Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hello, my name is Laverne Cox, and welcome to Laverne Cox Show. Okay, this is I This is going to be weird and hard to talk about today, but I think it's important. And I've been thinking a lot about how I want to approach these diary entries, and I want it to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is still really hard for me. Rene Brown defines
vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. And I want to challenge myself to talk about things that I don't
talk about publicly a lot. As much as I've shared, I think there's some things that should be private, particularly as a trans woman, because my humanity as a trans woman and the humanity of my trans siblings is always sort of called into question, and so I feel like I have to be really careful as a public figure who's trans to not overshare and to not put things into public discourse that I don't want a public discourse and that I think will undermine my humanity and the
humanity of my community. With all of that in mind, I'm going to attempt to talk about my body. I mean, there's so many reasons why I want to do this, But earlier I was working out.
Working out is like so fraught for me. I hate working out.
There's a fitness room in my building here in New York, and during the pandemic, the fitness room was closed because you know, pandemic, and so I started working out in my apartment. I got some free weights, and I started working out at home and I have continued that and at this point, working out for me, as a fifty one year old woman, is really about mobility, mental health. I found to have more energy when I work out, So working out is like about overall health, wellbeing and
endorphin release, all that good stuff. So I'm trying to work out more consistently, but it's you know, I'm doing it imperfectly. And I've had personal trainers before, mostly a disaster. I will say, it's kind of better for me to just do it on my own. So anyway, after my workout, after my workout, I was standing in my underwear in the bathroom moisturizing, and I looked at my body and I was like, oh, nice.
I was like nice. I was like I like my body.
It was interesting because I've gone through phases in my life. You know, there are different milestones in my medical transition. And when I say medical transition, I started taking hormone replacement therapy in nineteen ninety eight, so that would be
twenty five years ago. And so over the years there have been different sort of milestones in my medical transition where I've been living for myself and I've you know, gone out and been half naked and just frolicking around on the streets of New York, and like right now, I'm like, I really genuinely like my body. I was looking at it and I was like, I really like this. But it's not like I'm not like in this place of like I'm living and I want to like get
on the gram and like show off. It's more of a relief. It's more of like there's so many different lenses that it is a relief to look at my body and be happy. There is a lens of being a woman, and the gender journey that I've been on integrated in terms of my gender, like my body matching my gender identity, So that's one piece part of It's like, Okay, when I was younger, I just picked myself apart and
I couldn't see the beauty and things. But there were places I wanted to get in terms of like my feminizing journey that I feel like I'm there now in terms of my own standards. Right, Like I was on Instagram and I was scrolling and like I did post a Pekuini video on the Gram and the comments on
my page were overwhelmingly positive. And I've cultivated a community on my own social media channels that's so affirming and so positive and so beautiful, where people were telling me how beautiful I was, how beautiful my body looked, and that was that's lovely.
You know.
I've learned to like try to take that in, but not like allow my sense of self worth or self esteem to be overdetermined by how other people see my body, because for years people were telling me I was beautiful and I couldn't see it or feel it. So it's
really about how I feel about myself. So the video was posted on this blog, this very urban blog, a black blog, and the comment section was transphobic af I read a few of the comments and people were sort of saying how masculine I looked looking more masculine as I get older. And then I stopped reading the comments, and I mean, this is not new. This is not new as a trans woman, this is not new for me.
But I thought I've obviously thought about it. This was probably five days ago or so, and I'm still thinking about it. So it's like, Okay, when I read things like that, I have to remind myself that trans is beautiful. When I say trans is beautiful. I started the hashtag trans beautiful in twenty fifteen. Oh my god, it's been
eight years since we started trans is beautiful. And I started that hashtag as a way to remind me and other trans people that were not beautiful despite the things that make us noticeably trans, but that were beautiful because of those things. I could look at other trans people who were visibly trans and see their beauty, and I can see it in myself. And so in these moments when people are saying how masculine I look online, I'm like, well, trans it's beautiful, Like I think, what does happen for
me when I see comments like that. It doesn't affect how I think about myself, but it affects how I think about myself in the marketplace, the beauty marketplace, because we live in a culture, you know, where beauty is capital. We talked about that on the first season at The Liver and Cock Show with the brilliant Kimberly Foster. So even though I'm like kind of living for myself right now in a very sort of relieved way, it's not like a boasting way. It's just like a relief that
I like my body right now. But then I'm like, oh, in the marketplace, like there are people who think I look masculine, So maybe like I'm not getting a job or an opportunity because I look too masculine. And there's like so many younger trans women out there who maybe were able to like not go through a puberty that would masculinize them like I did. So those thoughts come into my brain. Then I have to check myself and I'm like, well, that's scarcity thinking, and there's room for everyone.
And you're doing just fine, Laverne. You're very busy, you're working, and so the different lenses. As I was thinking about liking my body, right I was thinking about it through the lens of gender identity. I'm like, I like my body and relationship to my transition and the feminizing that has happened to my body over the past twenty five years.
I like my body in relationship to my weight. When you're a public figure and you talk about your weight or losing weight or gaining weight, that gets clicks right. People are like obsessed. And the last season of my podcast that had a great conversation with Burguetbar about fat phobia and the thing that's stuck with me in that book and that she wrote, you have the right to remain fat. It is that we live in a culture
where we exist in one of two categories. Either we live with the bigotry of a fat phobic culture because we're fat, or we live in a fear of the bigotry that comes with a fat phobic culture. And for me, what I will say about my weight is that as I got older it became an issue. When I was before I turned thirty nine forty, I was basically skinny and could eat whatever I wanted and didn't have to think about my weight. And then as I got older,
I gained weight. And this is not unusual. So like weight gain for me is like tied to like getting older, and so like there's my internalized fat phobia. There's my internalized agism that collide when it comes to my weight.
And it's interesting, like, you know, when I lost weight, like a few years ago, I wasn't actually the healthiest, some things going on with my health that caused me to lose weight, And it was really interesting watching the world kind of validate this smaller body that was actually not healthy and that was deep to me, and it continues to be deep to me. But you know, I didn't have my breakout moment until I was over forty. So I've like had this weight fluctuation thing since I've
been in the public eye. And I think about the eleven Honorary Fashion show that I walked in, what was it twenty twenty nineteen and it was Fall twenty nineteen for New York Fashion Week. Eleven Honorey is a company that caters to the plus size market, right, and I closed the show and at the time, I would think of it as a size ten. I've been anywhere from like I fluctuated probably from a size eight to like twelve fourteen. I think there was a period when I
was like opposed to a fourteen. And so as my weight is fluctuated. I've had to really work to look in the mirror and embrace and be happy. But it's so much harder for me to look in the mirror when I'm heavier and love what I see than it is when I'm a little lighter, and to love what I see like I am. Now, that's my internalized fat phobia. That's my scarcity thinking around aging. It's this fear around desirability,
being marketable. That's also linked internalized misogyny, internalized sexism, all this stuff, right, and then there's the lens of white supremacy and anti blackness.
Right. So I'm a trans.
Woman, I'm a woman over fifty, and I'm a black woman, and we live in a culture that is that I contend is anti black, that a lot of folks would agree as anti black and as white supremacist, and that colorism is real, and the closer to whiteness one appears, the more cultural currency they have, the more beautiful one is often considered.
You know, it's something I'm.
Critical of, but it's so tricky for me with my I'm like sitting here in my blonde wig right now, and Bill Hooks was so critical of me and my blonde hair and very critical of like black women with blonde hair. Anyway, when I went blonde for the first time in the nineties, me being blonde was tied to like what I thought was a softening of my features
in terms of femininity. I'm I'm a trans woman who has not had facial surgery, because there is a connection between, Like, historically, the femininity of black women is something that's been disavowed and detegrated. So I'm like, is that, you know, internalized misogyny, noir, white supremacy, or is it just like I think blonde hair softens my features as a trans woman because and I still think that lighter hair kind of raids better on camera in terms of how it picks up the light.
So I don't know, but I do think that, like, I just like being blonde, And is that I mean? And I can unpack that, and I could be like, is there an anti blackness thing there that I've internalized or is it just aesthetically I think I look better even though I'm a black woman. So that's an interesting question. And I'm sure people listening to this have lots of thoughts when we think about colorism and anti blackness. And white supremacy. Folks have a lot of opinions online about
all of that. This is a good time to take a little break. We'll be right back though, Okay, we're back. So it's more of a relief to be this age and to look at my body half naked and like it through the lens of my transness, through the lens of my blackness, through the lens of my internalized like fat phobia and agism, to look at my body and just be like cool, awesome, great, And some of it
is about how my transition has gone. Healthcare has been life saving for me, so that there is a relationship between access to gender firming care that like has me at this stage of my life loving my body. And then in terms of like my blackness, that's just been about acceptance. All of these too, honestly have also been about acceptance. It's interesting, estrogen is really wonderful, estrogen is cool, and testosterone is evil.
For me anyway, evil in my body.
So I'm like, you know, I love what estrogen has done to my body, and like, even though I have the same features looking at my face over the years, I was looking at old pictures of me with my makeup artist Asia, and it was just like, it's the same face, but things are just kind of softer now. It's interesting and it's fascinating. And there was a point in my life when I wanted to have a full
facial feminization situation. So and again, like even talking about surgery in this way, I'm skeptical of and I've been very consistent since I've had a public platform that talking about surgery and transition for trans people publicly, our stories are often reduced to that, and that is dehumanizing because it objectifies us. A lot of times people just assume that being trans is all about surgery. I tend to
talk about surgeries I haven't had. You know, in the trans community knows all the different surgeries that like encompass a full facial feminization.
I wanted all of them.
Because I was, you know, walking down the street and still being read as trans, and that was frustrating for me. And I thought like, if I got facial feminization, I'd be able to like move through the world with less harassment. I mean, that's really what that was about for me. Part of it may have been chasing some sort of sense of perfectionism or being accepted more in my womanhood. Luckily I didn't have the money at the time for facial feminization. And then something shifted in terms of my
transition process and the feminizing process of estrogen. Over the years, something shifted around me feeling good about myself and honestly being affirmed. When Rat's New Black happened, there was a level of affirmation that I was getting from the public that shifted things for me because of my job and the platform I have that there is a level of affirmation that I get as a black trans woman that most black trans women do not get, and that has
been transformative for me. So it's beautiful to be affirmed, but at the end of the day, it's not. It's still not enough to lie feel good about yourself to have other people tell you that you're beautiful, because I've always found things about myself that I don't like. I could pick myself apart like nobody's business. So everything I've done in terms of affirming my gender medically, I felt has been necessary. Nothing has been cosmetic for me. It's
all been necessary. But I am more than my body, and trans people are more than our bodies. Another thing I wanted to say, and I was talking to my friend, our lady J about this. Oh you know, I used to have this belief and still part of me still.
Does, you know.
I'm like, I'm old school that like early transition, trans people should not be on TV or in the public eye, and the Internet has just changed all that, you know. I just think about me and early transition, I just was a mess and that's okay. We have a right to be messy in our lives, to figure ourselves out. But like so often, likes people are sort of made to speak for the entire community, or like we are held up. It's like when we're public figures to sort
of represent the whole community, and that's not fair. But we should have a space to be able to be messy and to be imperfect.
But the stakes just get really.
High in a really anti trans world, and it's like deeply anti trans right now. So that's part of why I think, you know, have thought that, but then that ship is sailed. There are lots of trans folks who document their transitions online, and I think that's a wonderful resource for other trans people. If you're not trans, it's like kind of weird, you know. I think it is what it is, though some trans people just want to
publicly document that and that should be okay. We just have like we just live in a really transphobic world that like wants to dehumanize us. So it's like the piece around having a conversation about my body today is like how do I do it in a way? And I hope that I've been able to have a conversation about my body that doesn't dehueize me and other trans people.
Our bodies matter paraphrasing JUDEH. Butler and that iconic book from the nineties, And like when I say my body, I'm talking about my nervous system, I'm talking.
About my skin, my nails, my.
Secondary sexual characteristics, my energy levels, my cortisoli release, my adrenaline.
My thoughts are part of my body.
All those things matter, and access to healthcare to take care of these bodies.
As you get older. It's I've gotten older.
I'm like, oh my god, it's so important to like take care of this body, you know, if I want to be around for a while.
So this body matters.
But it's not the sum total of everything that I am. Yeah, I'm grateful that I'm digging my body today, I just wonder about if I were white with my relationship to my body, and like my whiteness would be would I'd be able to look at like the privileges that at being white in culture would afford me, would be able
to look at that? And then I also think about aging and like being black and how wonderful, how wonderful it is aging as an African American, Like I think that's it's been really dope for me.
I love being black and fifty.
And like, you know, thank you Melanin, And I like to end every podcast with the question what else is true?
Oh my gosh?
And for me today, what else is true? The thing that gets me through the resource that I have? I have idan Terry Muglaire arriving today that I'm excited about. I have a weekend planned with my boyfriend that I'm really excited about. I'm excited about life outside of work, outside of you know, accomplishments, and define myself a lot
historically about like outside markers of success. And what else is true for me today is that, like I'm just really excited to like play dress up for myself and to see my boyfriend.
And spend quality time with him, and to.
Have a life outside of work and.
Not be overly defined by like my job.
I hope I've been able to have this conversation about my body, the various lenses that I see my body through that the world sees my body through in a way that is humanizing. And so yeah, LaVerne's diary entry, Laverne just thoughts.
Thoughts about my body.
And I hope that this conversation inspires everyone out there to think about their relationship to their bodies and relationship to fat phobia, racism, anti blackness, colorism. You know, are there ways for us to talk about our bodies, particularly as trans people. And I think it's really about the lens, right, I can do this on this podcast and frame it in a certain way, because you know, I'm not being filtered through some other cystender gaze or patriarchal gaze or
white supremacist gaze. I'm hopefully decentering those ways of looking. And I think that's really what it's about, disentering those ways of seeing ourselves and each other, and then we can have conversations that think about our bodies. So yeah, something to think about seeing ourselves through non colonized eyes, or you know, as much as we can, right, as much as I can, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
That's what it's about, I think. And then hopefully we can look in the mirror and all see the beauty that we possess in all of our bodies, because our bodies are not an apology in our bodies manner, and they are beautiful.
They're beautiful.
Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please like, subscribe and tell everybody you know about this podcast. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, stay in the loud. The Laverne Cox Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.