(#8) TransActivism: Laverne Cox

The Guardian, 2015

Who: Laverne Cox
(Tweet: @LaverneCox / IG: @LaverneCox)
Buzzfeed called her the “Woman we’ve been waiting for” and Glamour, Time, Out, and HuffingtonPost have all honored her as an influential and intersectional voice for the trans community. Best known for her role on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, Laverne Cox has become a powerful icon for LGBTQ+ visibility with her confidence, talent, and unwavering advocacy.

Significance: I wanted to start with a quote from Laverne herself, because it is so much more eloquent than I could ever write on her behalf. Her mark on the activism of the millennial generation is smart and direct: we need diversity of representation. On TransVisibility Day (3/31) this year, Laverne posted this to her Instagram:

“As an out, visible, black, transgender woman everyday is #TransDayOfVisibility for me. My blackness, transness and womanhood are political, social and historic realities. But my spirit, my soul, my humanity transcend these identity categories. As an artist I have always yearned for transcendence. Today I continue to do the spiritual work towards that transcendence. But the political, social and historic realities of the multiple identities I inhabit, continue to affect how I and people like me move through the world and access space and resources. In this context it becomes necessary, vital to celebrate ourselves and these socially constructed yet personally, politically and historically relevant identities we inhabit. Trans people are under attack perhaps now more than ever as we enjoy more visibility than we have ever known. So on this #transdayofvisibility #tdov2017 we celebrate trans folks, those who are visible, by circumstance and by choice. We celebrate and are visible for those who can not be. As we celebrate visibility we also acknowledge the limits of visibility. We acknowledge that trans folks experience violence disproportionately, that the past 3 years there have been more murders of trans folks than since we have been tracking trans homicides. We acknowledge that trans students are under attack in the United States. We #StandwithGavin Grimm and trans students like him across this nation fighting for dignity and equal access. We acknowledge that bills like HB2 and the bill masquerading as a repeal of that bill but is only more discrimination, are about erasing trans people from public life. We acknowledge that when we are excluded from being counted in census data this is another attempt to erase us. We acknowledge that when trans folks are misgendered and disavowed this is yet another attempt to stigmatize and erase us. We acknowledge that folks at the intersections of multiple identities being targeted must be lifted up. On this Trans Day of Visibility we reassert that we will not and cannot be erased.”

“My blackness, transness and womanhood are political, social and historic realities.”

For Pride last month, Laverne took part in LogoTV’s LGBTQ History Project.  See a clip below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BV-3oJ6AOr5/?hl=en

One of the most compelling parts of Laverne, is her unwavering commitment to embracing and remembering the different aspects of her identity. I love that she highlights the importance of intersectionality when talking about her feminism and her activism.

When researching the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the queer women at its inception, I found a similar sentiment at its core, “Perhaps if we were the charismatic Black men many are rallying around these days, it would have been a different story, but being Black queer women in this society (and apparently within these movements) tends to equal invisibility and non-relevancy” (BLM, Herstory.) Interestingly, Laverne Cox frequently speaks about invisibility in her community.

“We will not and cannot be erased.”

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