In a recent interview with The
Advocate, actress-transgender advocate Laverne Cox said that the
conversation about being transgender has shifted since 2014.
Cox, 48, is best known for playing
inmate Sophia Burset on the Netflix dramedy Orange Is The New
Black. She served as an executive producer on the
recently-released Netflix documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on
Screen, which takes a look at transgender representation on film
and television.
Cox appeared on the cover of TIME
under the headline “The Transgender Tipping Point” in 2014.
Speaking with The Advocate, Cox
said that she no longer is asked to define transgenderism or talk
about her experience as a transgender woman.
“What I'm most excited about now at
this stage of my career is I do tons of interviews now and don't even
talk about being trans or I'm not asked about it,” Cox
said. “I'll bring it up because I love being trans and I think
it's important to still continue to talk about it, particularly
considering what's going on in the world with trans folks. But no,
the conversation has shifted.”
She added that she's “done debating
whether trans is real.”
“[In the Supreme Court case on
whether Title VII includes gender identity] they're basically
debating the legitimacy of trans people, right?” she rhetorically
asked. “That there's no such thing as being non-binary or trans and
I'm just like, 'I'm not interested in debating my identity or
existence anymore.' At stake with Title VII is really, is it legal to
discriminate against LGBTQ people? And I don't think that's the
issue. I think the issue is, should it be legal to discriminate
against anyone in this country? And I say no.”
“So I'm just done debating my
existence. I'm done debating whether trans is real. I'm real. I'm
sitting here and I have lived experiences as a woman, as a woman of
trans experience, as a black woman, and so I'm done with that and I
know a lot of trans folks are done with that,” she
said.