Actress Laverne Cox was overwhelmed
last week by the warm welcome she received at the opening of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual Creating Change
conference.
“This feels so amazing, all this love
that you're giving me tonight,” said Cox, a star of the Netflix
drama Orange is the New Black. “I have to say that a black
transgender woman from a working class background raised by a single
mother – that's me – getting all this love tonight. This feels
like the change I need to see more of in this country.”
Cox, a transgender woman who plays a
transgender character on Orange is the New Black, talked about
the struggles transgender people face.
“Some days I wake up and I am just a
girl who wants to be loved,” Cox told the crowd. “But I was told
on more than one occasion by a man who told me that he loved me that
he could not be seen in public with me … because I am trans. And
not only because I am trans, because people can tell that I am trans.
I am not passable enough by certain standards. … I've heard it
from men I've dated. I've heard it from members of my own community
who told me that I am not passable enough.” (The video is embedded
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