![]() Orange is the new black actress Laverne Cox spoke to a packed auditorium last night. The actress and activist, who has a recurring role on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black.” Cox is the first African-American transgender woman to have a major role in a television drama series, but she also is the producer and co-host of the VH1 reality series “TRANSform Me,” which won a GLAAD media award in 2013. For the majority of her talk, Cox spoke about her upbringing and career and the “state of emergency for many trans people across the country.” She said that transgender women of color face more bullying and ridicule than other members of the LGBT community. Since third grade, Laverne Cox said she knew she was a girl, not a boy, like her twin brother. Cox began her transformation while in college in New York City, her first major venture into gender nonconformity included a shaven head, fake eyelashes and flair bell-bottom pants. Growing up in Mobile, Ala., which was the center of much of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Cox said “there was almost always someone who wanted to beat me up” in an effort to “police” her gender. While in therapy her mother learned that Cox viewed herself as a girl, not a boy, which angered her mother. Home life was tough, she said, because she didn’t feel safe at school nor at home. Last week, both the state House of Representatives and Senate passed a same-sex marriage bill, which made Illinois the 15th state to pass such legislation. Gov. Pat Quinn said he would sign the legislation on Nov. 20 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Images: Google Image (Creative Commons)
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Stephen "TheeBlackSocialite" Hale
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