Visionary of
Acceptance
With her dual passions as an actor and activist, Laverne Cox, Fashion Merchandising Management, fights for transgender visibility and empowerment.
Laverne Cox
With the 2014 Time cover, Cox used her visibility to raise awareness of trans rights. In an interview with the magazine a decade later, she said, “It wasn’t about me—it was about my community.”
What is your vision for the future?
Healthcare for everyone, a living wage for everyone, everyone being accepted for who they are. A world where people are free—and we don’t destroy the planet in the process.
– Laverne Cox
By Jonathan Vatner
Like millions of other viewers worldwide, I first encountered Laverne Cox in her unforgettable portrayal of Sophia Burset in the Netflix prison drama Orange Is the New Black, in 2013. Cox’s raw, nuanced performance commanded the small screen and rocketed her to stardom. She became the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a Primetime acting Emmy.
The FIT alum is remarkable not just as an actress but also in how effectively she uses her platform to fight for human rights. On social media and in TV interviews, she advocates for protections for LGBT people, especially for trans women of color, who are disproportionately discriminated against in housing, healthcare, employment, and education—and who are more likely to be murdered than any other group. For this work, she has been honored by the Transgender Law Center, the Forum for Equality, the New School, and Harvard.
This spring, Amazon Prime Video debuted her comedy Clean Slate, which she is executive producing alongside the late Norman Lear’s Act III Productions. Lear was known for creating All in the Family and The Jeffersons, classic ’70s sitcoms that incorporated contemporary social issues.
Cox plays Desiree, the estranged child of a car wash owner, played by comedian George Wallace. After 23 years away, she returns home as a proud trans woman. The show—and all of Cox’s work—is a far cry from past depictions of trans people as sex workers, serial killers, or punchlines. “It really is a wholesome family show,” she says.
Cox recently spoke with me from her fashion archive room, a studio apartment she rented across the hall from her New York City residence, where she stores her impressive collection of mostly Thierry Mugler, whom she reveres as an artist and a master of structure and tailoring.
As soon as our conversation began, I felt at ease in her calm and centered presence. We talked about her acting and activism, her love of fashion, and her time as a student at FIT. I could have listened to her for hours.
HUE: What excites you about Clean Slate?
COX: The show is like a big warm hug. It’s about a father’s unconditional love for his daughter. Desiree is from Mobile, Alabama, as am I. She went to New York, found herself, transitioned, and is now back to reunite with her dad and work out some of her issues around picking unavailable men. She’s a therapy girl like me. The opening scene of the pilot is a session on FaceTime with my character’s therapist.
I’ve produced a number of things, but this is the first time I’ve produced anything that’s scripted that I get to act in. It’s been a dream of mine for 15, maybe 20 years. We started working on it eight years ago.
HUE: Eight years?
COX: We pitched it to everybody: HBO, Netflix, Showtime. After a couple of years, I was like, “Oh, they’re not buying trans shows right now.” It was an industry thing. At that moment, they were using trans people in supporting roles or in non-trans roles. I had given up on it. But we finally landed at Amazon Prime with the great Norman Lear on board as our co-executive producer. I grew up with Norman Lear shows. They were my life. So it was really magical to get to work with him and the legendary George Wallace.
HUE: Why do you think it’s been so hard to sell trans shows?
COX: We’ve always been a hard sell. There was a period of several years where there was way more representation in scripted TV and film, and more presence of trans people on social media. And then something shifted. I think there’s been a backlash against trans visibility.
I’m not a network executive, so I can’t say what’s in their minds. Ultimately, corporations are corporations, and it’s about money for them. But I remember one pitch for Clean Slate; the executives were literally in tears. And they said no. The fact that it’s airing feels like a miracle.
I think we really need humanized representation of trans people right now. In the political landscape over the past few years, the strategy for the right wing has been to dehumanize trans people to such a degree that you can take away our rights. It’s been devastating for me to witness.
HUE: As we’re talking, I’ve been thinking that it must be impossible for an actress who’s trans to just be an artist. Like, you kind of have to be an activist as well, right?
COX: There are trans actors who don’t lean into activism at all. I’ve known Jamie Clayton for 20 years—we were in acting class together—and she was very specific when she had her breakthrough on Sense8 that she was an actress first and didn’t want to be political. And that’s beautiful. Not everybody is an activist. Not everybody should be.
HUE: When did you know you would be an activist?
COX: When I was 6 years old, my mother gave me and my brother a Black history book that had little photos and brief biographies of famous African Americans who have changed history. Obviously Martin Luther King is in there and W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, but also artists like Katherine Dunham, Marian Anderson, and Leontyne Price, who was my favorite.
In the photo, she was wearing this turban and she had high cheekbones and beautiful full lips like mine. I would lie in bed and stare at this photo of her. And I remember imagining as a six-year-old, wouldn’t it be amazing if I could do something with my life that would make things better for people who came after me?
I was in my 40s when I booked Orange Is the New Black. Well before that, I would go up to Albany for Equality and Justice Day every year and talk to state legislators to get the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act passed. It took 17 years. I was writing pieces for the Huffington Post about trans people and gender. I hosted the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund benefit. And I did several media appearances to try to educate folks on trans stuff.
When Orange happened, I was like, this could be over in a second. And so I had a sense of urgency when I got a platform, an international platform, to talk about the urgent issues facing the trans community. A lot of that shifted because I also need to take care of my mental health. A lot of my work now is trying to stay abreast of new policies while holding space for my own trauma as a trans person seeing rights being taken away or violence committed against us.
HUE: What brought you to FIT?
COX: I graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in 1996 with a dance degree. I acted a lot in college. In 1998, I started my medical transition. There weren’t trans people who were actors at that time. I loved fashion and knew trans women working in the fashion business, so I went to FIT to study merchandising. I only stayed three semesters, but I learned a lot. So many things about fabric and fashion history and merchandising.
I think I read as trans to some people, and I didn’t to others. It never was an issue. But one day at FIT, the coach of the men’s basketball team saw me and was like, “Oh my God, you’re so tall. Have you thought about joining the basketball team?” And I’m like, “Sweetie, I’m not the one.” I think about that a lot.
FIT was awesome. But I realized after three semesters that I didn’t really want to be working in fashion merchandising. I left FIT and really started taking acting seriously. I started believing that it would be possible for me to have a mainstream acting career.
HUE: Tell me about your fashion collection.
COX: I collect Mugler mainly, but I also have some Comme des Garçons, some Dior by Galliano, some [Alexander] McQueen, and a Pierre Cardin dress from 1969. I mean, the history! But I also enjoy it as art. I love the amazing tailoring and structure. That’s what really gets me excited. I’ve spent too much money on these pieces—like, way too much money. I’ve definitely had to set some limits. It’s excessive and kind of insane, this collecting. But it brings me so much joy.
