Photo by Katherine Warren
Gay, transgender, straight -- no one is "just one thing," according to a critically acclaimed actress and African-American transgender woman who keynoted this week's 23rd annual Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC) at Illinois State University's Braden Auditorium.
Laverne Cox, who plays Sophia Burset, an incarcerated transgender woman in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black, received a standing ovation from the Bone Student Center audience.
“I stand before you an artist and an actress, a sister, and a daughter," Cox told the gathering, which assembled for informational sessions and entertainment at the regional conference. "And I believe it’s important to name the various intersecting components of my multiple identities because I’m not just one thing and neither are you."
Cox greeted the crowd with the words of the noted abolitionist Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a woman.” She noted Truth originally spoke those words when a crowd of people accused her of being a man, exposing her breasts as proof of her femininity.
Cox discussed the challenges she has faced and the shame she hid over most of her life. Cox was born in Mobile, Alabama, and has a twin brother, M Lamar, who portrays the pre-transitioning Sophia in Orange Is the New Black. Cox stated she attempted suicide at the age of 11, when she noticed that she had developed feelings about her male classmates and had been bullied for several years for not acting "the way someone assigned male at birth was supposed to act." She is a graduate of the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama where she studied creative writing before switching to dance, and Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, New York, where she switched from dancing to acting.
Not In Our Town: Bloomington-Normal's Arlene Hosea discusses the group's anti-bigotry/anti-bullying efforts with students during the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference. Photo by Camille Taylor.
Cox now speaks and writes about transgender rights and other current affairs in a variety of media outlets, such as the Huffington Post.
“All of the challenging things that have happened to me have made me who I am and I think they also made me more sensitive to other people’s issues because I’ve gone through some stuff,” Cox said.
Cox urged the community to create "spaces of healing" to minimize the damage caused by cruelty and bigotry.
Cox will return on February 25 to speak at ISU. Tickets are available for free to ISU students and staff in the Bone Student Center Box Office, with a limit of four tickets per person. They will be free and available to the public starting February 16.