Speaker 1: Morning. Everybody is DJ n V Charlomagne the gout. We
Speaker 1: all to Breakfast Club. We got our co host with
Speaker 1: us this morning, Miss Jess Hilarius. That's right, and we
Speaker 1: have our special guests first time here. Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us, Laverne Cox Welcome, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I am so excited to be at the
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club. You have become such an important space for
Speaker 1: the culture on so many different levels, politically, in terms
Speaker 1: of music, and it's just lovely to be here in
Speaker 1: all of my multitudes. Yeah, thank you. That's what Jason said.
Speaker 1: That's what Jason said said we had reached out, So
Speaker 1: we reached out last year when my barbie came out,
Speaker 1: I was like, it would be great to come onto
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club and talk about the Laverne Cots barbie.
Speaker 1: I'm the first trans person to have a barbie created
Speaker 1: by and I thought it would be great, and I
Speaker 1: sold it would block because and I and I think
Speaker 1: this audience is really valuable. And I think this audience, um,
Speaker 1: I was, I was talking to Jason about this, and
Speaker 1: I think there's there's there's I don't like to say
Speaker 1: there's white media and black media, but like a lot
Speaker 1: of the work that I've done, the audiences have been diverse,
Speaker 1: but a lot it's been a majority white audience. And
Speaker 1: I'm working at e now and it's definitely a diverse
Speaker 1: audience there, but there's this is a black audience and
Speaker 1: I I'm black and I love being black, and this
Speaker 1: black excellence is I'm doing things out here, and I
Speaker 1: think that it's important for this audience to know that
Speaker 1: that was about this because it's given black superhero. Thank you, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for it's this is so this is Manfrey
Speaker 1: Terry Muglair. It's vantage is from his Fall Fall Um
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine Buick Winter collection, obviously inspired by motorcycles,
Speaker 1: inspired by cars. Terry mcglair actually has an exhibit at
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Museum right now. If people will like this, there's
Speaker 1: something in the exhibit that's similar to this. I collect
Speaker 1: enters Terry muglare So yes, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: You have to kind of see the whole stand up
Speaker 1: sounds too rich for my blood. Listen my favorite pieces.
Speaker 1: Thank you for asking I collect Muglair. I'm obsessed in
Speaker 1: a good way. I think maybe unhealthy. Um, they should
Speaker 1: be giving you free stuff a whole um because Megan
Speaker 1: the Stallion has a line and planed b Mugler's suits
Speaker 1: in my meetings, and she m in the video she's
Speaker 1: wearing all Muglaire Now. Kasey Kadwalder is the executive director
Speaker 1: of Muglair. Now, mister Muglair died who founded the company,
Speaker 1: but it's run beautifully now by Casey um Burnby took
Speaker 1: over here because he just knows Target and Walmart t
Speaker 1: shirts Lair. The girls are wearing Muglaire, the boys are
Speaker 1: wearing Muglaire. That non binary people are wearing Muglair. Feel
Speaker 1: the fan, Anessey, Honey, and get into it. Learn it.
Speaker 1: I get on the bike though, y'all just gonna wait
Speaker 1: a movie. I ain't going I am not getting on
Speaker 1: a bike. Years ago, when I was a waitress, so this,
Speaker 1: I met this guy. I used to work at Coffee
Speaker 1: Shopping Union Square. I remember Coffee Shopping Square. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember the coffee shop. I used to be a
Speaker 1: waitress there and I met this guy. And like you know,
Speaker 1: when I was a waitress, I was young, in my twenties.
Speaker 1: I would meet guys at work. Yeah, and then the
Speaker 1: dude and he waited for me get off from work
Speaker 1: and he wanted to go hang out and he had
Speaker 1: to hit a motorcycle and I was like, sweetie, I'm
Speaker 1: not getting on this motorcycle. I was like, you can
Speaker 1: pay for me for a cab and then we can
Speaker 1: meet at the diner. Yeah. He got me a taxi
Speaker 1: and we met at the diner. I was not getting
Speaker 1: on that motorcycle. I had no interest now for a
Speaker 1: movie role. I'll do almost anything for a movie roll.
Speaker 1: So if someone wants to pay me, I'll get on
Speaker 1: a motorcycle. Okay, yeah, I think one wants to pay me. That.
Speaker 1: So many of us when you were acting on Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told you when I first met you with the
Speaker 1: iHeart Music Festival. He was backstage and I came up
Speaker 1: with you and I was like, yo, I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: I used to you know. I still love Oranges the
Speaker 1: New Block. Thank you. So acting is what you really
Speaker 1: really want to do, that's your passion. It absolutely is,
Speaker 1: and I'm still acting. Um. Last year a lot of
Speaker 1: people saw me Inventing Anna, which was a huge show
Speaker 1: on Netflix. UM. I played Casey Duke in that. UM.
Speaker 1: I have a guest spot in something that I can't
Speaker 1: talk about yet, but it's really cool, and we're prepping
Speaker 1: to do a show UM with Norman lear the legendary
Speaker 1: Norman Leer, and I'll talk over here as well, UM
Speaker 1: called Clean Slate. George Wallace, the legendary comedian, plays my Dad.
Speaker 1: It's said in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama. It's a
Speaker 1: comedy and it's about this woman who goes back home
Speaker 1: and tries to reconnect with her dad after many years
Speaker 1: of being away. So we start shooting that it's Havannah
Speaker 1: next month. Oh my god, I don't think it's Eara
Speaker 1: Ready for Norman Lea a comedy. Norman Liars the Jeffersons
Speaker 1: and uh good Time, Well Ready in Time. One Day
Speaker 1: to Time did really well, and he has he has
Speaker 1: new shows. Norman is one hundred years old and he's
Speaker 1: still producing shows and people are watching. So as long
Speaker 1: as they watch, and we're gonna be as long as
Speaker 1: they're watching. Yeah, Norman is amazing. He is. Getting to
Speaker 1: know him and just being in a room with him
Speaker 1: when we pitched the show to him ques just iconic.
Speaker 1: We sat in the room with him for like ninety
Speaker 1: minutes and after the meeting, he said he was ninety
Speaker 1: six of them. He said, I learned more about life
Speaker 1: in this last hour that I should have known that
Speaker 1: I didn't know. And I'm so grateful. And we started
Speaker 1: working together and pitching a show and it took years
Speaker 1: and now here we are. I want to go back.
Speaker 1: For people that don't know, this is Burncock's first time
Speaker 1: on a breakfast class. So how did you get into acting?
Speaker 1: What made you want to act? What got you into
Speaker 1: that mind frame as a kid? Break it down. I've
Speaker 1: I've always been a performer. So I started as a
Speaker 1: dancer and during PEE. So I'm fifty years old, so
Speaker 1: back in the day, right, but that's black. So back
Speaker 1: in the day there was PEE physical education and during PE,
Speaker 1: I would always dance and I would have I would
Speaker 1: have music in my head and I would have characters
Speaker 1: in my head and I would express these characters through movement.
Speaker 1: And so I started studying dance in third grade. But
Speaker 1: I always knew I wanted to act, that I would
Speaker 1: transition to acting. And when I got to college, I
Speaker 1: was a dance major at mary Mount Monhant College and
Speaker 1: started acting there. I did my first play there. I
Speaker 1: did a lot of stuff in that theater department there,
Speaker 1: and just that was in the nineties. I was like,
Speaker 1: I moved to New York in ninteen ninety three, so
Speaker 1: I've been acting like since college and did my first
Speaker 1: moving my senior year at Marymount in nineteen ninety s.
Speaker 1: I knew that's what you wanted to do. I always knew,
Speaker 1: but then I had. I finally accepted being trans when
Speaker 1: I was in nineteen ninety eight and started transitioning, and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, they're aren't any transactors, so I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can't really be an actor and
Speaker 1: be trans. And so I went to fashion school for
Speaker 1: three semesters. I went to f I T and then
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't really want to do this.
Speaker 1: I love fashionbon I don't want to do it. And
Speaker 1: then like, I did a few more movies, just auditioned
Speaker 1: and got a few dependent films, and then I started
Speaker 1: training seriously with this woman named Susan Batts and who
Speaker 1: was an iconic acting coach. She's trained Oprah and Juliet
Speaker 1: Bnosh and Jamie Fox everybody, and she has a great
Speaker 1: studio here in New York. And I got really serious
Speaker 1: about acting and I just went for it, and it
Speaker 1: took years and years and years, but finally, basically twenty
Speaker 1: years after I moved to New York, I got my
Speaker 1: big break in Orange New Black. That was auditioning for that,
Speaker 1: because you know, at first, I'm sure people didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: SA so I don't know if Laverne fits this or
Speaker 1: how difficult was that being turned down. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was years of nots. I mean the reason why it
Speaker 1: took twenty years is that there were no roles for me.
Speaker 1: So at Susan's studio, she would have industry nights and
Speaker 1: I would audition for casting directors and agents and they'd
Speaker 1: be like, you're very talented, but there's no roles for
Speaker 1: you your trans It's like, maybe you should move to
Speaker 1: la And so it was. It was constantly that, and
Speaker 1: every once in a while trans something or drag thing
Speaker 1: would come up. And a lot of times in the
Speaker 1: beginning when I was auditioning, it would say drag queen,
Speaker 1: but I would just go in and they didn't know
Speaker 1: the difference between drag and trans and I would book
Speaker 1: or I wouldn't book. And so for years there just
Speaker 1: weren't roles for me. And so when the Orange's New
Speaker 1: Black Audition came along. I actually was going to stop acting.
Speaker 1: I turned forty that year, so this was eleven years ago.
Speaker 1: It was twenty twelve. I turned forty. The big break
Speaker 1: hadn't happened. I was like, well, girl, you're forty, you're black,
Speaker 1: you're trans. Who do you think you're kidding? Thinking you
Speaker 1: can do this? And I was studying from my gr
Speaker 1: e to go to grad school. Um, I was in
Speaker 1: student loan dead. It was a mess. Girl. I was
Speaker 1: in renterrears like I was in a payment plan to
Speaker 1: avoid eviction from my apartment. It's a girl, right when
Speaker 1: I said, I love that girl. Girl is ginger neutral.
Speaker 1: So girl is ginger neutral, like a lot of people say, dude,
Speaker 1: and this ginger neutral girl is ginger neutral for me.
Speaker 1: So everybody's girl time. So it was so. But the
Speaker 1: great thing about when the Orange Audition it happened is
Speaker 1: that even though it was a struggle, I had been
Speaker 1: an acting class every week because I loved it. And
Speaker 1: this is what I say to people. If you want
Speaker 1: to be an actor and you don't love it, you
Speaker 1: should do something else because you're going to be too old,
Speaker 1: too young, too short, too thin to trans do black
Speaker 1: too white, and so all the rejection, I kept loving it,
Speaker 1: and so I kept even though I kind of gave
Speaker 1: up hope. I kept going to class because I love acting.
Speaker 1: And so when the audition came along, I did the
Speaker 1: one audition, I booked it. And then this juicy role
Speaker 1: came along, and this beautiful writing, and I was prepared.
Speaker 1: I was ready because I had trained, I had done
Speaker 1: independent films for free, student films for free. I did
Speaker 1: everything I could to get experienced, and so when this
Speaker 1: opportunity came, I was ready. And I and I love
Speaker 1: the Oprah sets this as this thing is luck. Luck
Speaker 1: is only when preparation meets opportunity. And when my opportunity came,
Speaker 1: I was prepared. And I'm still here, and I still
Speaker 1: love what I do, and I get to do so
Speaker 1: many different things now. I love that I'm an actor,
Speaker 1: but I also get to host rick carpets and I
Speaker 1: have an interview show. It's amazing. That's what I want
Speaker 1: to ask. Do you like one more than the other?
Speaker 1: Do you like being in a live red carpet space
Speaker 1: more than you do like what? Because because then we
Speaker 1: get to see your personality, we get to see like
Speaker 1: how you bond with other celebrities and like certain questions
Speaker 1: and stuff that you ask, like do you like being
Speaker 1: in that? I love it. I didn't think I would
Speaker 1: when they and when he approached me, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I hosted their countdown show in twenty twenty and had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun doing it, and then they asked
Speaker 1: me to, you know, be their new red carpets And
Speaker 1: it's like, do I want to do this? And will
Speaker 1: people forget that I act? And acting has always been that.
Speaker 1: Even though I've always said a lot of different things,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm an actor first and that's what
Speaker 1: I prioritize and that's why people even care about me.
Speaker 1: But I love it. I love it. I love it
Speaker 1: because we get to have fun on the red carpet.
Speaker 1: I love the fashion piece of it and we laugh,
Speaker 1: but we also can get to have space at the Grammars.
Speaker 1: Recently I interviewed Machine Gun Kelly and he came to
Speaker 1: the carpet really vulnerable. It was intense. I was like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? It was a different energy than too,
Speaker 1: and he was he was really emotional. He found out
Speaker 1: in the car on the way way there that he
Speaker 1: had lost the Grammy and he was planning to win,
Speaker 1: and he had built up Basically, he said that he
Speaker 1: had built up like all of this. I'm going to
Speaker 1: prove people wrong and I'm going to be valid now
Speaker 1: because I've won this Grammy and he didn't win it,
Speaker 1: and he actually had the courage to be vulnerable and
Speaker 1: admit that and on live television, and it was a
Speaker 1: beautiful raw moment. And I love being the whole space
Speaker 1: for that. I have a show with E called if
Speaker 1: We're Being Honest that's on Peacock and it's an interview show.
Speaker 1: When I get the whole space for a complexity, for
Speaker 1: people's humanity. We laugh, we cry at this great interview
Speaker 1: with Joe Ky where we like talked about him kind
Speaker 1: of repeating a pattern that his father sort of you know,
Speaker 1: walked out on him. And then he talks in his
Speaker 1: book about how he kind of like wasn't there for
Speaker 1: his kid and how he repeated that pattern, but then
Speaker 1: how he interrupted it and he was in tears thinking
Speaker 1: about this mother. There's this beautiful moment in his book
Speaker 1: where he talks about going to he was in conflict
Speaker 1: with his ex wife who was a father of his child.
Speaker 1: And he goes and she's like, she's broken open a
Speaker 1: piggy bank and she's like, you know, looking, you know,
Speaker 1: looking for change to buy food. And he's like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing. She's like, I don't have enough money
Speaker 1: to buy food for your child. And he saw it
Speaker 1: in that moment. They had been fighting. He saw in
Speaker 1: this moment and then he broke down and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna let you go through this again. And
Speaker 1: it's such a powerful moment in the book. And I
Speaker 1: asked him about that moment, and it was a moment
Speaker 1: where he had been repeating the pattern of his absentee father,
Speaker 1: but he broke that pattern in that moment. And this
Speaker 1: is the shit I love. This is the stuff I
Speaker 1: love where we can like have real moments to interrupt
Speaker 1: patterns of historical trauma. You talk about that all the time.
Speaker 1: I love moments when we can have revelations and understand
Speaker 1: something new about ourselves with the guests them speaking with
Speaker 1: and then hopefully the audience. And so I love being
Speaker 1: an actor, but I feel like that's it's the same
Speaker 1: thing as an actor. As an actor, what we do
Speaker 1: is we mind the depths of who we are as
Speaker 1: human beings and hopefully create empathy for these characters so
Speaker 1: that people can learn about themselves. Ultimately, people don't watch
Speaker 1: television to you know, watch you. They watch to see
Speaker 1: themselves to learn about themselves. And so in all the
Speaker 1: work that I get to do, it's all really about that.
Speaker 1: It's a space of healing. You're always sending healing energy
Speaker 1: to everyone, and we need a lot of healing in
Speaker 1: this world and not what my job, I feel is
Speaker 1: as an artist and as a public person is to
Speaker 1: create these spaces of healing. That's why I encourage therapy
Speaker 1: so much, because I feel like it interrupts those patterns
Speaker 1: that you're talking about good therapy. I've been in therapy
Speaker 1: since two thousand, for twenty three years. Sometimes people like
Speaker 1: does it dot work? Why are you still in there
Speaker 1: for twenty three years? And I may just still needed
Speaker 1: things that happen. It's a process. It's not like healing
Speaker 1: isn't like I got it and it's done. You know,
Speaker 1: when the pandemic happened in twenty twenty, I was just
Speaker 1: stuff hit me that I didn't even and I've been
Speaker 1: in therapy obviously, but at that point for twenty years.
Speaker 1: But like the voices when you're by yourself all the time,
Speaker 1: those voices that like tell me you that you're not enough,
Speaker 1: that they come back and you and you had to
Speaker 1: do a different level of work. But what's so exciting
Speaker 1: about the work that I've done in therapy over the
Speaker 1: years is that I can hold space in an interview
Speaker 1: for complexity and for someone being raw. I can hold
Speaker 1: space in the romantic relationships and my friendships that I
Speaker 1: can that love. It's in my life right now and
Speaker 1: I can show up for it. You know. I was
Speaker 1: talking to a dear friend of mine and she was
Speaker 1: and she was I was asking you about her love life,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I need to be in therapy
Speaker 1: before I try to be in another relationship. She was like,
Speaker 1: I think the last guy was a good guy, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to handle it. And I think
Speaker 1: so often this good thing might come to us romantically,
Speaker 1: professionally and we might not be able to receive it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that moment, This is such an iconic
Speaker 1: moment for me, when um Oprah was ending her talk
Speaker 1: show and she interviewed Eyan La van Zande. Do we
Speaker 1: remember this moment? We should go and watched when they
Speaker 1: had their healing moment and and Oprah was like, because
Speaker 1: Oprah was like, I did you understand I was sat
Speaker 1: in the audience that I had you on stage and um,
Speaker 1: I won't go in through the whole history of but
Speaker 1: they had a falling out and Oprah was like, did
Speaker 1: you not understand that? How I you know? I trusted
Speaker 1: you on my show to beyond you know, be on
Speaker 1: stage in my show. She and Janna said I couldn't
Speaker 1: receive it. She was like, I was broken, I'm ghetto,
Speaker 1: I was this, and then she literal She said it
Speaker 1: like four times and she was almost in tears. I
Speaker 1: couldn't receive it. And the last time she said I
Speaker 1: couldn't receive the Oprah's like, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1: So we have to get ourselves ready to receive the
Speaker 1: blessings that the universe has for us. Waiting for us
Speaker 1: in therapy is a great way to do that. I
Speaker 1: think therapy um for people people are struggling with addiction.
Speaker 1: I think if you can't afford therapy, there are twelve
Speaker 1: step programs out there for people to go that are free,
Speaker 1: and there's it's nice to not just drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1: There's codependency, UM twelve steps, there's um debtors anonymous girl,
Speaker 1: go get your go, get your hell, girl, you can heal.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about the red carbon thing
Speaker 1: because I wanted to ask what did you learn in
Speaker 1: the moment with Will and Jada, Like, after you received
Speaker 1: a backlash and everything, what did you learn? Oh? Hey,
Speaker 1: they um to be really brutally honest. I learned. I
Speaker 1: learned a few things. I learned that the world was
Speaker 1: not ready for the evolved relationship that they were presenting us.
Speaker 1: Because when I, you know, I just jokingly said, you know,
Speaker 1: we're looking for, you know, more entanglements. I love read
Speaker 1: table talk. I love this mess. And people thought I
Speaker 1: was being shady and like and I talked to Jada afterwards.
Speaker 1: She was fine, she thought it was funny. But the
Speaker 1: world interpreted it as mess. The world saw so much
Speaker 1: of what they had put out about their relationship in
Speaker 1: an open, honest way. They I feel like their intention
Speaker 1: was for us to heal, for us to see a
Speaker 1: different way to do relationships that wasn't like this traditional thing,
Speaker 1: and the world made it into mess, and that the
Speaker 1: world wasn't ready that it was constantly they were they
Speaker 1: were the world was like wanting to make it into
Speaker 1: something that they weren't giving us. And it also reminded
Speaker 1: me that when you make your relationship, um public, it
Speaker 1: becomes entertainment for people, and it's not They're not real people,
Speaker 1: and so I'm going to keep my stuff private. Um.
Speaker 1: So it was that piece of the entertainment pizza. But
Speaker 1: it's also like, oh, the world isn't ready for this
Speaker 1: evolved relationship that they presented us with, and that made
Speaker 1: me sad. And I think it means that we just
Speaker 1: have more work to do around letting go of um,
Speaker 1: traditional heteronormative, monogamous ideas about what a relationship should look like.
Speaker 1: I think everyone can do relationships on their own terms
Speaker 1: and should do relationships on their own terms, and I
Speaker 1: think they're doing that and the people just don't get it.
Speaker 1: How did you deal with it with all the social
Speaker 1: media and the backlash, and you know, because social media
Speaker 1: would be a nasty place, they gave you a lot
Speaker 1: of small There was oh my god, it was I
Speaker 1: watched one video I won't say who I watched, and
Speaker 1: the first thing went in and I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not watching anything else, so and I just didn't just
Speaker 1: let were not even don't girl, No, I didn't, okay,
Speaker 1: but I just stopped. I just stopped that you don't.
Speaker 1: This has happened, luckily, I'm this has happened before when
Speaker 1: I did when I did rock Here a picture show,
Speaker 1: and when I was cast in that, and there was
Speaker 1: just an outrage and an uproar. I just stopped watching
Speaker 1: and stopped reading. I just didn't engage with it at all.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what I have to do. I
Speaker 1: have to just not engage with it and understand that
Speaker 1: it's not about me. And I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: feel misunderstood though when to feel that piece is very difficult.
Speaker 1: But I have to remind myself who I am. I
Speaker 1: have to remind myself what my intentions are and not engage.
Speaker 1: But I also think there's it's tricky for me because
Speaker 1: I also think one needs to be open for feedback.
Speaker 1: One needs to be open to receive criticism when it's
Speaker 1: in good faith. So that's what I have to balance
Speaker 1: because I'm not above reproach and I've made mistakes. My
Speaker 1: prayer today, my prayer every day is God, give me
Speaker 1: permission to do this imperfectly and allow me to be
Speaker 1: of service. So it's not it's not gonna be perfect,
Speaker 1: and I'm a perfectionist in a bad way. So I
Speaker 1: have to let go of that and hopefully I'll be
Speaker 1: of service. And so I can't. I have to be
Speaker 1: able to balance like getting getting critique from trustedsources that
Speaker 1: elevates me and makes me better and holding myself accountable
Speaker 1: and being held accountable. Right, we all have to do that,
Speaker 1: but then not allowing trolls and people who don't have
Speaker 1: the best of intentions and are operating in good faith
Speaker 1: not letting that in. Yeah, I'm gonna be able to distinguish.
Speaker 1: So I go through that still to this day. And
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to also ask you to so
Speaker 1: I you know, being a comedian, we we often speak
Speaker 1: on that nothing is off limits, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like we speak on things that you know, people in
Speaker 1: this in these days these days and times may take
Speaker 1: a total different way than we're trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: put it out there. Has do you think that because
Speaker 1: a comedian has a joke about LGBT that they're homophobic?
Speaker 1: Like do you like, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: Because I got a lot of jokes about the LGBT,
Speaker 1: but I have a lot of jokes about straight people too. Yeah, everybody.
Speaker 1: I think it's really complicated. I interviewed um Cameron Espizto
Speaker 1: on my show if We're being honest, and Cameron's a
Speaker 1: non binary stand up comic, and Cameron thinks you should
Speaker 1: be able to joke about anything. But Cameron also said
Speaker 1: that a lot of comedians who have problems who's saying
Speaker 1: they're always being canceled and they can't aren't allowed to
Speaker 1: joke anymore, aren't used to getting feedback. Cameron said, like,
Speaker 1: since I've stepped since I stepped on a stage, Cameron's
Speaker 1: assigned female at birth, it's non binary. Cameron is like,
Speaker 1: ever since I stepped on the stage as a stand up,
Speaker 1: I've been getting feedback. And Cameron said, you've probably been
Speaker 1: getting feedback since you stepped on the public stage. And
Speaker 1: these people, I think they're not used to getting feedback
Speaker 1: and so feedback so so so there's that piece. And
Speaker 1: I think too that one can say something or do
Speaker 1: something that may be homophobic or racist and not be racist, right,
Speaker 1: But there's a difference between I am like a statement
Speaker 1: of um Brene Brown distinguishers between shame and guilt is
Speaker 1: shame is I am a mistake, and guilt is I
Speaker 1: made a mistake right. So I think that's an important
Speaker 1: distinction to make that someone can unknowingly right say something
Speaker 1: or do something that's um that's transphobic and not be transphobic.
Speaker 1: I was on set for a show that I was
Speaker 1: doing many years ago and M, one of my coworkers
Speaker 1: who I adore and we're still friends to this day,
Speaker 1: said the T word, the T word that ends with
Speaker 1: a why. And I wasn't I wasn't upset by it,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I understood in that moment that
Speaker 1: this my coworker didn't understand that a lot of trans
Speaker 1: people would take that as a slur. Yah. See, you
Speaker 1: didn't know, and a lot of people don't know. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, girl, just so you know, I'm cool,
Speaker 1: but a lot of transpolkes if you said that word
Speaker 1: would have a problem. And she was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. She sent me flowers.
Speaker 1: It's like, girls, it's not that serious. No, she just
Speaker 1: didn't know. And I think we need to be able
Speaker 1: to give people grace when they don't know and give
Speaker 1: them space to evolve. And I'm not language police either.
Speaker 1: I'm not a language police either, but I think that
Speaker 1: things can be I think transphobia exists, and then there
Speaker 1: are many comics who say really transphobic things. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe they are transphobic, but what they're doing is
Speaker 1: transphobic phobic. So it's just like something just like with racism, right,
Speaker 1: Like I could think somebody can do something racist or
Speaker 1: say something racist, not necessarily intending it in a certain way.
Speaker 1: They're worth that we might not even know are problematic
Speaker 1: and we just don't know, but it is racist, it
Speaker 1: is transphobic. So a thing can be a thing, and
Speaker 1: we can call a thing a thing. And for me,
Speaker 1: it's about people evolving, giving people space to evolve. I'm
Speaker 1: not into like canceling people in cancel culture doesn't really
Speaker 1: about comedians though, because there is a difference between feedback
Speaker 1: and backlash, and I think a lot of comedians think
Speaker 1: they're getting backlash and comedians thrive off of that, but
Speaker 1: actual feedback, like who's thriving off of it? Um that
Speaker 1: can think of he loves he loves someone. I don't
Speaker 1: the transphobic and I wonder how much of it is
Speaker 1: actual feedback as opposed to backlash. Like there are people
Speaker 1: who will take the time to teach, you know, like
Speaker 1: a sloop like my man David Johns, he'll take the
Speaker 1: time to teach, but a lot of times they don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're teaching. They're just upset. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: I think it's a piece of like not being comfortable
Speaker 1: getting feedback or wanting to. I mean, for you, it's
Speaker 1: a comic. I mean, I mean, have you been criticized
Speaker 1: your critique for some of your LGBTQ definitely, most definitely.
Speaker 1: But it made me. I was mad. I was very
Speaker 1: upset because I'm like, how can you say I'm homophobic?
Speaker 1: Homophobic because of this and because of that? And then
Speaker 1: and then it comes to thing of like if you say,
Speaker 1: oh yo, you know my brother gay or I got
Speaker 1: a gay best friend, then they still put you in
Speaker 1: a box like well that's like that's like yeah, and
Speaker 1: which I hate what oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's people
Speaker 1: always you know, say I was born a man and
Speaker 1: all that, and I hate that. And how does that
Speaker 1: make you feel? How did it make you feel when
Speaker 1: people when people as as as as a non trans woman.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I really do not get upset.
Speaker 1: I know I have that I don't. I don't get upset.
Speaker 1: I honestly have never got upset. I actually started putting
Speaker 1: it in my jokes. But it's other people that were
Speaker 1: a lot of black women for a lot of black
Speaker 1: women get upset about that. Yeah, I'm gonna be totally
Speaker 1: honest with you. No, I didn't get upset for that.
Speaker 1: I got upset that I called this this guy he
Speaker 1: was LGBT. He called me the T word that ended
Speaker 1: with a why, And I called him the F word,
Speaker 1: and I felt like and and but it was blue,
Speaker 1: I said. I felt like, all right, slur for slur
Speaker 1: and and he's like, oh, you know, everybody's like, you're
Speaker 1: not a part of the community. You can't say that.
Speaker 1: It gives him the right to tell me that I'm
Speaker 1: a T word, Like you didn't know. He was being smart.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly that I was a woman, that you
Speaker 1: know that I'm born a woman and a woman. But like,
Speaker 1: I got mad that. I didn't get mad that he
Speaker 1: even called me that. I got upset because it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: you called me that, and I can't call you this,
Speaker 1: like I don't like that. I just I can't. I can't.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get with that, Like, Yo, you hit
Speaker 1: me below the belt and and you weren't saying it
Speaker 1: because you were you really thought that you said it
Speaker 1: because you knew that something like oh yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: there's I think it's it was it Umm one of
Speaker 1: the city girls who just has a lyric about like
Speaker 1: pretty like transgender, like we it's It shouldn't be an
Speaker 1: insult to say that someone I mean, look at me, right,
Speaker 1: but it shouldn't be an insult to say that someone
Speaker 1: looks trans it's trans is beautiful, but right transit hashtag
Speaker 1: trans is beautiful. But let's not. Let's not like really
Speaker 1: like not look at how it was bought too, Like
Speaker 1: it was brought to me like he was being smart.
Speaker 1: It wasn't brought to oh you are pretty, and I
Speaker 1: think it wasn't like, well, it's deep to me about that.
Speaker 1: Just historically, I love looking at history. There is a
Speaker 1: history in America. I think this is why it's tricky
Speaker 1: for a lot of black women when just the exist
Speaker 1: since of trans women, particularly black trans women. But then
Speaker 1: when non trans women are called trans or say they
Speaker 1: look trans. There's a whole history of discounting the womanhood
Speaker 1: of black women in the United States of America. Wins
Speaker 1: the journal Truth declared a I woman in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: one in Ohio. She did that in the context of
Speaker 1: a system that said if you are black, then you're
Speaker 1: a man, and if you're a woman, you're a white woman.
Speaker 1: And so she was invisibilized in that system. And there
Speaker 1: is a history of that in the United States. And
Speaker 1: black women have different bills and different bodies shapes, and
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, but there's that history that we have to
Speaker 1: reckon with. And I think that, like so much of
Speaker 1: transphobia in well in America and all over the world,
Speaker 1: a lot of it in the black community, I think
Speaker 1: it is also about just colonialism in general and the
Speaker 1: impact of like racism on our community, the historic emasculation
Speaker 1: of black men, Like there's there's been literally during when
Speaker 1: black men were lynched, they would you know, their genitals
Speaker 1: were cut off, And there's that whole history that we're
Speaker 1: trying to sort of reckon with as Americans. That's deeply painful,
Speaker 1: and trans people like represent that. I think for some
Speaker 1: black folks, that history that trauma, and then I think it.
Speaker 1: I always believe if you have a problem with somebody
Speaker 1: else being themselves, it's something inside of you that's not
Speaker 1: quite right. And and that's why our healing journey is
Speaker 1: so important. I think, like, um, I say on my
Speaker 1: podcast that like I think fifty percent, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there are systems in place. Racism is a system. Transphole
Speaker 1: b as a system. We're all like raised in these
Speaker 1: systems and are affected and internalize these things that we
Speaker 1: have to unlearn if we want to decolonize our minds
Speaker 1: and liberate ourselves. But what's my fifty percent? I am
Speaker 1: responsible ultimately for my life. I'm responsible for how I feel.
Speaker 1: I've never been a victim and your own healing, and
Speaker 1: I'm responsible to my own healing if you didn't, even
Speaker 1: if you didn't cause your own trauma, I'm a sponsible
Speaker 1: for my hand as an adult. As an adult, and
Speaker 1: I think too, when in that moment being using that
Speaker 1: f sler, you were mad, I was like that reaction
Speaker 1: took and for me, I was I I've decided. Many
Speaker 1: years ago, I had an incident in a gay club
Speaker 1: and I was I was co hosting an event and
Speaker 1: I used the F word. I said, used some loud
Speaker 1: F words. This was years ago. After the show, these
Speaker 1: two black gay men came up to me and read
Speaker 1: me for They read me for filth and I'm there
Speaker 1: with my friend Ari, May he rest in peace and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, we're reclaiming that word and I'm trans
Speaker 1: and they were like not having it. And I talked
Speaker 1: to my friend Ari and iself right because I was like,
Speaker 1: we're reclaiming that word. We're taking the power away from
Speaker 1: that word, and Ari was like absolutely. And I talked
Speaker 1: to my brother. My brother is identified as a practicing homosexual.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like the word gay. He thinks it's a
Speaker 1: white bourgeois construct and he prefers the idea of practiced orition. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're twins, and I talked to my brother about it,
Speaker 1: and I expected my brother would be like, yeah, they
Speaker 1: were crazy and they were wrong. And my brother was like,
Speaker 1: that's not your word to reclaim. It's like but no,
Speaker 1: but no, it's like, that's not your word to reclaim.
Speaker 1: And then he said it a third time and then
Speaker 1: I started crying. Yeah, because I had to admit that
Speaker 1: I said something that was hurtful. I saw the hurt
Speaker 1: in their eyes and I didn't. I immediately became defensive,
Speaker 1: and that defensiveness I get, but like that that uncomfortability,
Speaker 1: that that moment of sitting with like I hurt somebody
Speaker 1: and I didn't intend to, but I hurt somebody and
Speaker 1: that felt awful. So that's how it was for me
Speaker 1: when the whole community felt like what felt like the
Speaker 1: whole community was because like that's like half of my
Speaker 1: fan base LGBC, like what my community has come hard
Speaker 1: for me too, and it's and then sometimes it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: I know, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean to
Speaker 1: hurt all of y'all. You know what they're trying to
Speaker 1: hurt that I try to hurt that one person because
Speaker 1: he was trying and only because he was trying to
Speaker 1: hurt me, not even oh I think this way about
Speaker 1: like nah, And it was like it was kind of
Speaker 1: hard to come back from. That was the I was
Speaker 1: the first social media influencer to be canceled and then
Speaker 1: by such a big community of people who supported me.
Speaker 1: And what's the healing for you? What's what's the healing
Speaker 1: for you? Because I think for me, I think like
Speaker 1: is there I would I want to be in a
Speaker 1: moment where someone I let someone have me go out
Speaker 1: of character to insult them. That that's something That's what
Speaker 1: I think. But for you, has there been healing around that?
Speaker 1: Has there been? Because I think the what we don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of for me when somebody is quote
Speaker 1: unquote canceled is we don't see the evolution of what
Speaker 1: they've learned and how they've learned it, right, Like what
Speaker 1: did I learn from this situation? Like how did I
Speaker 1: hold myself accountable? What have I learned about it? That's
Speaker 1: what I think. This is what people need when when
Speaker 1: someone's been through the meal, like what have I learned
Speaker 1: from it? Whatever? You so what my like my apology
Speaker 1: was bad then because it was you know, that was
Speaker 1: the thing where you did somebody get canceled? You must
Speaker 1: apologize And then they called my apology backhanded like I
Speaker 1: said before, and vernam always think like this. I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: if you want me to respect you, you must respect me.
Speaker 1: You get what I'm saying, like you must you you
Speaker 1: are in this community, you can be whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It don't bother me. If you are the LGBT, it
Speaker 1: don't matter. You will respect me. As who I am
Speaker 1: and imna respect you as who you are. You could
Speaker 1: have said anything, Oh you ugly you d you called
Speaker 1: me that because that was gonna get a reaction, like
Speaker 1: you called me a slur that that if somebody said
Speaker 1: that to you, you would you hate it? Like you can't.
Speaker 1: That's an unspoken word. You can't. You set it yourself
Speaker 1: like other transgender can't even spew that word like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. You you said the F word
Speaker 1: them too, menday thing like that, like what you're a
Speaker 1: part of the community, you still can't say. You have
Speaker 1: to respect me if you want me to respect you.
Speaker 1: Like so, I want to apologize to the community. I said.
Speaker 1: I meant what I said to him. I said, man,
Speaker 1: y'all want me to respect. It starts with respect, no
Speaker 1: matter if you know the person or not. Everybody a
Speaker 1: human being. You're a human being first, That's what you
Speaker 1: are first. I hear you everything else, That's how I'm
Speaker 1: always be, But I hear you, man. Offer. I can't
Speaker 1: make anybody to anything. Absolutely. I can't make anybody respect me.
Speaker 1: I actually, like so much of my healing work around
Speaker 1: relationships is I can't make somebody love me. I can't
Speaker 1: make somebody treat me right. I can't make somebody see me.
Speaker 1: I can take myself out of the situation I can't
Speaker 1: take my I can put my myself in a situation
Speaker 1: where someone can see me, can respect me, and it's
Speaker 1: able to Some people aren't able to respect us because
Speaker 1: they don't respect themselves right. So like so I can't
Speaker 1: make somebody do something, and so like the whole um,
Speaker 1: you will respect me thing I'm like people, they might not,
Speaker 1: you know. I feel like I come with nothing but love,
Speaker 1: and I work my ass off, and there's so many
Speaker 1: people who are only going to see my transnis and
Speaker 1: never see the excellence, see the hard work, see the talent,
Speaker 1: and I can't make them do that. I can't make
Speaker 1: them do that. If you ever get tired of being
Speaker 1: I don't want to say the face, but the person
Speaker 1: that everybody comes to when it's a joke that people
Speaker 1: don't like, or when somebody says something in a lyric
Speaker 1: or spoke for me, you get tired of that. I'm
Speaker 1: not anymore. There's so many more of us. And what
Speaker 1: I what I love about my career and what I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of is that I'm the first openly trans
Speaker 1: person to be nominated for an acting in Me, and
Speaker 1: I'm not the last. I'm the first transperson to be
Speaker 1: on the cover of Time magazine, but I'm not the last.
Speaker 1: Um There's so many more trans people with the platform now.
Speaker 1: What I am frustrated by with these legislative attacks against
Speaker 1: trans people now is that people aren't talking to enough
Speaker 1: trans people. They're like lots of pundits and people who
Speaker 1: like talk about trans issues without a transperson insight. There
Speaker 1: used to be a time I'm old enough, where you know,
Speaker 1: people would talk about trans issues and actually bring on
Speaker 1: trans people to talk. I can't. What I've learned is
Speaker 1: I can't speak on every issue because it's exhausting. This
Speaker 1: stuff is also traumatizing. Transphobia is traumatizing, Racism is traumatizing,
Speaker 1: is traumatizing, and I can't live in that space. I
Speaker 1: can't live in that space all the time. And that
Speaker 1: twenty twenty taught me that too, Oh girl, trauma on
Speaker 1: top of trauma, So I have to sometimes I have
Speaker 1: to go away and not speak on those things. And
Speaker 1: I'm so blessed that I get to have a public
Speaker 1: platform where I don't talk about being trans at all
Speaker 1: where I get to go on the red carpet and
Speaker 1: I talk about artists in their work, and I go
Speaker 1: on my show and I talk about artists in their work,
Speaker 1: and so it's not it can't always be about that.
Speaker 1: I love being trans. Trans is beautiful. I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm not beautiful despite my big hands, my big feet,
Speaker 1: my white shoulder, was my deep voice. I'm beautiful because
Speaker 1: of those things, those things that make me noticeably trans.
Speaker 1: But I get to occupy spaces that where my transance
Speaker 1: is not the only thing. So I'm honored that I've
Speaker 1: been chosen, I think, by power greater than myself, to
Speaker 1: be a vessel for all of the visibility that trans
Speaker 1: people have now. And it used to feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. And I used to feel this obligation
Speaker 1: to speak up about everything. And now I pray to
Speaker 1: God that like i'd say thank you, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: can I wear this light more lightly and with more joy?
Speaker 1: And I'm getting there. I'm in, and I'm getting there
Speaker 1: by staying in the love. I started ending my emails
Speaker 1: like God twenty years ago, stay in the Love, to
Speaker 1: remind myself and my fellow artists that we got into
Speaker 1: this because we love it, not because the business part
Speaker 1: of being an artist is treacherous. But I love it,
Speaker 1: and I think love is always the solution. When I
Speaker 1: talked to coronerl West on my podcast, he said a
Speaker 1: lovely thing to me that I'm in the tradition of
Speaker 1: love warriors that we've had in the black community from
Speaker 1: you know, time memorium, Like he said, you know that,
Speaker 1: you know they hated us, but we have taught people
Speaker 1: how to love. It's black folks. We consistently do that,
Speaker 1: and like that. For me, it's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: It's about existing and inhabiting love and putting that out
Speaker 1: there and hopefully getting that back. And I think that
Speaker 1: is the only thing with all of the vitriol and
Speaker 1: policies that are being passed. They are attacking trans people,
Speaker 1: They're attacking like you know, ap African American studies and
Speaker 1: just all these things that we have to Education is important.
Speaker 1: I'd like to remind people that in everyone osis, but
Speaker 1: it's just good to be reminded that they didn't want
Speaker 1: slaves to read. They did not want if you learn
Speaker 1: to read as a slave, you would be be you
Speaker 1: would be killed. They did not want us to be educated.
Speaker 1: And right now you have a governor of Florida, governor
Speaker 1: of Texas who wants their banning books. They don't want
Speaker 1: you to learn about things. And so in this moment,
Speaker 1: like as black people, as marginalized people, we need to
Speaker 1: educate ourselves. We need to learn critical thinking to on
Speaker 1: the internet to figure out what's misinformation and what's not.
Speaker 1: That education and learning it's like, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a practice of freedom. Education has always been freedom for
Speaker 1: black folks, and it is now as well, and it's
Speaker 1: it's extended to trans people. Trans people, we've always been here.
Speaker 1: I like to remind folks that transposed have existed and
Speaker 1: indigenous cultures all over the world. In Hawaii they had Mahoo,
Speaker 1: in India, Hydra and Africa there there um you know,
Speaker 1: non but they wouldn't be called trans people now but
Speaker 1: with colonialism, with spirits, so I think two spirits and
Speaker 1: Native American cultures. Um in Angola, there was um um
Speaker 1: um in Zinga Queen and Zinga had her um I
Speaker 1: forget the name, the name of her sort of non
Speaker 1: binary kind of um folks um in her court. So
Speaker 1: we've existed throughout time. Trans folks and people who didn't
Speaker 1: exist within the binary and this gender binary thing it's
Speaker 1: a white, colonial Western thing, right, So like, let's educate
Speaker 1: ourselves about that and understand that when we're being transphobic
Speaker 1: and we're enforcing this like binary idea of man and woman,
Speaker 1: we're like doing some colonial shit. We're doing some like
Speaker 1: wide imperialist stuff. Right. Let's like if we look at
Speaker 1: indigenous cultures and look at the way other people of
Speaker 1: practiced things, you know, um, transient or gender knock conformed people, health,
Speaker 1: sacred spaces, and in um in India, you would wouldn't
Speaker 1: have a wedding or christening without the presence of a
Speaker 1: hydred of bless that child or bless that wedding. And
Speaker 1: trans folks have been spiritual leaders throughout history. A new
Speaker 1: want to ask mcause we're talking about it when it
Speaker 1: comes to gender identity, should we let kids wait until
Speaker 1: they are older to make that decision? Because I know
Speaker 1: that's a big it is a big conversation right now.
Speaker 1: And what I say to that is that if you
Speaker 1: are not a trans child, or have a parent or
Speaker 1: a parent of a child who thinks they might be trans,
Speaker 1: it's none of your business. I think what has been
Speaker 1: happening with the GOP specifically now and all of the like.
Speaker 1: We have to protect kids, kids in sports, kids, this
Speaker 1: kids that it's never been about kids. It's always been
Speaker 1: about stigmatizing trans people. There's a law in Oklahoma that
Speaker 1: was just introduced that would ban gender firm incare up
Speaker 1: until the age of twenty six. This tells me what
Speaker 1: I've already always known. There's never been about kids. It's
Speaker 1: about making trans people not exist. Donald Trump just made
Speaker 1: a speech saying we need to ban gender firm in
Speaker 1: care for everybody. He may have misspoken, He misspeaks a lot,
Speaker 1: but he said we need to ban it for everybody.
Speaker 1: That is the plan. So I think when we are
Speaker 1: talking about some one else's access to healthcare or bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: it's nobody else's business, whether they're a child or an adult.
Speaker 1: The American Academy for Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the
Speaker 1: Endocrine Society have a set of protocols and they're all
Speaker 1: well respected for treating trans kids. And that should be
Speaker 1: handled by doctors, not legislators, not people who are not involved.
Speaker 1: There's nobody's business. And I think when we have these
Speaker 1: conversations about trans people, and we focus on transition body surgery.
Speaker 1: When you're a Supreme Court confirmation hearing and they're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, mutilating children or you know, castraating children, that
Speaker 1: language objectifies trans people and dehumanizes us. This whole conversation
Speaker 1: has been deeply dehumanizing. And when you can dehumanize people,
Speaker 1: you can take away their rights, and that is exactly
Speaker 1: what they're doing right now. They've done a really good
Speaker 1: job of dehumanizing trans people, LGBTQ plus people in general,
Speaker 1: and they're they're taking away our rights within no one's
Speaker 1: really doing anything about it. So our work is to
Speaker 1: rehumanize everybody, to rehumanize each other. When we dehumanize somebody else,
Speaker 1: we dehumanize ourselves. When I interviewed doctor Joy Degree, who
Speaker 1: I'm coined the term post traumatic slave syndrome on my podcast,
Speaker 1: she said that, like the healing is not just for
Speaker 1: um formally enslaved people, it's also for the people who
Speaker 1: enslaved folks. When they enslaved us, they were dehumanizing themselves.
Speaker 1: When you discriminate against other people, you dehumanize yourself when
Speaker 1: you allowed yourself to you know, come out of character
Speaker 1: and respond to that that dude who said that to you,
Speaker 1: that that was you were not humanize, you were not
Speaker 1: giving yourself the dignity, the reality, the royalty, the humanity
Speaker 1: that you deserve to be above that in that moment
Speaker 1: and for many years, a trans elder said to me,
Speaker 1: it's not what they call you, it's what you answer to. No,
Speaker 1: I get it. Do you feel like he was wrong? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: All right? Absolutely, because for a while it was so
Speaker 1: one sided, like it's like, no, you can say that
Speaker 1: because he's a part of I'm like, no, you can't,
Speaker 1: and he can say whatever you want to say. I'm
Speaker 1: not like that I was saying that. I'm just saying like,
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, one of my favorite,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things though absolutely very human, very human,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm very human, but like, and we're
Speaker 1: human beings. But when if we when we want to
Speaker 1: evolve and we want to grow spiritually, how do we
Speaker 1: then proceed? And one of my favorite things that I
Speaker 1: heard and from a therapist is what other people say
Speaker 1: about me, it is none of my business because if
Speaker 1: I'm in this constant space of like, you must respect me,
Speaker 1: you want we see it on reality shows all the time.
Speaker 1: You got to respect me. And then I'm fighting with
Speaker 1: somebody and I'm just I'm fighting and I'm like coming
Speaker 1: out of character. It's like, this is not why God
Speaker 1: put me here. God did not put me here to
Speaker 1: be reactive to somebody who in some low vibrational, low
Speaker 1: vibrational place, um some low vibrational energy. God put me
Speaker 1: here to to be annoyed, to live in the annoyance
Speaker 1: space that i'm I'm so, I'm not coming out of
Speaker 1: character because someone's calling me something. People call me stuff
Speaker 1: all the time. My whole life. People have been calling
Speaker 1: me stuff. You know, I'm glad you here because we
Speaker 1: can't even help just unpack another little bit of trauma
Speaker 1: that she went through. Remember just I saw you say
Speaker 1: this on it Don't Call Me White Girl podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a guy holing at you floor out and
Speaker 1: you was trying to try to fly you outright. I
Speaker 1: wasn't into excuse me what happened? Okay, I need I
Speaker 1: need kind know. Okay, there was this guy, he's known
Speaker 1: everybody knowing me's a singer. Try to holler me too,
Speaker 1: saying the ones that will act like they didn't. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he um d MD me and he was like, he
Speaker 1: wanted me to you know, of him, um, have sex
Speaker 1: with him, Yeah, have sex with him. But he wanted
Speaker 1: me to bend him over because whyn't you strip on? No,
Speaker 1: he thought I had that already came like that. He
Speaker 1: thought that you were a trans woman who had had
Speaker 1: and he really wanted this experience. And he didn't know
Speaker 1: he hit me after. I might know who it is.
Speaker 1: She might not even be shocked, but the thing is,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, like and this was traumatizing
Speaker 1: for you? No, I just was like, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was not you man trying to exult me. He
Speaker 1: just literally thought that I was you know, he was.
Speaker 1: He was really wanting. I wasn't upset at all. When
Speaker 1: I seen the money, I was like, dang, I wish
Speaker 1: I did have one of those. Because he was thought
Speaker 1: you were a sex worker. Yes, he thought he were
Speaker 1: sex worker. He thought you were trans. People always often
Speaker 1: assume they're transfer people, the sex workers. We're not all
Speaker 1: sex workers. There's other things we can do. And this
Speaker 1: is not to you know, demean sex work. We we
Speaker 1: you know, we're sex workers should be decriminalized and all that. Um, wow.
Speaker 1: But when I told have been looking. When I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: so no I am you know woman, he was like,
Speaker 1: oh damn, all right, well see like it was like
Speaker 1: you still slop me out for the money if you
Speaker 1: But no, he wanted something very specific, Yeah, very specific,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't disrespectful after he wasn't and I wasn't
Speaker 1: about to put that up, you know, none of that.
Speaker 1: But he was really like, I wouldn't say disappointed, but
Speaker 1: it was like that's all right, Like we have to
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's tricky to talk about sax. We're
Speaker 1: transford because we're often sexualized, right, and so to have
Speaker 1: an adult conversation about sex and sexual reality and not
Speaker 1: again to elevate the humanity of trans people. This is
Speaker 1: this is my work to elevate the humanity of trans people.
Speaker 1: But there are straight identified men who enjoy being pegged
Speaker 1: having a woman strap on, who enjoy a trans woman
Speaker 1: who might you know, give them that that that pleasure,
Speaker 1: and they still identify a straight because she's still a woman. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think that like a more evolved conversation that
Speaker 1: a lot of people aren't ready for, is that a
Speaker 1: sex act does not define your sexuality. A sex act
Speaker 1: does not define your sexuality. So you can have a
Speaker 1: sex act that involves you know, you know him wanting
Speaker 1: to do right now. It's nobody can tell you who
Speaker 1: you are. Nobody can tell you who you are, so
Speaker 1: you people. Sexuality exists on a spectrum, and I think
Speaker 1: it's like really problematic when we find out that someone
Speaker 1: enjoys something sexually and we start telling them that they
Speaker 1: are gay or start telling them of their sexuality. It
Speaker 1: is not our business to tell somebody their sexuality if
Speaker 1: they're in the closet, if they're in denial, that's actually
Speaker 1: not our business either, right, So there's too much of
Speaker 1: that I think we can allow. And people are doing
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, um sexually, and I think it's
Speaker 1: all wonderful. I think it's great, liveal it's all it's
Speaker 1: just consensual and everybody is an adult and it's great.
Speaker 1: And I don't I think that, like it's an advanced concept,
Speaker 1: but sex separating a sex act from someone's sexuality, I
Speaker 1: think it's something that's very evolved that I would love
Speaker 1: for people to be able to potentially does that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean he's gay, that's what she's sayings, but not people.
Speaker 1: I just love the fact that a transplement potentially took
Speaker 1: one of justice prospects. That's what That's what I think
Speaker 1: found here. He found the girl. Yeah, one of me,
Speaker 1: one of me? You want me? Do you want me?
Speaker 1: To this day? You could have been like I could
Speaker 1: strap on? Did you offer that? Yes? Because the money
Speaker 1: you did? Much? How much was fifty thousand dollars? Girls
Speaker 1: like what? Okay? You can tell the girls who this girl?
Speaker 1: The sex worker girls out there there is a man,
Speaker 1: a singer offering fifty thousand dollars and they better give
Speaker 1: me a piece of Oh he's like he's over fifty.
Speaker 1: He's like this was like somebody we listened to like
Speaker 1: that in this ain't still listening. We're still listening to
Speaker 1: them right now. Fifty thousand dollars, girl, A lot of
Speaker 1: girls can use that, and so I did you know,
Speaker 1: just talking it over with my it's so beautiful to
Speaker 1: be a black dutiful to be a black trans woman
Speaker 1: and not me that money. It's good, beautiful to make
Speaker 1: my own money. Can we talk about this please? Yes? Barbie?
Speaker 1: Can we get the ball? We can we talking about Barbie?
Speaker 1: We were talking about this. You will Mittel be okay
Speaker 1: with us having that conversation and they're talking about I
Speaker 1: want to know, how did this doll come about? Was
Speaker 1: this dream of yours? When I found out Aba Duvernet
Speaker 1: had a dollar, I was like, I want a doll too.
Speaker 1: When I said to my manager Paul, it's like, I
Speaker 1: want a Barbie, and like, I don't know if he
Speaker 1: reached out, but like if several years later Mattel reached
Speaker 1: out and said, we'd love to do a Barbie. We're
Speaker 1: doing a tribute collection. And I said absolutely. It's like
Speaker 1: it was a dream and it was. I have a lot.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about this when the barbe came out.
Speaker 1: But when I was a kid, I wanted Barbie and
Speaker 1: my mom did not allow me to play with Barbie.
Speaker 1: She it was forbidden. And when I was around thirty
Speaker 1: and I was in therapy, like starting therapy was like
Speaker 1: two mid two thousands, I was in therapy and I
Speaker 1: told that story to my therapist, and my therapist said,
Speaker 1: you can It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Speaker 1: You can reparent that inner child. I think you should
Speaker 1: go and buy yourself a Barbie. Did you and play
Speaker 1: with her? I absolutely did. I bought a Barbie, I
Speaker 1: played with her, addressed her, and it was healing. And
Speaker 1: then I told my mom about it. And then my
Speaker 1: mom are sending me barbies always. Oh really, my mom
Speaker 1: started sending me barbies this. I'm not going to crown
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club really, um and black Barbie. Absolutely, so
Speaker 1: it'send to me black Barbies. And it was just this
Speaker 1: wonderful like that we all have a little kid inside
Speaker 1: of us that that needs attention, that needs healing, and um,
Speaker 1: yeah she's been I've been taking really good care of
Speaker 1: my inner child and Barbie has been a huge part
Speaker 1: of that. And so what was so exciting for me
Speaker 1: about having my own Barbie is that other people can
Speaker 1: have this space, whatever age you are, or like reparent
Speaker 1: your inner child or and and have and know that
Speaker 1: you can be trans or non binary and that like
Speaker 1: you exist. Yeah, they're absolutely brought it for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you forgive your mom? Why did you forgive your mom?
Speaker 1: Because you had to be some resentment the fact that
Speaker 1: you wanted to play the ball but she wouldn't let you.
Speaker 1: But you also have to understand that at that time,
Speaker 1: I you know, this is a while. Look this is
Speaker 1: probably like God ground that same time two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. So I don't know how old
Speaker 1: I was. I was like thirty, mid early to mid thirties,
Speaker 1: and I just realized I needed to. When we hold
Speaker 1: on to resentment, it's like giving taking poison and expecting
Speaker 1: it to hurt, you know, hurt someone else, that old proverb.
Speaker 1: And so I just realized. She did the best she
Speaker 1: could what she had. And my mom is an incredible
Speaker 1: human being. She put herself through college, she got a
Speaker 1: master's degree, she was a teacher, she's retired now. My
Speaker 1: mother took care of to kid. My mother's an incredible
Speaker 1: human being, and she did the best she could and
Speaker 1: with what she had. And I turned out pretty well.
Speaker 1: And I love myself now and that's my mom is
Speaker 1: responsible for that. So yeah, I forgave my mom a
Speaker 1: long time. I yeah, call me stupid because when I
Speaker 1: first heard about the doll, you know, representation matters, we
Speaker 1: know that, but how are you supposed to know this
Speaker 1: is a trans Well, my face is on the back
Speaker 1: because there's Laverne Cox and then my pictures on the back,
Speaker 1: So um, I'm trans. So I mean, yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: technical and it's not trans barbie, but it's the first
Speaker 1: Barbie to be made in the image of a trans person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a Barbie doll. Oh and then if you read
Speaker 1: this on the bag, you literally can yeah, okay you yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: literally needs to be styled. Though we appreciate you for
Speaker 1: joining us. We are and we have a question. I'm
Speaker 1: sure Charlot man and just feel the same if there's
Speaker 1: ever something that we have to call upon and ask
Speaker 1: a question. We want you to be a friend of
Speaker 1: the room where we can call you if you're in
Speaker 1: la and say, hey, Laverne this, there's this situation. What's
Speaker 1: your opinion. So sometimes we might not get your representation
Speaker 1: because it's exhausted, and don't call up. You can call me,
Speaker 1: you can call me. I there's certain things that don't
Speaker 1: comment on, Like there's certain nions who do their thing
Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't like because I also don't
Speaker 1: want to be for me, it's important to be critical
Speaker 1: of concepts and ideologies and mindsets, but love people and
Speaker 1: the media will be is very quick to put you
Speaker 1: in Laverne Cox by this person, or Laverne Cox calls
Speaker 1: out this person. Then all of a sudden, I'm feuding
Speaker 1: with someone, I am not here to feed with anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to like be in conflict with another
Speaker 1: famous person. Don't pick me against anybody. So like that,
Speaker 1: I can talk about I can talk about concepts and ideas,
Speaker 1: but I'm just I'm very careful not to be People
Speaker 1: still try to pick me against folks, but I don't
Speaker 1: do it, and so I'm very careful about that. So
Speaker 1: I'll speak about, you know, an idea or a concept
Speaker 1: or like or something specific. If you want to talk
Speaker 1: about why something's fansophobic, like, we can break some stuff down.
Speaker 1: That's example that the different conversation in Dubai and people
Speaker 1: were upset and we would say, there's so many states
Speaker 1: here that necessarily don't respect that anti so it was like,
Speaker 1: so what's the difference. So we didn't understand it, So
Speaker 1: that would be like, well, what what what were your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? You know, I'm in the be high
Speaker 1: like hardcore no matter which multiple times, multiple times like please.
Speaker 1: And Beyonce actually gave me my first fashion campaign Ivy
Speaker 1: Park Fall Winner twenty seventeen. My first fashion campaign was
Speaker 1: from Beyonce. Let Beyonce make her money let Beyonce make
Speaker 1: her money and then on. But and honestly, there's what
Speaker 1: is it. It's February whatever, it's mid February. And this
Speaker 1: year alone, over three hundred pieces of anti trans and
Speaker 1: LGBTQ legislation have been introduced in stay legislatures all over
Speaker 1: the country, over three hundred pieces. So everybody who's saying
Speaker 1: that there's you know, there's a lot of states here
Speaker 1: in the United State. Are you just not gonna go
Speaker 1: to the concert there? Because like in Florida and Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: in Texas and Tennessee girl, Arizona girl, and I feel
Speaker 1: like communities, certain communities need to experience joy, right, so
Speaker 1: you gotta find those pockets of joy when you can
Speaker 1: what perfect place. And it's just because the government is
Speaker 1: discriminatory does not necessarily mean that the people there are right.
Speaker 1: We live under people live under passive regimes, and doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that people are bad, right, It just means the
Speaker 1: government is so right. Because when I went to London
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I was like, I ain't
Speaker 1: want to talk about the queen, And one of the
Speaker 1: produces was like, man, and I can't say what he
Speaker 1: says say And I was like whoa, so y'all don't care,
Speaker 1: and he was like, nah, nah, we don't care. Yea.
Speaker 1: It depends right, But like you said, like the government,
Speaker 1: the politics and the government, sometimes their people don't even
Speaker 1: be worried about what they got, you know, what they
Speaker 1: got going on date. They agree with what their people
Speaker 1: instead of who runs them. It's my last question. I
Speaker 1: guess it's more like even though a statement, I guess
Speaker 1: the challenge I have is a personality is I often
Speaker 1: wonder what's more impactful? Right, because you're Laverne Cocks to me,
Speaker 1: like you're not transgender actors, n co Laverne Cocks, You've
Speaker 1: got a lot of things going on, So I wonder
Speaker 1: what's more powerful? Just having you on a platform like
Speaker 1: this and just having a conversation about everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1: Are allowing you to speak to your your transmiss because
Speaker 1: to me, I could take you, I could take it
Speaker 1: to leaving the way I can do vow bind a
Speaker 1: girl who can do vot that? For me, it's like
Speaker 1: I the most just living my life as I'm fifty
Speaker 1: years old, living my life. I worked in restaurants in
Speaker 1: New York for twenty years. I did not go to
Speaker 1: the restaurant talking about my transit. When I was working
Speaker 1: in a coffee shop, I just went to the restaurant
Speaker 1: and I was myself, and some people knew I was trans,
Speaker 1: some people didn't. They they got to know me. It's
Speaker 1: a human being and that is the most powerful thing. Ever.
Speaker 1: When I'm on sets, I'm not like educating people are
Speaker 1: doing diversity inclusion of training. I'm doing my job and
Speaker 1: showing up and doing me has been the best way.
Speaker 1: So I think it's like it's about our humanity. Yes
Speaker 1: I'm trans, but like I'm so much more than that,
Speaker 1: and every trans person is so much more than that,
Speaker 1: and and this just our humanity, like our like don't
Speaker 1: reduce us to transitions or surgery. You know. I think
Speaker 1: it's it can be reverally valuable for other trans people
Speaker 1: to see, you know, trans folks transition online. But like
Speaker 1: so often people think it's all about that, and it's not.
Speaker 1: It's about a life lived. It's like, yes, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I love my body, I'm happy with where I'm at,
Speaker 1: with being done with transition whatever that means, But there's
Speaker 1: so much more life than like that. Like that. It's
Speaker 1: the issue is when people don't want to let trans
Speaker 1: people exist, when they're murdering us, when they're misgendering us,
Speaker 1: when they don't want to let us be in school
Speaker 1: and and use our right pronouns, and discrimination like trying
Speaker 1: to ban us from homeless shelters. An employment you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an employment rate is three times a national average
Speaker 1: UM seventy eight percent of trans kids or bulleting in schools.
Speaker 1: That's the problem as existing is not the problem people
Speaker 1: people's insecurity. You know, lean tin price my idol black operating,
Speaker 1: or would saying you know, um, racism is never the
Speaker 1: problem of the black artist. It's everybody else's problem. So
Speaker 1: that so the work really for is everybody else getting
Speaker 1: getting on board, you know, And I thin people have
Speaker 1: and people have a lot of feelings about that. I
Speaker 1: get it. I understand people. People are frustrated I have
Speaker 1: to use this pronoun now, and like the non binary thing,
Speaker 1: people a lot of confused it by even other trans
Speaker 1: people have difficulty with it. And I had difficulty with
Speaker 1: it and pronounced for a while. But like what I think,
Speaker 1: it's a bad out. As understanding, particularly as black folks,
Speaker 1: is that we were black people were second class citizens
Speaker 1: for really long time in the United States. In a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, we still are. And this whole inclusivity
Speaker 1: thing is about acknowledging that we're here, that we have
Speaker 1: somebody contribute, and that we should have equal access and equity.
Speaker 1: Same thing with transfer. We've always been here, we've been
Speaker 1: second class citizens, and so it just if we're going
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that these folks are here, let's just like
Speaker 1: respect them and let them be. And it shouldn't affect you.
Speaker 1: It really shouldn't. And I think that like some men
Speaker 1: who get upset, like I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: men who get upset about trans women, it's like they
Speaker 1: want to be misogynist and they want to like holler
Speaker 1: at a girl and like know that she was assigned
Speaker 1: female at birth, and they get upset, and it's like,
Speaker 1: that's not my problem, because my problem if you're dragged
Speaker 1: to me, it's not like my problem that you clicked
Speaker 1: swipe right on me on a date app like it
Speaker 1: just unmatched and move on. It's like people get so
Speaker 1: and then I think, right, you know what I'm saying. Hell,
Speaker 1: And and for some women, people who are signing female
Speaker 1: at birth and who are a woman identified who had
Speaker 1: probably issues who transplant. We're not here to take your spot.
Speaker 1: We're not here to like we're we can all. There's
Speaker 1: room enough for all of us, you know. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of this is about scarcity, and there's enough for
Speaker 1: there's enough for everyone, right, And it's like we're not
Speaker 1: a threat. We just want to exist. We want to
Speaker 1: just live our lives, you know, Laverne Cox. We're being
Speaker 1: honest with Laverne Cox on Peacock Yes, yes, and Oscars,
Speaker 1: red carpet. That's right, March, that's right, March twelve. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you,
Speaker 1: and don't be a stranger. Thank you. It's the Breakfast Club,
Speaker 1: as Laverne Cox