the trauma is happening right now. And so the thing of healing from trauma, creating resilience around trauma is putting the trauma within the right timeline of our lives. And that is very delicate work that has to be done with a professional girl. I call her a girl. I call her a professional.

I'm not offended.

Girl is a new dude. Yeah, it's very delicate work that has to be done with a professional. But it is so, it's so beautiful to be able to be in this space of resilience around these things. Yes, these, yes, a lot of, I've had a lot of unfortunate things happen to me, but I don't need to be defined by those things. I'm not in denial of them, but they don't define me.

I love that. Yeah. Not being in denial of what happened in the past. I think I, when I sat with you and talked about when I was sexually abused when I was five, I didn't, I, didn't deny it, but I didn't talk about it and I was shameful of it and I was embarrassed by it and I held on to this pain. And when I would get triggered enough times, I would release that pain and anger on onto reacting to people screaming, getting in fistfights in the basketball court to, you know, putting in my aggression out in sports. And when sports was over and I no longer had a three-hour window of legally being able to hit people with a helmet, helmet to helmet was like, what do I do now when I'm triggered? And, I think when we talked and sat, you know, I talked about how I had like a seven, eight year journey after sports was done of putting that into business and into work and into everything else and still not being fulfilled until I finally started to release and talk about being sexually abused which put me down the rabbit hole of Brene Brown and vulnerability and and really the pain that men are experiencing and then causing pain on other people in the world are using pain with their.

Power to hurt people, hurt people.

Exactly. And I think that's one of the reasons why we connected and why I think we wanted to talk now is how do you think in your perspective from your experiences, why do you think men cause a lot of the pain on transgender women and on human beings in general. Why do you think that is?

It's bigger than the trans community. I think hurt people hurt people. But I also think there's, I mean, I think there's the sort of neurobiological sort of take on things, the, you know, the five flight or freeze piece. But I think what are men taught in a turn and what do they internalize around masculinity, around what it means to be a real man, around, power and exerting power in the world and over other people. Like, I think we as a culture have to, in a way, take responsibility. You know, it's weird because, like, I, you know, we don't want to blame mothers, but, like, what are. Or. Or fathers or parents in general. But what are we teaching our children? And particularly, what are we teaching the men that we're raising about masculinity? and what that means. And I think there needs to be a critique. I mean, so there's a theoretical thing around masculinity and patriarchy and, you know, everybody, when I say patriarchy, I mean institutional sexism. And I think there needs to be a critique of patriarchy. I think that there needs to be an awareness of male domination and the pain that that can reach, particularly when I think about domestic violence, when I think about my grandfather was so, abusive to my grandmother, to his children, insanely abusive. But I understand that now in the context of he was raised on a plantation and he was beaten to work and that's what he grew up with. And so then that kind of brutality is passed along, passed down from generation to generation if we don't stop those cycles. So there's that piece of it too. So there's a lot of elements of it, but I think at the core of it is the piece of vulnerability, internalized homophobia, and internalized transphobia. Because I think so much of what is underneath so much patriarchy is an underlying misogyny that I don't want to be seen as soft or like a woman, or I don't want to seem gay. And I think that is a lot of the reasons why men who are killing trans women are killing us. It's because they don't want people to think they're gay. I think I can't always think about the story of a trans woman. I think it was 2014, her name was Mercedes Williamson. She was about, I think she was like a 19, 17, 18 year old trans woman in Mississippi. She was dating a guy, I forget his name, but it doesn't matter. And he was a member of a gang called the Latin Kings. And they dated for a while, like her friends knew, there's a BBC documentary about it actually. And he eventually, they broke up and then he eventually murdered Mercedes. And apparently so his gang members wouldn't find out that he had been dating her.

Wow.

And now, at one point, he confessed to having knowingly dated her, knowing that she was trans, right? There's a big sort of myth that trans women are out tricking men, and that's why we get murdered. That's ridiculous. In 2020, there are so many men seeking out trans women. There's no need. My dance card is full. It's beautiful. But the sad thing is now he denies that he knew that she was trans. But then earlier counts, you know, he, whatever. But we know his friends of hers say that he definitely knew that she was trans and that he murdered her because he didn't want his colleague to find out. And so when I think about that, I think obviously gang culture is its own specific thing, right? In terms of masculinity, in terms of whatever.

Who cares?

Who cares? And I had two ex-boyfriends ago, what crystallized for me, he was Canadian and we dated for three and a half years. He was a lovely man. And when he was in high school in Vancouver, there were rumors about him being gay that went around. And he sort of fanned the flames of that. He thought it was really funny that people thought he was gay. And so when we started dating, he didn't care. Like he knew that he wasn't gay. He knew that I'm a woman and he's a man and that that is not gay. And he was very comfortable with himself. So it didn't matter and it just crystallized to me so much that a man who dates me has to be so comfortable with himself that he doesn't care if people think he's gay. And then I realized that that is the issue that like all the men who are attracted to trans women and there are many who are who don't want anyone to know about it are afraid that people are gonna think they're gay.

Why do those men hold that shame of not wanting other people to know or make fun of them or whatever the shame is?

I think it's internalized homophobia but I think sometimes it's internalized, they don't want people to think they're gay usually people, because people disavow the womanhood of trans women, so then they assume our partners must be gay because they don't accept me as a woman. And so the man has to be comfortable with that. But then I think there's also the piece of even if he's comfortable with that, the potential loss of social privilege and power. I think so many of them, even if they're comfortable, it's one guy that I dated years ago, when we started dating, he said he was cool, and then he got really weird. And I found out years later Even though there were different situations, he was in insurance and he was in risk management. There was a guy in his firm, people found out he was gay and he was ostracized, he was made fun of and harassed so badly that he ended up quitting. And he saw that, he saw that while he started to date me and that freaked him out. It freaked him out to such an extent that he needed to distance himself. So the ways in which our culture may punish, oh, the old boy network too. I mean, living in New York and dating all the Wall Street guys I dated, the old boy network is still It's still real, it's still a thing. And like having the potential for career advancement being stifled, all the men in the entertainment industry, right, who are, who I know and the girl trans women know, are secretly dating trans women, right? They're hiring trans sex workers. And the men hire sex workers for all sorts of reasons. And we know they're sleeping with trans women on the DL. Like a lot of men in show business, right? We know in the industry, we know, I know them. All those men who I know are attracted to trans women, they might not be attracted to me, that's fine. But it's just amazing to me that men in my industry never approach me. Like high profile men never approach me. High profile men that I know are into trans women as a rather high profile trans woman. And so much of it- why is that? I think part of it is about being internalized homophobia and people, them not wanting people to think they're gay. But I think it's also just about loss of power, also about loss of status and privilege. And like, 'cause what does it mean if you are, particularly if you are a white straight white man and like the world is your oyster. And I know there are difficulties the straight white men have. We can talk about some of those and it's not all, you know, but the world is your oyster presumably. And then all of a sudden you find that you're attracted to a woman who's transgender and all of the baggage that comes with that from society if you haven't done your work on yourself. Or you could lose, I don't know if you're leading man or if you're a rapper or, and you have all these women fans that you might lose if they find out that you're, you know, having sex with Laverne Cox or some other trans woman. So I think a lot of it's about the loss of privilege and power, too. And people, and unfortunately, people kill for that as well. Unfortunately, people want power and privilege so badly that they're willing to kill for it.

It's crazy. What is the, I mean, this is something that, I grew up with in the fact of, I'll speak from my experience because I don't want to put this as all like young boys growing up, whatever.

All we can do is speak from my own experience. I'm theorizing over here.

Exactly. And my experience from certain memories in elementary school, middle school and high school specifically when it was transitioning, let's say, there's never like a moment you become a man except for like rituals that maybe like boy groups do with each other, you know?

For example, like what?

I don't know. Like did you have sex? Did you, you know, can you drive a car? Can you drink alcohol? It's like that those kind of moments that might be okay, now you're a man because now you smoked a cigarette, now you got drunk. Now you, which I've never been drunk or high in my life. But I remember just like these moments, right? where it's like, oh, you're not a man unless you do this, this kind of feeling. And I remember I was a very sensitive kid and I cried a lot to my mom and, you know, in the middle of the night and was always very scared and just sensitive. My sisters would always call me the sensitive jock because I would go out and destroy people on the football field, but then I would go, you know, play guitar and sing lullabies or something, right? I was I had this emotional side to me. And I remember just being like a very affectionate human being. Like I would want to put my arm around my teammates and just give them a hug. And I remember vividly so many teammates shoving me away with like this anger in their eyes and their face being like, don't be gay, don't be a little girl, don't be X, Y, and Z.

Where do you think that came from for them? When did that become a thing that like my teammate, I gotta put, what do you think?

I think you're talking about it in the sense that, we all need to take responsibility from whether it's their fathers, their mothers saying, you know, little boys don't cry, whatever it is, the words they heard from their parents or that they saw from their family members or the media of everything. The media, yeah. Which what, you know, your documentary talks about a lot of the depiction of or the perception of transgender people over time in, in TV and film. And I think it's just these These social norms, like you said, a hundred years ago when someone was being beaten a certain way and then they did that in their relationship and then their kids saw it. I think it's just these social norms we see over time, which is why it's, in my opinion, powerful that so many people are awakening during this time to what has happened.

And it's uncomfortable, I think it's, but it's also very uncomfortable to come into this space of, oh my, I didn't know, I didn't know this, I didn't realize what I was doing was hurting someone, I didn't realize what I was doing was hurting myself. myself.

Yeah.

And the pain of that and sitting with the discomfort of that without numbing it, without numbing it. Right. Without going to our phone, without drinking or doing a drug or beating somebody up, like, to really sit with discomfort is so. And I think now I feel like the, the world is changing. It's becoming more spiritual. It's becoming more that we can, we need to be able to sit with the discomfort of what, of everything that we've done to ourselves and each other if we want to be able to change it. And it's so, man, that's hard. It's very hard. It's very hard. But I think that what's on the other side is so glorious. What is it? Because are you really free? Are you really free? If you have a longing to be with a certain kind of woman and you don't want to, you won't be with her because of what someone else is going to think about you. Is that freedom? That's not freedom.

It's not freedom, but it's social suicide in other ways, which is a different type of prison for certain people.

It's about change. Some people aren't able to change those circumstances. But sometimes, we can change our circle. Sometimes I think like, you know, oh God, here I go with the Brené Brown again. But Brené Brown says that true belonging, you don't have true belonging, the opposite of true belonging is fitting in. Then when you try to fit in, you shape shift, you do everything you can so that other people can accept you, but that's not authenticity. True belonging is when you show up and allow yourself to be seen and you, and people like may be into that. Yeah. May not be, but it's one of.

The scariest things to do though.

But you get to belong to yourself. I know. And it's lonelier, because it's definitely lonelier, because I, you know, I don't have like all this big social circle. And I like my alone time, too.

Yeah, yeah.

To be honest. But it's way more beautiful to be able to be in the truth of who you are than the shapeshift. Because I've done the shapeshift, trust and believe, I've done the shapeshift. And I just feel yucky afterwards. Well, here's the thing. I feel like, why did I do that? And why do I even want these people in my life?

I'm shapeshifting for people who are obnoxious. Yeah, exactly. This is one of the reasons why, you know, when I started to really start the process of healing, start the process of sharing my shame to my family, then friends, then I started opening up publicly and sharing more about sexual abuse and trauma and things like that. I put, I realized that I was putting on masks. You know, we, we shapeshift or we put, I call it the mask of masculinity, which is what men's true essence is not having this dominance in this power and projecting something that's not their true essence. As human beings, whether you're a man, woman, transgender, you're non-binary whatever human being, it's not to put on a mask, it's to step into who you truly are. The challenge is, and I can't speak to the challenge from what you went through, but as a transgender individual, if you say to your parents who have a very traditional outlook on life, I'm, you know, the opposite sex, or this is who I really am, and you say that at 9, 10, 11, and they say, no, or they send you away, or they make you wrong and bad. You have to almost try to fit in to survive, right?

Until you can be free, yeah. I mean, I think that is the sad thing about my childhood for a while. I was never really good at fitting in. And ultimately, eventually, my mother just kind of let me be in terms of just dress. I became, when I started dressing myself in middle school, it wasn't so gender non-conforming. When I went to high school, then I really started wearing women's and girls clothes. I didn't identify as trans, but we.

Would probably use the language of non-binary or gender non-conforming. women's clothes in high school.

Correct. Like, not dresses.

In Alabama.

In Alabama. I went to the School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, which is four hours north of my hometown. And I started going to the Salvation Army in Goodwill. And so I started wearing culottes and wide leg bell bottoms. And I started shopping in the girls department of thrift stores. And yeah, that's what I did. And I started wearing makeup in high school, but I also had a shaved head. So I wore makeup and I, you know, lashes and I started wearing my eyebrows.

Now in the, I guess you went to, you say a fine arts. Yeah, an art school.

Fine arts.

So is this school more accepting since it was a fine arts school? Was it a lot of, Yes and no. Shaming still?

A lot of my freshman and sophomore year, lots of shame. A lot of shaming, a lot. I think part of it is that I was an underclass person. But I think, because that's just kind of how we've been. Underclassmen are just bullied in general, yes. Exactly. But I also think that it was that I people still, even in art school, it was a lot for people at least at the time, at least in Alabama. And I think some of it, and I look back and I think a lot of it had to do with race as well. There weren't a lot of Black kids, at least in the dorms, at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. So a lot, some of it was race. I think it was race. I think it was, I was there on scholarship. So I think it was race, it was class, it was me being me. And so I think with a lot of things, which is really deep. when I, when I think, look back on it, and I definitely internalized a lot of shame around class, around race, and my gender expression. I was at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

That's interesting. We have something in common there. I went to a boarding school in.

High school as well, so.

Oh, yeah. Which one? I went to a, like a Christian. I went to a school for a religion that I grew up in for Christian scientists. It's just the, I have to always preference. It's the opposite of Scientology. Okay. But it's a, it's It's a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri for students of this religion, Christian Science. And so I went to this boarding school. I lived in a boy's dorm with a hundred other kids and there was a girls dorm across campus. It was always trying to like sneak out and, you know, get into the window of a girl and say hi or whatever. It was like that whole thing, but strict and everything. But I wanted to bring back and I something, because you talked about I think it was really important, which is why do kind of the younger male generation say, Don't be gay. Don't be a girl. Don't be, you know, not show who they truly are, which was me. I wanted to be affectionate with my guy friends. I'm a straight guy. I never wanted to kiss a man, but I wanted to like just put my arm around a buddy and just say like, Hey man, I love you as a human being. And I didn't feel like I could ever say that or ever show just like normal non-sexual Affection, which is what I would call it, I guess.

Just like... You do that now?

Do you have people in your life where you can do that? I only hang out with people that I can do that with because I have that ability now. And I also, I want to make sure I get it right, but I think it was the show 13 Reasons why. Is that what it was on Netflix? Yeah. Where there was the man...

I have 13th Scene, but tell me.

Oh, well, I don't want to ruin it for you, but there was a, you know, there was a high school athlete, football player, who is bullying and gay people, right? And making fun of gay people. And we later find out that he's actually gay. But he's actually the one bullying them, beating them up in the halls and kind of projecting this masculinity. And I think a lot of, and you're asking me like, why do people do that in high school? And I think some people are afraid of being bullied themselves for those affections, right?

And so they deflect. Unfortunately, a lot of the bullying I experienced, when I, around between 10 and, like, 14 was. It was sexualized. I don't know.

Really?

I don't know if it was because the guys were gay or if it just was, like, a way to humiliate me or. I. I don't know. But it was. It was bad. It was. Yeah, it was bad. And so, yeah, so I don't know what the mind of. It'd be great to, you know, talk to someone, you know, who's gone through that journey of. of being shameful. And I have talked to a few of my guy friends over the years who had shame around being into trans women and sort of come out on the other side. And so much of that was, in acting, and Susan Batson, my acting mentor, has this theory around human behavior. When we create characters, we have to, it's about understanding human behavior. And she says that a character's tragic flaw is when there's tension between the public persona and the unfulfilled need. And the unfulfilled need is, everyone has that we've developed around the age of five years old. And often we act as human beings in opposition to what we really need. And so that tension often expresses itself in addictive behavior and potentially bullying or character deflection or tragic flaws. And I was just thinking about like that tension between the unfulfilled need and the public persona, like that is the space of like not allowing ourselves to be fully authentic, not allowing ourselves to be It's a tragic flaw if you can't be in the truth of who you are. Right. And it's a constant tension unless you accept yourself.

Did you feel like you were truly accepting yourself and who you fully were? Were you being that in your 20s and 30s while in kind of New York City, you know, working?

I was trying. I was trying. I think because I was an artist, I was been on this journey as an artist. I think a lot of this is about being an artist, my sort of personal growth stuff. I think I was trying, I was doing my best, but I think I had so much trauma and so I built up so many defenses, so many sort of, so much armor to shield myself from vulnerability. And so it was, I was doing the best I could, but I needed to, I need to meet the right therapist, I need the right recovery program, I need the right things to other tools to lean into because when I, I think surviving my childhood, this childhood, I was severely bullied, deeply traumatized, didn't feel loved or wanted or like I fit in or anywhere. And I just, and I got through it, but I got through it with all of these defenses in place. I had to, the only way to survive it was I had to like build up this elaborate defense. And so in my 20s and 30s, you know, this work really started for me, I think 10 years ago, is when I really kind of was like, okay, Let's look at what's really going on. And so I think that what I know about my 20s and 30s is that I was doing the best I could to survive. And that that, when you know better, you do better. And so I don't have any regrets about any of that. I'm like, these are the things I needed to do. There were no tools. I didn't know how to meditate. I didn't have community resiliency model. I didn't have Renee Brown's, like, you know, shame resilience work. There was no There's none of that. I had my cover, I had my elaborate cover and my armor and my mask. And that's what I wore until I could get it.

Isn't it interesting when I started to, I had a lot of, I guess let's call it business success in my late 20s wearing masks, but I felt deeply unfulfilled, deeply disconnected from other people. felt a lack of purpose, to be honest. I was like making all this money and I overcame this adversity and accomplished things, but I was like, why am I still unhappy? And it wasn't until literally the moment I shared being sexually abused for the first time in my life, 25 years holding in that secret, that's when things started to shift. It took time and seven years later of opening up, it's still a work in progress of healing and not being triggered and all these things, but it was like, wow, I just launched this podcast and a whole new brand and everything started to expand in my life. Opportunities became more effortless and abundance, which I know you talk about being more abundant mindset as opposed to scarcity. And it sounds like to me, as you started to step into who you fully are and becoming more authentic of owning yourself and believing in who you are and not wearing these armors, it sounds like that's when you got orange as the new black shortly after that, a couple of years, and everything started to unfold.

But even before that, the difference between you and me, there's a lot of differences, I would suggest, is that when you're an artist, you actually, I don't think it works to be an artist, particularly an actor, not being authentic.

You have to be vulnerable.

You actually have to be vulnerable. You have to be authentic when you're an artist. But my life definitely changed in 2007 when a woman named Candace Kane became the first openly transgender actor to have a recurring role in a primetime television show. so-called Dirty Sexy Money. And at that moment, I believed it was possible to be openly transgender and to be an actor. Up until then, I was-- people knew that I was trans, but I wasn't really disclosing. And I was trying to have a career as an actor without disclosing my transness. When I started owning my transness, everything changed in my career. Everything changed in my life. And then taking it to the next level with my work with Brad Calcaterra. And he started this ACT OUT class 10 years ago. He calls it ACT OUT for LGBTQ actors. where we got to deal with all the specific blocks that we created in our instruments around being LGBTQI. And that's when I really started to not just own my transness externally, but to own the trauma. It was another layer of healing the trauma and the shame of my childhood and of my young adulthood that was necessary for me to be able to step into the purpose, the reason that I'm here, that Orange is the New Black opened up for me.

Yeah. Where do you think you'd be today if you didn't start owning it and fully accepting and fully being vulnerable, I guess, 10, 11, 12 years ago? Where do you think you'd be now if you didn't do that?

I don't know if I'd be alive. Wow. I honestly don't know if I'd even be here or if I were here, I'd be I'd be deeply unhappy, lost. It's a scary thought, honestly. I mean, it scares me because it feels like, I think I was in such a place where I would have sabotaged. If anything good came, I would have found a way to sabotage it. And so, I mean, it's kind of a miracle that I haven't like that, that I haven't like all the lovely, amazing things that have come in my life, I haven't sabotaged them. Because I think that I didn't, I don't think I thought I deserved it. I don't think I thought that I was worthy.

Really?

Oh my God, yeah. Oh my God, yeah. I did not think that I deserved nice things because the whole world told me I didn't deserve nice things.

Wow.

And nice things, love. I mean, the love piece too is so deep when you feel like you are, I mean, shame. Brené Brown defines shame as the intensely painful belief that one has about themselves that they're unworthy of connection and belonging. She says, Guilt is, I'm sorry I made a mistake and shame is, I'm sorry, I am a mistake. Deep sense, this deep feeling of unworthiness on a deep core level. Yeah, I was there. And I, and, and Lewis, I'm not there today. I feel a deep, I really, and this is a beautiful thing about quarantine, too. I spent so much time in the beginning, particularly really delving deep spiritually and meditating and journaling and trying to get clear about what, what, what my, what lessons I'm supposed to learn from this. And I, I do, I do feel worthy of love. I do feel worthy of belonging, you know? And that is a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing. I mean, I don't have a romantic partner in my life at the moment, which is actually good. It's actually really good, honestly. But I do feel worthy. And so then what are the challenges? And I've been thinking a lot about that. And a lot of it's just about health and like the life that I want for myself going forward, you know, when you've achieved goals and you achieve things that you want to achieve. It's like what's next, you know? And it's not about, you know, I certainly want to make more money and I certainly want to, you know, there's material things. It's not even material. It's things that, like, I want to own more property and I want, you know, things like that. But it's like, how do I want this next part of my life to, how do I want to be in the world and what do I want to contribute and how do I want to step up more and be more present? And a lot of it has to do with my having my health really fully and securely in place so that I can step into this beautiful life we're developing, do new projects, and I have wonderful things on the horizon, but I have to be able to fully show up for them. And I think the lesson now for everybody, everybody out there, is that there are beautiful things on the horizon for everybody, but you have to be able to show up for it. It's waiting there. I really believe that everybody's here for a reason, and that it is waiting for us. But we have to be able to align with that energy because it's all energy. We have to be able to align with the energy and the reason. And I think too, my life shifted when I started owning my transness, but it also was when I started understanding there was something bigger than me. A year after Candace Cayne was on Dirty Sexy Money, I made these postcards that said, Laverne Cox is the answer to all your transgender acting needs. And I sent it to- I sent the postcard to 500 agents.

True marketer. I love it.

Right? I got the idea from this dude I'd done a movie years earlier, this dude who was French, and he had been in New York for 25 years, but he kept his French accent. All of his work was doing like French voiceover French, he was playing a French dude in the movie we were doing together. He did a lot of voiceover where he had the French accent, and he said, I forgot his name, but he said, your French connection, he's the answer to all your French acting needs. I totally stole that from him. So I marketed myself as a trans actor, I never would have done that before Candace Kane. But then that led to me doing this reality show called I Wanna Work for Diddy in 2008. And the only reason I did it was because, well, the day before my final interview for I Wanna Work for Diddy, I was walking in my neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, and I was harassed by a group of black guys on the street, which is part of my daily life, right?

I got harassed pretty much every day. And harassed by mean like bullying or.

More like sexually harassing? Well, it often would start with being catcalled where the guys would be like, Hey, mama, you looking sexy today. And then one of the guys will realize I'm trans and say, oh, that's a man and misgender me. And then that was, I mean, that was just my life. That was like, I armored up for that living in New York. But this particular day, one of the guys kicked me. And so that was like, you know, I called the police. There was a police report, whatever. They didn't find the guys. I like went into this nearby store called the police terrified. By the time the police got there, the guys that were there, filed the report. And then the next day was my final interview for I Want to Work for Diddy. And I thought how powerful it could potentially be to have this hip-hop mogul, P. Diddy, sort of embrace me on this, his reality, should it possibly be his assistant. And maybe that could make some sort of change or inroads in the Black community that was mostly harassing me. And I don't think Black folks are more transphobic than anyone else, but I think we harass people that we see, like, your crime, you know, black and black crime is this myth, basically, because white people, like, commit crimes against other white people because they're in proximity with them and black people are in proximity with other black people. And so the crimes happen there. So that, but, but the I Want to Work for Diddy moment was me choosing to do something that was bigger than me. Doing a reality show at the time, my brother didn't think I should do it.

My friends were like, they're gonna, because you were an artist.

You're an artist. You're an actor. You're not an artist. I'm an actor, but also in 2008, everything, this is 2008, everything about trans people for the most part, except Candace Kane on Dirty Sexy Money was exploitative. It was like spectacle. It was like, let's humiliate the trans person. And everyone thought that that's what they were gonna do to me on that show. And I remember saying in my final interview to the executives, I'm like, I don't wanna be exploited. I don't want this to be, you know, a spectacle. I'm doing this because I want to make a statement and to generate some kind of acceptance. And I was assured by the producers that that's not what they wanted to do, that's not what Diddy wanted to do. And it turned out really well, but the lesson, long story short, from the lesson from that is to be of service. The lesson from that is that when I was of service, that ended up going pretty well. I ended up getting my own show out of it. That show wasn't a success. I needed to stop doing reality TV wasn't my thing. But the lesson was to be of service. And then so owning my transness and then being of service were the two things that really shifted everything in my life. And the shift felt like all of a sudden the alignment happened, right? Because we're, everybody, I think, in their lives, if you are lucky, you're gonna, something, a shift is gonna happen and you're gonna feel in alignment with an energy that's bigger than you. and that it's going to be tied to purpose. It's going to be tied to the reason you're here. And that is a beautiful thing. And I think that is the thing. I really believe that's waiting for everybody. I really do. And everybody's not meant to sort of, you know, be on television and produce shows or whatever. We're all here for something different. But I think when we can align and with that energy, and sometimes it takes a minute, I mean, honestly, like, the orange. Orange is new black didn't happen to labs. 40 years old. And I was about crazy. Yeah, I was about to give up acting, actually, because that was the year I got the eviction notice, and I was in student loan debt and credit card debt, and I was like, okay, girl.

You are 40. Who are you?

If this acting thing isn't for you and your family. You're trans.

Yeah.

I mean, at the time, they had never been a trans person with a major acting career in the United States. So I'm like, okay, girl, you're delusional. You gave it a good shot.

I mean, you're 40.

You got 20 years of this. Yeah. You tried, girl. Let's get it together. So I bought GRE study materials. I was looking into grad schools. I was gonna go to grad school and like I was thinking journalism, women's studies. I was like, I don't know what. I hadn't figured it out yet. But I was trying to figure out grad school and then the Orange Audition happened. I didn't go to grad school. But the fun thing about that though is that literally four years after I booked Orange is the New Black, thought I was gonna go to grad school but didn't, I got an honorary doctorate from the new school.

That's great.

So, you know, grad school was just acting stardom.

That's amazing. It's amazing what you've accomplished. And I'm curious what, I've got a few final questions for you. I want to, I could talk to you for hours, but this is, what advice would you, because I have, I think I mentioned to you a few years ago that I have a family member who I love deeply who is gender non-conforming and they are going through, and have been going through a challenging time in the last couple years, just finished up college. And I'm just curious, your advice to your younger self who maybe was confused or struggling, feeling unsure of yourself, to people who are afraid to come out as gay, bisexual, people who are afraid to step into being trans, you know, fully publicly, all these different things that people have shame around.

Mm-.

What advice would you give to those individuals today?

Oh, the truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. And I think that like, it can feel isolating and alone. And I think the beautiful thing about 2020 is that we can go online. It's not the same as having that friend in real life, but online there's support groups that you're not alone. And I think one can feel alone when you're going through that. Even in 2020, you can feel alone. You're not. There's support groups online. There's a local LGBTQ center in most cities, most major cities in the United States anyway, that you can go and find a community. You can go and find somebody who is like you or who can support you and accept you. If you can't find somebody who's like you, 'cause everybody's different, you can find somebody who will see you and love you. And until you do that, you can start knowing for sure there's a light inside you. Wherever I go, I try to remind trans people that we are anointed, that in indigenous cultures all over the world, there were sacred traditions of third genders, fourth genders, where we were revered members of the culture. In India, we were called Hijra, Native American cultures here in the United States, Two Spirits in the Philippines, all over the world, indigenous cultures all over the world. Trans people, what we would understand is trans people held a sacred place. In India, you would not get married without the blessing of a Bhadra or you wouldn't have your baby christened without the blessing of a Bhadra. So we are sacred, we are anointed, and we just must step into that. We just must step into that and know this inside. I think through all the years of confusion and messiness that I had, There was something in me that was like, I knew I was here for something bigger than all of that. And there is a light in there that we all have. And the work is to turn up the light. The work is to not let it be dimmed by anything, but actually to turn up the brightness on the light and shine, shine, shine. That is the thing. And as you shine that light, some people will be blinded by it. Some people cannot take the light. They can't. And that's fine. But you'll attract the people who can. And I think that's a deep thing too, and I have to remind myself of that is I'm single and dating and just, you know, I'm Laverne Cox and it's like very challenging dating. But I know, I'm sitting here knowing how fabulous I am. You know, I know how fabulous I am, I know how sexy I am, I know all the things I have to offer. I can say that with such certainty now. and so what I know is that everybody can't take the light. And honey, if you can't take this light, then you're not right. You're not right.

That should be on your website. If you can't take the light, you're not right.

But no, but then, but, but when, but, but, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna change the light. I'm gonna dim, I'm not gonna dim my light. I'm not going to try to put on a mask to be somebody else. We're just good if the We're going to attract the right energy energetically.

And I think people need to know, not to cut, sorry to cut you off there, but to add to that, I think people need to know that sometimes when you step into your light and you turn it on, you turn on who you are, you're going to, some people are going to flock to you and you're going to burn a lot of people. They're going to want to get away from you, right? Some people can't take that.

Because they're not in their light. And that's what makes me so sad. I mean, I've been meeting men and I've And it's, I think what's made me really sad about what's going on with a lot of, as I date or whatever, is that they, they're not in their light. They're not in their, they're brilliant. And so then it's like, they can't receive it. And it's, that's sad for them.

Yeah.

Not sad for me.

Exactly. But I think, I think the, you need, people need to be aware that when you step into that light and who you are, it might be free, it'll go freeing, but then you might lose a lot of people around you.

You. Yeah.

Because the people you were performing for and wearing a mask for and having an armor for liked you for that. They don't like you for who you truly are. And you're gonna lose friends, potentially family members at certain times. Hopefully they come back around, but you've got to be prepared. And that's what I think is scary for a lot of people, that social pressure of losing friendships, family members. Yeah. And that pain, that pain is necessary to become a butterfly. You're about to die before you can fly.

The quest for true belonging is being willing to go it alone. And Brené Brown, Brave in the Wilderness, honey. She starts off Brave in the Wilderness with the Maya Angelou quote, I belong everywhere and no place, everywhere and no place, no place at all. Something like that, basically. But the Maya Angelou quote is basically about belonging everywhere and no place, but I belong to myself. Ooh, that's amazing. That's amazing. And when you can truly belong to yourself, you can stand alone. It's okay to be in the truth and the courage of your convictions. because you belong to yourself. We all need belonging as human beings. But that's scary. Everybody's not super smart for that.

Because if we don't truly believe in ourselves, we need the approval of other people to believe in us. And when we fully believe in ourselves and accept who we are and lean into that, we may lose the approval of everyone around us and we need to be ready to stand alone like that until you can attract the right people, which might take time.

Yeah.

And this is a sermon right here. I love this.

Isn't that beautiful though? I mean, the last thing I'll say is that isn't it beautiful though to let go of the things that don't serve us? I think it's beautiful when those people drop out of our lives. It's really beautiful. It's dead weight. It's keeping me from flying.

Purge it. Purge what you don't need. I'm excited to watch your new documentary. It just came out. disclosure on Netflix. And everyone now has Netflix, so go watch it tonight. And when you're watching it after you listen to this interview, go, you know, tag Laverne on her social media while you're watching it and share with her what you're learning about it.

Please.

Yes. But examines how transgender people have been depicted on TV movies for the past century. Why did you want to do this? And why do you think people need to watch it now? at this moment?

I think the best way to understand, one of the best ways to understand our present is to really have a sense of the past, to have a sense of how we got here. And we have now an unprecedented, you know, visibility of trans folks in the media, and how did we get here? And the film looks at how the media has represented trans folks and how that affects how people treat us, and then how we treat ourselves. GLAAD did a study a few years back that determined that 80% of Americans say they don't personally know someone who's trans. so most of what Americans learn about trans people comes from the media. And so many of those representations have been really harmful and have kept trans people in really unfortunate places. What's been so beautiful about getting the reactions from people with this doc is that there are so many films that they loved, like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, or the Crying Game, or Silence of the Lambs. They didn't know that these things were problematic, and now they're understanding that they are. And this isn't about canceling our old films. This isn't like, a, you know, censorship thing. It's about an understanding. It's about shifting hearts and minds so that we can ultimately get closer to each other and get closer to ourselves. Yeah.

Ace Ventura, that was right. It was Finkle is Einhorn. Einhorn is Finkle, right? Was that the whole part you're talking about?

Wow. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

I'm excited to watch this. Zeke, one of the subjects everyone interviewed in the film is transgender and most of the crew behind the scenes He's also trans. Zeke, one of the folks we interview, he said, one of my favorite childhood film ends with the sight of a trans person making everyone vomit. And that's just a fact. That's just like, that's not a critical analysis. That's just his favorite film as a child ends with the sight of a trans person making people vomit. Wow.

So what do you want people to really learn about when they watch? What do you want them to be mindful of and aware of?

What's been so impactful for people is seeing the repetition of the same stories over and over again, the repetition of trope, and folks don't know the extent to which the media, 'cause the media doesn't just reflect what's going on, it can shape what's going on. It can shape how people see and think about trans folks. And for over 100 years, the media has shaped how Americans think about trans people. And so then once we can understand what that media has done, we can make different media, and then we can make different choices now that we have this critical intervention about how we're gonna treat the trans people. So it's people that we come in contact with in our regular lives, right? So that like we can understand, oh, this is like borderline or even propaganda about trans people, but I can make a different choice. So it's really about raising consciousness so that we can make different choices, which is what your podcast is about, right? Raising consciousness so people can make different choices.

That's it. Is there any question you wish people would ask you that they don't ask.

People have asked me, I almost missed everything. That is a good question. I don't know. I mean, I'm in such a place now of gratitude and of joy that I get to even come and have a voice. It's so empowering to just come and talk about and share my experience and what I've learned that I'm just grateful for that. So it's really, ultimately not about me. Laverne is doing, is doing a pretty good place right now.

Thank God.

But it's really about all the other trans folks out there struggling for access to employment and to housing and to health care, who are being harassed on the streets, who are being arrested in school, 78% of trans kids are bullied or harassed in school, 78%. There's about all of them. And so I, I, what I want everyone to be able to do, and it's not even just for trans folks, is to be able to be in a space where everybody's human. Even if we politically disagree, right? It's even not even about black and white anymore. It's as much as it's about Republican or Democrat in this world now. And it's how can we be in a space where everybody's human? We're like, okay, we disagree on this, but you're still human and I'm gonna figure out a way to love you and have empathy for you. That's what I want folks to be able to do across the board, not just for trans people, but for everybody. We're all human beings. And how do we proceed from a place of love. One of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Cornell West. He says that justice is what love looks like in public. Justice is what love looks like in public. And I mean, can you just imagine that? Like when my imagination goes to what is justice, what does love in public look like? When I think about public policy, when I think about legislation, when I think about how we treat each other, and I think that we can't even get to that place often because of the fight, flight or freeze because of our own trauma. Here we are, trauma and shame.

You gotta heal the past.

You gotta heal the past.

You always go. Yeah. Man, it's interesting. I did a, I'm gonna ask you a couple final questions, but I did a podcast recently with a doctor named Dr. Mike. And I said, what do people need more of in the world? And he said they need more therapy. This is a doctor, a medical doctor saying the world needs more therapy. Human beings need therapy. And if we had more therapy, we would be better human beings because we would have be able to heal our traumas of the past. We'd have more compassion and empathy for other people. And I thought that was a really interesting perspective from a doctor's point of view who's treating sickness and disease and ailments every day that this is something I think a lot of us all want. We want to feel loved. We all want to feel accepted. We all want to feel justice and fairness and all these different things.

There's another piece and we think this could take us down a totally different road. But I discovered Dr. Joe Dispenza through your podcast.

He's amazing.

And so much of what he talks about is how stress hormones create disease. Stress hormones over time create disease, right? So then how do you, not even knowing how to manage stress, how to reset our nervous systems, can create disease, right? So that supports again therapy, right? And there's different kinds of therapy, but then Dr. Joe talks about, I call him Dr. Joe, talks about meditation and talks about, you know, he has his various processes. My therapist would call what he says the best way to predict your future is to create it. My therapist will call that future template resourcing.

I like that.

Future template resourcing. So again, what is, I mean, I think that a huge thing I think that's going on in our culture in general is that we, so many of us are traumatized. I think we're collectively traumatized from like this reckoning we're having around racial oppression. I think seeing black people repeatedly murdered on camera is deeply traumatizing. The Me Too, the Me Too movement, all the sexual abuse stuff that's come up, the collective trauma around that, the collective trauma of a global pandemic, right? That like we, there's trauma on top of trauma, on top of trauma. And my therapist defines trauma as too much, too fast, too soon. And so the nervous system doesn't know what to do with that. And so so many of us, our resilience zones are narrowed and we're, so many of us are in fight, flight or freeze. And in, from that place, we're not in our resilience, we're not in like our prefrontal cortex, we can't make the best decisions in fight, flight or freeze. And so we're attacking, so we're like, we want to blame and somebody else is to blame and we can't be accountable, we can't, so it's like, how do we get our nervous systems out of that trauma survival stress place into a place where we can like feel our feet on the ground and so we can like hear the person in front of us with some love. So that is, that's, that's the word.

I think it's, I think especially right now with cancel culture just being so big and everyone's being canceled for everything from a hundred years ago to 10 years ago to yesterday, whatever, it's just like we're canceling people and I feel like people are more afraid to just say how they feel in, in hopes of, in hopes of not making a mistake or not saying one thing to be, their whole lives we've ruined. Yeah, and so people are more afraid to s people are speaking up louder than ever than people are more afraid to speak up at the same time and that makes me so sad and.

It'S in what makes me sad as a trans person is that a lot of people think it's that it's my fault that is or at least my community's fault, right? So many people are terrified, right? To have a conversation with a trans person because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing. I think what people need to know at least from Laverne Cox and I'm not I'm not an advocate of cancel culture, because I think when we cancel people, then we don't believe that there's a possibility of them being transformed. But the only way we can be transformed, though, is through vulnerability and accountability. We don't know how to be accountable. And so I think that is the work, too. So how do we lovingly create a space of lovingly critiquing someone? I think that's the beautiful thing about, one of the beautiful things about Disclosure, our film, we're critical of a lot of films that people love, but I'm not an advocate of discarding those films. I'm an advocate of learning from them and learning how to and having conversation about it so that we can come to new spaces of critical consciousness. And so if we're canceling people, then we, people aren't getting transformed. But I think the only way people can be transformed, though, is through safe space because we go into the fight, flight, or freeze. And the whole safe space thing has been so poo-pooed and so, like, called, oh, you liberal snowflakes with safe space. But human beings, if we so often, if we're called racist, so many people, that's like a bear in the woods, right? That's the bear in the woods. It's not a safe space. That's the bear in the woods. So how do we create a safe space so that we can like have a conversation about race? And so a lot of people don't feel safe because the bear is in the woods and in cancel culture, that's the bear. I'm gonna be canceled. So we have to create a safe space with love so that people aren't on defense so they can actually hear us. And one of the things about racism, since we're going there, is I think we're all racist. I am a Black woman born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, grew up internalizing all these negative ideas about myself as a Black person, about other Black people that I learned from, I think, a racist culture, a racist ideology, a racist media, a history of racism and white supremacy in the United States, I internalized that stuff. I had to then unlearn that. I had to decolonize my mind. If I, as a Black person, can internalize racist ideas about myself and other Black people, isn't it possible and probably likely that somebody white can do the same thing? And so then calling someone racist is not the worst thing that you can do to someone because we all are. It's like, so it's not even, that's not even useful. It's like this this mindset is racist, or this language based on the history of white supremacy in America is racist, or this institution because it works this way is racist, and that becomes useful. And then because then the human being is the human being, we are not, and we're not victims. And this is not, and acknowledging systemic racism is not playing victim. It's like this is the system because there's always a possibility of resistance. There's been resistance to white supremacy since the beginning of this country. So there's always the possibility of resistance. So in that space of resistance, with love, we can be transformed. But we say you're racist and then like that becomes this thing that someone is instead of something that they've internalized that can't be changed. I think that is the thing. And some people don't want to change. You know, some people want, have internalized this stuff. They believe it's the truth. They don't want to change it. and that's fine. I think we can't, you know, make people do anything they don't want to do. But I think it's an invitation. I'm inviting people because I think what I know about racism, what I know about transphobia and all these things and even ableism, I'm able-bodied, but other things that I'm internalized about people with disabilities, is that that keeps me, that keeps me for myself. I think white supremacy, I mean, certainly there are people who are in power, right? Who are, you know, they're people, they're elites who benefit from to using race, you know, to pit, you know, working class people against, you know, people of color. There are people who benefit from that and to sort of social hierarchy. But there are a lot of white folks who really aren't benefiting from white supremacy. They're basically feeling superior to black people of color, but are not benefiting. And people in power are basically like using that to keep them, I mean, we really look historically, right? 'Cause I've been doing all this research on policing in the United States. During slavery, most white folks in the South did not own slaves, right? You had to be kind of rich to own slaves. But every white person in the South was tasked, particularly white men, were tasked with making sure if a slave was like out somewhere, where are you going? Where's your master? What are you doing? So that every white person was tasked, they had slave patrols. And even if you weren't officially on the slave patrol, you were tasked with policing the bodies of black people. right? And so those white working class people who didn't own slaves were sort of felt, well, at least I'm better than these, you know, people who we're enslaving, who they call savages. And they call them savages as a way of justification for enslaving them, right? So that's how this country has worked from the beginning, that people who are not, don't really have power, white work, I would say white working class people, have been used by people in power to say, oh, well, you're better than these black people. Let's police these, the bodies of black people, right? And you can be in on this even though you don't have the material privilege. And that is the, that's pitting, really, that's pitting working class people against each other as pitting marginalized people against each other divide and conquer. It's really sad. And it's like something we can let go of though. We can make a choice. Like it's so beautiful when, as all the white folks I'm seeing, making choices to live differently, right? To acknowledge this history and to say, I can make a different choice today. And we can find a way to come together and love each other. across these differences. Because ultimately, when we think about power structure, there are certain people in power and they just use race, they use gender, they use trans people, right? All this anti-trans legislation is they're just using us to try to pit people against each other so they can remain in power. And ultimately, where the resources, we're not even having a conversation about Medicare for All, we're not even having a conversation about redistribution of resources because we got it, we got it, you know, We can't have that conversation, right? We can't make sure that all the homeless people who are homeless here in LA have a place to live. We can't have that conversation, but we can have the race conversation and we can like take down statues and yeah, we can have that conversation all day. Corporations can get behind Black Lives Matter, which is amazing. Like it's great on one level, but then it's like, but are you paying your workers, you know, like a living wage? What's the What's going on? Anyway, girl, I've got to.

Go down the rabbit hole.

But I think so much of that comes down to there's a macro political piece of it. But then there's a piece of like, of human beings and human behavior and the feeling of wanting to belong, the feeling of wanting and needing love and trauma and scarcity. And that, to the trauma and scarcity stuff is not divorced from politics. It's not. It's like all of, you know, I'm so into my own sort of self-care and my psychological and emotional well-being. But I've always understood that it's not divorced from a white supremacist society, from a patriarchal society, from a transphobic society. That does not mean I'm a victim. It doesn't mean I'm powerless. But it does mean that I have to do some work on myself. And then there are structures in place, too. that have like, I mean, it's a miracle that I have the career that I do in the face of all these things. And some people would want to suggest that that proves that there's no racism, that there proves there's no transphobia, that these things are not real. But I would, but what America's always done is elevate one or two people, right? Say, oh, you know, we had the first black president. Oh, this black person is exceptional. And so we're good, like, right? America's always done that. But the majority of people who are of color are still struggling. The majority of poor working people are still struggling. The majority of trans people are still struggling. Women still make pennies on the dollar that a man makes, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not enough to just elevate one person or a few people and say, oh, we're good. That's just that's the way the system works.

The system has a lot of work to do. And so each human being out there in the world for sure, on a personal level, and I- It starts with.

Each of us though. We can change this. It starts with each of us.

Absolutely, which I think there's a lot of good that's happening right now in terms of awareness and creating that awareness. And like you said, I hope we can get to a safer space of being able to talk with each other without shutting them down and fighting, but actually being, okay, well let me learn more and let's connect.

I think it's about, and this happened to me recently, this dude that I matched with on a dating app, he was posting a lot of things that seemed very politically conservative, very anti-black lives matter, and I was sort of like, and I just, and I saw this, and my timeline, and what, what it made me think of a lot of things. Ultimately, like most of what I see on my timeline on social media is all like people who would agree with me. That's interesting. We know those are algorithms. We know that's, you know, what they're doing over in Silicon Valley. But then there's also the piece of like this, do I, do I, I had an impulse to block. I'm like, do I block him? I'm like, wait, what's that about? I'm like, you know, I made all these assumptions about who he was based on these things he posted. And that there was no curiosity. And then I was like, he's a human being. We haven't met for a date. He didn't seem interested, but I'm following him on social media. So I was just like, and so I would just watch, I watched his stories for a while. I watched some of the things he posted. And then he actually posted this sort of debunking of a video I posted about structural racism. And so I was like, Oh, do you agree with him? And then I just started asking questions and I tried to just not be judgmental and create space for him so I could try to understand him. And then I was like, you know, I feel like we might disagree on a lot of things, but I want to try to understand where you're coming from. And I want to, I would like to think that I could have relationships with people who don't agree with me on everything.

This is what I love that you said this because I feel like I bring out a lot of different unique perspectives on my show. I've had 970 episodes over seven years. And sometimes I bring people on that might be more controversial to the general audience that I have. And then they just come at me like, how could you even think of putting this person on your platform and sharing their perspective? And I'm like, listen, I'm not saying, I think it's important, like you said, for us to try to understand and listen to people from all perspectives because they have unique experiences, they have unique lessons, whether they're right, wrong, good, bad, whatever it may be, I think it's important for us to connect. And I'm always trying to speak to people who maybe don't have my perspective as well that I want to persuade to having a more positive mindset or thinking in a different way. So I think it's important for us to have those conversations with all people. And not just speak to our own community and say, yes, we all believe in the same thing and be against everyone else.

I don't think, and I don't have any aspirations even that I would change his mind. I think a lot of us are so deeply dug in to where we are politically, especially when it comes to certain kind of politics, particularly when it seems like it's a sort of out of sort of particular right wing, propagandistic kind of places. But he's still a human being. Yeah. I just, that's my thing is like, how do we get to this place? human place? Is there a way to get to a human place, even though we might not agree on something? And so I think there's like, there is the thing of like, you know, sort of people with their agendas that come on and just pushing that, they're pushing their agenda. And then there's like the, a slippery slip, slippery, slip, slippery, slipperier, Slip at the top. A more sort of fluid place, that's a better word. Fluid place where we can have an exchange of ideas and where we can kind of say, well, there's, what about this? I sent him, he sent me all these videos, you know, about trying to debunk structural racism. Then I sent him a video about policing and whatnot, 'cause he was sending FBI statistics about like, you know, who's doing all the murders and stuff. And then I sent him, I was like, okay, well, I sent him a video about Stop and Frisk. And so I have yet to hear a response about this Stop and Frisk video. I sent him a podcast from from through line that's amazing that looks at the history of policing. What is it Khalil Gibran, Gibran Muhammad is interviewed on the through line episode about history of policing in the country and he has yet to respond and that's fine, it's fine. I was very open to his ideas and I tried to engage and it was really interesting in that through line podcast is how the government started using statistics to sort of say, oh, you know, black people are inferior and they found ways to like do the use statistics. It was deep. It was really deep. But at the same time, it's like, I want to operate from a place of love. Yeah, it's like if you, resentment and hate is like, you know, giving, you know, taking a poison pill and thinking you're gonna like, you know, right.

Yeah, exactly. I love everything you're saying, Laverne. I'm so grateful we had time to chat. I could talk for more hours, but I want to respect your time.

Stop. Yeah.

I want to ask you the final two questions.

I'll be thinking.

No, you're good. I love that. I'll keep you whatever for you. But I want to honor your time and everyone listening. But before I ask the final two questions, make sure you guys go check out the new documentary called Disclosure on Netflix. Check it out right now. I think it's gonna be very eye-opening for you and share it with Laverne and on your social media channels. Make sure you follow Laverne on social media. You're pretty active on Instagram.

I believe on Twitter as well.

You're active and it's just you're- Somewhat on Twitter. Not as much on Twitter. But mostly Instagram. so share this with a friend, tag her on Instagram and share this episode with people if you enjoyed it. And I want to acknowledge you before I ask you the final two questions for your incredible courage, Lauren, your courage to share your voice, to step into who you are in face of adversity, in face of criticism, in face of bullying, shaming, all the different things that you've had to experience as a kid. in an entertainment world that you're in and being able to do it gracefully over the last decade, I would say. I'm sure you're not perfect and you make mistakes, but in the way you continue to show up and come from a place of wanting to understand people as well and not shame people, which I think is very refreshing to hear from your perspective that you don't want to just automatically shame people, but you want to try to understand and love people. And I'm just really grateful that you're alive. I'm grateful that you're here as a human being in this world and that you can share all this wisdom with us. So I'm just, I'm grateful for everything that you stand for and for this time and our friendship. And hopefully when this is all over, we can hang out again for lunch. This question I asked everyone at the end is called the three truths question. So imagine you're as old as you want to be, but it's your last day on this physical earth. And you've accomplished every dream you can imagine, whether it be your career or with social justice, things that you see come to light with anything, family, relationships, all of it, it comes true. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your life's work with you to the next place. And so no one has access to your words, your videos, your content, anything. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life experiences and the lessons you would want to leave to the world. What would you say are those three lessons you'd want to leave all of us? or what I call your three truths.

That's hard, though. How am I missing this on your podcast? Oh, my gosh. I'm not prepared. Three things. My three truths.

What's your. What's your heart saying? Top of mind, top of heart. Your authentic self. Thank you.

You are here for a reason, and your work. work is to align with the energy of the universe and with that reason. And it is tied to being a service, and it is tied to love and passion. Worthiness is a birthright. Worthiness is a birthright.

You.

You can move through life's challenges with Grace if you don't put your worthiness on the line. worthiness is a birthright. Take it off the table. It all feels like it's about connecting to energy that's bigger than me. That right now in this moment, it feels like it's about the connection to something bigger. It's interesting thinking about being alone and living in a condo all by yourself and feeling connected through this documentary and through Zoom and feeling connected to energy that is bigger than me and that that there is that there's a life force that is so much bigger than you that can take that can pull you through if you just connect with it. It's right there. It is just right there and you can just connect with it. And that energy force actually moves into the other life, right? It moves into into every sphere of the universe. It really does it is so that that is what I. My invitation to. It would be to. For everyone to connect with the energy that is right there. That is tied to every other life force.

I love that. I love that. Okay, a final question. Final question for you.

Okay.

It's. What's your definition of greatness?

Fulfilling your higher powers or the universes. what is planned for you, aligning what you do in the world with a bigger energy that is greater than you and that is aligned with purpose. That is greatness.

Lavarne, you are a gift. Thank you for shining your brightness, your light, very bright. I appreciate you very much, my friend. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, my friend, so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to share this with someone that you think will find it valuable. Again, you have the ability and the power to change someone's life today by sending them this link. Just copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening to your podcast and send it to a friend. Text someone, post it on your Instagram story, tweet it out, put it in a WhatsApp group chat, whatever you gotta do. share this with a friend and leave us a review. We'd love to see reviews and ratings from people that listen to us every week. We share those with our internal team and it always helps us spread the message of greatness more to the audience on Apple. So make sure to go to Apple podcast, click that subscribe button, leave us a review and help spread the love. And make sure to check out the podcast description for links and resources to other impactful podcasts. and you can check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com/974 as well to see everything else we've talked about from this episode. And I want to leave you with a quote from author Vivian Greene who said, Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain. And right now, you might be feeling that there's a lot of rain. There might be a lot of lightning and thunder and earthquakes and hurricanes, lots of different things happening in your life right now. And it's not about waiting for it to end. We don't know when certain things are going to end. It's about learning how to experience life to the fullest in spite of it, in the messiness, while you develop, while you learn, while you grow. And I'm so grateful for Laverne for sharing with us and teaching us how she's done this in her own life. If you haven't heard recently, you are loved, you matter, and you are worth it. I'm so grateful for you and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.