AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In 2013, when the Netflix series "Orange Is The New Black" came out, the world met the character Sophia Burset, a Black trans woman serving as the resident hairstylist in prison. And for much of the audience, it was also the first time they met the actress Laverne Cox, who landed the role of Sophia at the age of 40 just when she was thinking she was going to quit acting altogether. Suddenly, Laverne Cox was a breakout TV star, and with that came the expectations and responsibilities of another role - leader and advocate for trans people everywhere.
LAVERNE COX: That is really my job - to continuously invite people to see trans people as human beings in a world that deeply dehumanizes us.
CHANG: In her new memoir called "Transcendent," Cox talks about the challenges that she faced long before Netflix ever came knocking - a mother who withheld love, a father who was never around and the brutal denigration she encountered growing up Black and trans in the Deep South.
COX: I feel so blessed and grateful to be who I am and to have fought to be who I am, to have fought the demons inside myself, the demons that I've internalized from systems and structures and from my mother and teachers and other kids. I sometimes feel like it's a miracle.
CHANG: May we talk about your mother?
COX: Absolutely.
CHANG: Because so much of this book is centered on her and your relationship with her, how your whole life, you know, Laverne, as you were trying to be who you are, you talk about how cruel she could be to you. Can you tell me first, why did you decide to build so much of this memoir around your mother?
COX: My mother is just this key figure in my life. I was desperate for her love and approval as a child and as a young adult. And then I had to let go of that. And then I've, like, come to a place of deep compassion for her, as I've understood with my own sort of healing journey just how a lot of her own trauma has not been processed and has not been healed. And there's something kind of remarkable about the things that she's accomplished despite all of that.
CHANG: If I may, I want to be specific for people who...
COX: Yes, please.
CHANG: ...Haven't read this book. You know, there was one line that really hit me. This is when you were at the fine arts school in Alabama. And you wrote, (reading) I had always known that I couldn't come out to my mother then because I still needed a place to stay in the summertime and on breaks.
And I thought, my God, I mean, Laverne, you literally felt like you had to choose between suppressing the truth about yourself or being homeless for a few weeks or a month, right?
COX: Yes. Yes. Well, my mother would always sort of, I guess, threaten us and say that if you don't act right, I'll put you out. And when we were in third grade, an incident happened, and we ended up - my mother dropped us off at our - I call him the sperm donor's house 'cause he was never a father.
CHANG: Right.
COX: But dropped us off at our biological father's house who we never met, and there was a woman there who we didn't know. And the next day, the woman takes us to the police station, and we end up in an orphanage for a month.
CHANG: Right.
COX: So after that...
CHANG: Even though know your mom remembered it only as a week, but you and your twin...
COX: Yes.
CHANG: ...Brother remembered, no, we were there a month.
COX: Yeah, absolutely. And when - so when my mother would say, you know, if you don't act right, I'll put you out, after that - the orphanage - it was a threat that felt quite real. And it was that - I mean, yeah, that was - it was - that was awful. I'm trying to keep myself together...
CHANG: I'm sorry.
COX: ...Thinking about it. No. Yeah, it's - no, it's fine.
CHANG: I'm struck by listening to you because there has always been, the way you've described it in this book, a strong inner voice in you, like, even as a child. You were bullied, severely beaten, ridiculed for acting like a girl, for talking like a girl, but you always told yourself that you would not retaliate against them, sink to their level. And where do you think that comes from, this I-will-rise-above mentality? - because you seem to have had this for so long.
COX: Well, the I-will-rise-above mentality is why I called the book "Transcendent." When I read "Walden" when I was a freshman in high school, I was just sort of like, transcendentalism, this is like - this is what I wanted to do my whole life. I've wanted to transcend how people see me because I was assigned male at birth and because I'm Black and poor in the South. I want to transcend this body. I want to transcend, like, time and space. And I finally had a word for what I longed to do and what I felt like I was here to do.
CHANG: As we mentioned, you were cast in "Orange Is The New Black" when you were 40 years old, and...
COX: Yeah.
CHANG: ...When you look back on it, you say you're glad that opportunity came later in life for you. Can you say more about that? Like, what does it mean to you to be ready for success?
COX: Well, you know, 19 years after I moved to New York, I turned 40, and I hadn't had a breakout moment that could - would change my life, and I was still...
CHANG: Right.
COX: ...In student loan debt and rent arrears. And so I let it go.
CHANG: Gosh.
COX: And a friend who had just gotten into Columbia sold me his GRE study materials at a discount.
CHANG: (Laughter).
COX: No, he - yeah, this happened.
CHANG: I believe it (ph).
COX: And so I started studying for the GRE, and I started, like, you know, getting graduate school applications. And then, like, I turned 40 in May, May 29, and then the "Orange" audition happened in late August, early September of that year. In my 20s, I was not secure myself, but in my 40s, I was on the path, the journey of learning that I was worthy, not because of something I did, but because I'm a child of God, because I am born.
CHANG: What would you love to tell the young Laverne when she was back in Alabama, in Mobile, just beginning to find her dreams as a kid, watching Sheryl Lee Ralph on "Good Times" and just in awe of her? And then, you know, you would end up meeting Sheryl Lee Ralph, sharing red carpet moments with Sheryl Lee Ralph.
COX: The first time I met her, I told her, like, how I would pretend to be her.
(LAUGHTER)
COX: And listen (ph)...
CHANG: How'd she react? I bet she was moved by that.
COX: She was so gracious, and she was just Sheryl. Sheryl is - she was just in her anointed goddessness (ph) that she just always carries. Oh, Black women are everything. There's something wonderful about Black women, and I think there's something wonderful about trans people, especially when we allow ourselves to be in that anointed space that is really ours to claim. I really feel that.
And so I would say to little Laverne that every single impulse that you have is good and right, and that you are beautiful. You are lovable, you are wanted, and you deserve the very, very best in life and in the world. And you - and don't worry. Don't worry. You will be the person that you know you are. You will become the woman of your dreams and fantasies. And you will exist in that anointed transcendent space that you long to.
CHANG: I wish someone talked to me like that as well. Laverne Cox's new book is called "Transcendent." Thank you so much, Laverne, for coming in and speaking to all of us. This was really special.
COX: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
