Laverne Cox wrote her memoir because 'one more human story out there can help'

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Laverne Cox. Chances are you met her the way most of the world did, a transgender woman in prison doing hair and fighting for her right to gender-affirming care in the Netflix series "Orange Is The New Black."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK")

LAVERNE COX: (As Sophia Burset) Listen, doc, I need my dosage. I've given five years, $80,000 and my freedom for this. I'm finding who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand? I can't go back.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Look, I'd like to help you. Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST and ALT, which could mean liver damage.

COX: (As Sophia Burset) That's [expletive]. That could mean anything.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) We're going to take you off your hormones entirely.

COX: (As Sophia Burset) What?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read.

COX: (As Sophia Burset) But that could take months.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I can offer you an antidepressant.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: That's Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset in 2014. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a primetime Emmy in an acting category and put her on the cover of Time magazine next to the words, the transgender tipping point. For a decade now, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. But the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone, not even her therapist.

She's written a new memoir, titled "Transcendent." And it arrives at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country. But the book makes clear that for Cox, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was. Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things. And she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life. Laverne Cox, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's such an honor to have you.

COX: Thank you so much for having me. I have not heard - it's rare that I just hear the clip from "Orange," and it's been so long. And I - gosh, it brings back memories. And it's really - what's interesting is even for actors out there, often when I watch a scene that I've done, it's hard for me to have distance. I immediately am in the character again, and I'm in the emotion of the scene. And so I'm immediately, like, feeling what I was feeling when we shot this. This is 2012 that we shot it. So it was funny. I was just like...

MOSLEY: Yeah, it made you laugh. Why did it make you laugh?

COX: No, at the end when...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

COX: I mean, the writing is so fantastic - maybe I can offer you an antidepressant.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

COX: It's hilarious.

MOSLEY: Well, "Orange Is The New Black"...

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Was revolutionary for the time.

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And your character, I was very surprised to learn from the book that you weren't a regular reoccurring character. You were a guest star.

COX: Yes. And, I mean, that's really a contractual thing. So I was in, I think - I don't remember how many episodes I was in the first season. But I remember it was a day-to-day thing. I didn't have, like, a contract the first season. I was literally a day player guest star, a day player. But I was kind of making day player rates. I wasn't making, like, guest star rates.

The second season, I was - my salary was, like, a guest star rate. And I had, like, I think, a seven-episode guarantee. And they ended up using me for nine episodes. So I was there a lot, and they wrote generously for me. I think because that my backstory episode came - it was the third episode of the show - that people thought...

MOSLEY: Felt like you were a cast member.

COX: Yes.

MOSLEY: Yeah. I think people think, because so much of the work that you have done feels so true to life, that so much of that show might be your life.

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And I think it's part of what makes this book really eye-opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know. I want to start with the beginning of your book.

COX: OK.

MOSLEY: Because you're 8 years old. You decide to start at a moment when you're 8 years old. You are at a park near your family's apartment in Mobile, Alabama. You're doing your kid thing and just playing out. And there are these boys that come up to you, the Caraway (ph) boys. And they begin teasing you, and then it gets violent. Can I have you pick up the story from there?

COX: During one of these teasing sessions - why you talk like that? One of the Caraway boys shoved me. I don't even remember which one. They were interchangeably menacing figures. This time, I couldn't keep my balance and found myself falling, hitting the gravel of the playground. I scowled, annoyed at first.

But then, looking up at them, I saw the switch flip in their eyes. I saw that flicker of threat, the way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. They were disgusted by me. I was no longer a friend, up here, someone to play with. I was an easy target. I was prey. Their fists landed in unison on my face, my chest. You see this, [expletive]? Look at this sissy, like a girl. One of them sneered, half-laughing in glee as they punched me.

Their voices blended into one as they pelted me, hurling every name they could think of. And my instinct, from as far back as the days of day care bullying, took over, rolling me onto my side and into a ball. The words rang in my ears, those from the past intermingling with those of the Caraway boys. I had heard these words before. At first, I had not known what they meant. But now, after years of it, I recognized them, words that meant I was different from the other kids - a girl when I should've acted like a boy.

MOSLEY: Laverne, thank you for reading that passage. You go onto say that you curl up in a ball, and it doesn't stop. They get energized. And finally, you're able to make it home. And you get into your apartment and your mom sees you. And she doesn't say, what happened to you? She immediately says, you let them beat you up like this? What did you do to make them do this to you? Why did you want to start the book off with that particular story?

COX: I don't know. That was my life. I mean, I think that was, like - just the physical violence of the other children, that was persistent throughout my childhood. And then my mother finding out, and instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was OK, she made it my fault. And it just, in a way, it sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected, not feeling safe. It sort of encapsulates a lot of the childhood.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

COX: I'm - you know, reading that again, I have to say, it's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to - yeah.

MOSLEY: You grew up inside of people's reactions to you.

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: An effeminate child, a gender non-conforming teenager, a trans woman. And everything that you received, it was like race, gender and class converging into one person. What really struck me from that very first story throughout the entire book is, the shame and hatred that people carried, they took it out on you. And it even happened in your home.

COX: Yes. I'm just trying to gather my resilience. And, like - well, I guess I'm, like, having - and it's like there's - like, reading that, I'm just - like, I'm emotional. I'm angry. It's - like, it's hard to read that. And obviously, I lived it, but it's hard to read about it again, I guess, and understand as an adult - like, I'm angry at the boys. I'm angry at my mother. I'm - I want to protect that little child. I'm just so - I'm so angry. And I think, like - yeah. I don't know if I can be able to read excerpts from this book again. We'll see. I'm just - I'm so pissed. I'm so angry, and I'm so hurt. And I'm so...

MOSLEY: What are the - what - the anger comes from you having to experience it?

COX: And it's - there's also, like, the anger of all the kids that I've met who are trans or queer who are still experiencing this, and the anger of knowing that in states that have passed anti-trans laws, that the bullying - percentage of bullying has, like, skyrocketed in those states. And that makes me angry.

MOSLEY: You hear a lot of stories.

COX: A lot of stories, but that's actually - those are statistics. Like, there's the anecdotes, but those are the stats from The Trevor Project. Because, like, to manufacture the consent to pass anti-trans laws that would ban gender-affirming care for kids and all - the menace of trans girls in sports - all, like, two of them - there's the rhetorical piece that happens in the media that is dehumanizing and stigmatizing trans people. And it creates a permission structure if, like, your, you know, governor and your state legislators are doing it, if your, you know, teachers and, you know, pundits on TV are doing it, then, like, of course kids are emboldened to do it. And that makes me so angry. And, you know, it's, like - the sadness is, like, you know - it's just the loneliness. And I couldn't process it fully as a child. And - I don't know. It just really sucked.

This was so - it was torture to write this. And the reason I wrote it is to tell the truth. I'm like, I just don't think it's - it makes any sense to write a book and, like, to clean stuff up and to, like, not be honest and not be raw. But it's just like, wow, OK.

MOSLEY: What made you decide to write it now, especially because I know you probably had folks coming to you wanting you to write books at the time when you were on "Orange Is The New Black" or you're on the cover of Time magazine, when magazines are fighting to have you on the cover? What made you decide to do it now?

COX: Yeah, I don't know. I have the impulse to want to apologize, but I'm not going to do that - for my emotion right now.

The opportunity came along, and when it did, I thought that I had done enough therapy that I could get through it. I thought that the memories that were buried would stay buried. And I came up with this device of, when I would disassociate as a kid when traumatic things would happen, I would pretend I was Darcel from "Solid Gold," elite "Solid Gold" dancer on the - there was a TV show in the '80s called - '70s and '80s called "Solid Gold." They would count down the...

MOSLEY: Our listeners will remember that. (Laughter) I love how you say it like...

COX: I mean, I don't...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

COX: I mean, there's so many, you know...

MOSLEY: Totally, yeah.

COX: ...People who are way younger than me who have no idea.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

COX: So I would go to these other places, and I thought that I could use that device in writing the book to sort of protect myself. And then we - I found we started to use that device not as much as I wanted to. And then I found that, like, memories I thought were buried came back. And it was just - it was harrowing because I thought I could handle it. And it just felt - it felt like the right time. I don't know why. I'm - well, I'm in a new place with my mother. It just felt like the time to do it.

And it did come, like, a couple years ago. And it was, I think, right after 2023, I was - it became very clear to me that we - that trans people had lost the culture and that I think half the country had banned gender-affirming care for young people. I knew, in layman's parlance, that we were screwed as trans people. I knew this was the beginning of a disaster in terms of policy, in terms of stigma, scapegoating, and the dehumanization was so clear to me. And so I think I also thought, like, maybe one more human story out there can help.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. We'll continue our conversation with Laverne Cox in just a moment. Her new memoir is called "Transcendent." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF NAOMI MOON SIEGEL'S "IT'S NOT SAFE")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today I am talking with Laverne Cox. Her breakout role as Sophia Burset on "Orange Is The New Black" made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a primetime Emmy in an acting category. Her new memoir, "Transcendent," is out now.

I want to go back to your home and your mom...

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...And your decision to write all of this down because the majority of the book takes place in your childhood. Tell me about Mobile, Alabama, and that home that you grew up in. How would you describe it?

COX: Mobile - it's interesting. I go back now, and I find it quaint and way too hot in the summer. But, like, the azaleas - there's lots of beautiful things about it, and there are all these antebellum homes that still exist on, like, Government Street. And there's something quaint about parts of it. And there's just a lot of trauma, though, literally on the streets, particularly in the old neighborhood where my mom still lives. Like, there's trauma on those streets for me.

MOSLEY: Is that a part of town? What part of town is that?

COX: We would call it Down the Bay.

MOSLEY: Down the Bay.

COX: And it's where most of the Black people in Mobile live. And - yeah, it is downtown. It's downtown Mobile, which I think is fantastic, but - because Bienville Square and, like, the Mardi Gras parades. Mardi Gras started in Mobile in this country - not in New Orleans, as some people might think. And so the Mardi Gras parades are - happen downtown, and I love it. I love it.

MOSLEY: And you grew up with your mother and your twin brother.

COX: And my twin brother, yes. Yeah, Mobile, though, when I was growing up there, I was just - I just - I needed to get out. It was awful. It felt repressive. And I just knew I needed to be - the second I discovered there was a New York, I knew I had to be there. And so most of my childhood, I was in Mobile, but I was - in my imagination, I was in New York, or I was on a TV screen, or I was on a movie screen, or I was on a Broadway stage.

MOSLEY: Yeah. It's interesting the book is called "Transcendent," and in a way, it sounds like disassociating was your way to transcend as a child. What were some of the ways that you would try to transcend?

COX: I always had - there was always music in my head, which is such a wonderful gift. And so I just - from the second I was walking, I was dancing. And I was dancing - I danced everywhere, and it just kind of - like, it just took me away. It took me away from, like, so - because for me, when I danced, there was some music, but then there was, like, a character. There was a person that I could play. So I was, like, in a character, and then I was - it would be a new setting. And so, like, all the times when we would be at the supermarket, in the grocery store, I just love pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery cart as if it was, like, a partner.

MOSLEY: Did you have headphones on, a Walkman?

COX: No, darling. The music - groove is in the heart.

(LAUGHTER)

COX: A Walkman? This is like - I mean, you know, I was 5 years old. It would have been 1972 - what - 1977. Did Walkmans even exist? We couldn't afford one if they did. The music was in my head, and the groove was in the heart. And actually, in the supermarkets, they would play music. And I remember loving TV show themes. I would learn the words to TV show themes and, like, sing along and dance to them. So there was always, like, a song and a rhythm and then a character and movement. And it was so amazing that I got to do - that I had that, that I could go there.

And then when I discovered that you could study dance, so like, I want to take dance classes. I want to take dance classes at 5 years old. And I won't give away that moment from the book. It's a little humorous moment about that. But finally in third grade, I got to start studying dance, and that really - that was the best thing ever for me.

MOSLEY: This disassociation, this going to all of these different places, I mean, this would happen to you everywhere - at home, at school. And there's a particular moment in school where you've got your little fan, and you're in your classroom. And something happens that kind of stays with you for the rest of your life.

COX: Yeah. That was certainly a moment. So we had gone to Six Flags on a church trip, and I had some spending money and bought a handheld fan at the gift shop at Six Flags. And as the women in church would fan themselves and as Scarlett O'Hara would fan herself - I had seen "Gone With The Wind" on television. It seemed like it was always on in Alabama. Go figure.

And I was having a Scarlett O'Hara moment, fanning myself in - beginning of the day in third grade. And my third-grade teacher, Ms. Ridgeway, says, you there, come here and bring that thing with you. And she marches me down the hall to the fourth-grade teacher and tells me to show her what I was doing with my fan. And so I proceed to fan myself the way I had in class. And she tells me to stop, and I wait. And she conferences with that teacher, and then she marches me down the hall with the fifth-grade teacher and tells me to do it again. And I was like, well, maybe I didn't do it - you know, maybe I didn't fully commit. So I committed more and really really dropped into Scarlett.

And then later that day, my mother comes in and tells me she had gotten a call from the school, from Ms. Ridgeway, and Ms. Ridgeway said that I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we didn't get me into therapy right away - I understand now is what some people would refer to as conversion therapy. I guess there's different kinds. But at the time, after three sessions with a therapist, the solution or, you know, the thing that they suggested that we do is to inject me with testosterone and that the idea was that that was supposed to make me more masculine and I would not - that there was a hormone issue. This would have been 1980. Yeah, 1980, '81.

MOSLEY: And you were how old?

COX: I was 8, 9 years old

MOSLEY: Eight, 9 years old.

COX: I hadn't even started going through puberty yet. So they were suggesting injecting an 8, 9 year old with testosterone, which sounds insane to me. My mother, thank God, said no to that. And so it was - I just felt relief that that didn't happen to me.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RUSSELL MALONE'S "TIME FOR THE DANCERS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is Laverne Cox. You know her as Sophia Burset on "Orange Is The New Black," the role that made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a primetime Emmy in an acting category. Most recently, she co-created and starred in the Prime Video comedy "Clean Slate" as a trans woman who returns home to Alabama and the father she'd long been estranged from. Now she's written a new memoir. It's called "Transcendent," and she traces her life from her childhood in Mobile, Alabama, to her rise as one of the most visible trans women in America.

I'm thinking about that moment when your mother took you to this conversion therapy, and you write so compassionately about your mom, but you also are unsparing in the way that she treated you as a child. Typically, I don't encounter memoirists who write this way unless they are estranged from their mother or their mother is dead. And that's neither case for you.

COX: No (laughter). I'm sorry, I'm laughing 'cause it's like - it's crazy. We haven't - she hasn't read the book yet.

MOSLEY: How would you describe the kind of mother your mother was to you?

COX: How would I describe it? That's an interesting thing 'cause it was - the way I approached the book is I was like, this is what happened, and this [inaudible] made me feel. But characterizing how my mother was to me, my mother was a disciplinarian. She constantly corrected my grammar, which - and my brother's grammar, which I'm insanely grateful for now. Insanely grateful for. My biggest pet peeve is when people say less when they mean fewer.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

COX: Anyway, like, it's just - it's still great. So my mother was - she was critical of appearance and overly concerned about how she appeared to the world. That was almost like a driving force to her, her not being embarrassed and her - people not talking badly about her. And in small towns, people talk quite a bit.

MOSLEY: And so you - that teacher calling to say that you were fanning in the classroom, and this is a problem. I mean, that became a problem for her.

COX: She made it about her. She made it about what people were saying about her and that people were talking about her and I was a bad reflection of her. And then this therapy thing, too, was, like, who's going to pay for it? Isn't - you know, like, there's no money. Like, so I was, all of a sudden, a problem. And I understood it being a big problem for me, but then even talking to my brother about it and him just sort of watching all of that happen, there was sort of a horror for him. You know, I've tried not to speak for him in this book, but, like, just - I think he won't mind me saying this 'cause he's told me watching all of this policing of my gender expression and this, like, attention that I was getting that wasn't positive or affirming, like, the message that was sent to him is that, like, I can't be anything like that. I have to, like, suppress the thing - anything that might evoke that kind of attention that Laverne is getting. And...

MOSLEY: How did that affect your relationship? Because, you know, we who are not twins have this idea of what twins are like. The closeness that you feel, the - you know, the connection.

COX: I mean, there's a closeness now. It's healthier now than it's ever been with my brother. But I think the dynamic - we were not a touchy feely family. We weren't a family that said I love you. So, like, my brother and I - so we didn't do that. Like, we didn't - like, that wasn't our relationship. But what we did - we bonded most around music, art. There were periods where I would be in dance class and he would come and watch and critique, and he would give me his notes. And, you know, now, it's like, we talk a lot of politics. But then we also talk a lot of art.

MOSLEY: Your brother actually was in "Orange Is The New Black." Was that your idea? Was that his idea? How did that come about?

COX: Technically, it was mine, I guess, when it was determined that I wasn't butch enough to play my character pre-transition. And I think what's interesting about that now is there - I think Jodie, I think, the writers...

MOSLEY: Jodie Foster, who was a guest director.

COX: Yes. Jodie directed my backstory episode, and that episode got me my first Emmy nomination. So, it was my character's backstory, and the initial idea was that they needed to hire another actor to play me pre-transition, and I was like, I'm an actor. I would, you know. And Jenji, to her credit, said, I don't want to re-traumatize you. And I was like, no, I'm an actor. I can do it. And so they weren't convinced. So we did a hair and makeup test for the character throughout her transition. And at the end of the day, we got to the butchest of the looks. And I remember, like, you know, they put a fake mustache on me. I mean, I can't grow up facial hair or anything, obviously. And I went to Jodie. She was in a meeting, and I, like, really, you know, I was like, you know, and she looked at me and she was like, We're going to have to hire someone. So then they started bringing in these very butch Black male actors, and they would stand them next to me and take a photo. And then I was like, why don't you just do an audition? And then asked my brother if he'd be open to it. And he said, how much does it pay? And then he ended up going in for the audition, but he had an advantage because, you know, he kind of looks a little bit like me.

MOSLEY: Just a little bit.

COX: So he booked it and did it, and he had regrets about it for a while because...

MOSLEY: Really? Why?

COX: He has his own work and his own life, and he, you know...

MOSLEY: He's an artist.

COX: ...Wants to be defined by his work and not mine. He's in a really...

MOSLEY: He's gotten a lot of attention from it.

COX: Yeah. And people knew that work, and they didn't know his work, but he - we're in a really great place around all that now, and he's in a great place with all of that.

MOSLEY: Your brother was the first person to tell you you were an actor...

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...And not a dancer.

COX: Yeah, which is incredible and amazing. And I'm so grateful for that. And he's genuinely proud of me and has an immense amount of respect for me, as I do for him. And that is wonderful. It has been dysfunctional, and in some ways, might still be, but there is an unconditional love that we have for each other.

MOSLEY: It sounds like it was dysfunctional, though, in part because this world ripped you guys apart. It was the world's reaction to you that caused a rift because as children, he had to navigate that, and you had to navigate that.

COX: And we felt like, as twins, people didn't think of us as individuals. Like we were, like, one person - the twins. And so, I was more, quote-unquote, "flamboyant and visible," and I got attention because I just did. And so my expression and behavior sort of defined, in a lot of ways, how a lot of people saw us. My brother has a - you think I have a huge personality. My brother's personality is even bigger, and he is very much himself. And he, like me, has fought to be himself authentically. And so he does not want to be compared to someone else. And I get and understand that. And it's - yeah, it's interesting because, like, you know, he was just always into and it was very important for him to have his own identity. And I totally get and understand that. And so he went about doing that, you know, when we were in boarding school together. And I felt abandoned, certainly.

MOSLEY: Just to let people know, you and your brother applied to a prep boarding school, an art school outside of your city in Alabama, for ninth grade. Like, the moment you all could, you left home.

COX: Yeah. The first two years of freshman, sophomore year, we were both there, and then he went back home to Mobile and finished high school there. And I stayed. And now I understand. And it was actually wonderful just to be - it was wonderful to be away from him, and I think it was wonderful for him to be away from me so we could just, like, not be twins anymore. We could, like, have our own identities. It was actually kind of glorious.

MOSLEY: If you're just joining us, my guest is Laverne Cox. Her new memoir is called "Transcendent." More of our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JASON ISBELL SONG, "GOOD WHILE IT LASTED")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today I am talking with Laverne Cox. Her new memoir, "Transcendent," traces her life from a childhood in Mobile, Alabama, to becoming one of the most visible transwomen in America.

After that childhood of being bullied from, like, K through eighth grade...

COX: K-12. K-12, yeah. Even at the art school. Like, it got better junior and senior year, but it was still there.

MOSLEY: This is when you start to step into - we call it gender-nonconforming, but it was the androgynous...

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...For you.

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: You were stepping into trying to figure out an identity.

COX: Needing to - I felt like, at the time, needing to express myself. You know, honestly, after the conversion therapy, there was - I had internalized so much transphobia, and, like, ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress was presented to me as the absolute worst thing that could happen to me. And in my young mind, I imagined I would be on the street, and I would be homeless and a person who needed to, like, do unfortunate things to survive.

MOSLEY: ...Things to survive.

COX: Yeah. So it was presented as something that was the absolute opposite of, like, the straight-A student that I was, the human being that I was who was determined to be successful. So I didn't wear skirts and dresses until college because I was just like, well, I can't - you know, I internalized I can't wear a dress or skirt in high school. But I did start wearing girls' clothes that I would purchase from the thrift stores in Mobile and in Birmingham. And it was such a fun, wonderful exploration. And it felt like an extension of - I think it was in high school I read about Oscar Wilde.

MOSLEY: Oh.

COX: He talked about creating yourself as a work of art, and I love that as a concept, you know? And I think it was...

MOSLEY: Was this also around the time when, I mean, androgynous musical artists were pretty big? Was this like the '80s kind of?

COX: It was certainly the '80s. It was post, like, the heyday of Culture Club. Culture Club's first album came out in 1983. So I would have been 11 years old. And that was, like - Boy George was pivotal for me in my childhood and Annie Lennox and just the whole British new wave that was filled with androgyny and gender bending of all sorts. Even looking back at old episodes of "Soul Train," there was some real gay stuff going on. The '80s, like - stuff that would never fly right now got through in the '80s. Even Jermaine Stewart, who was a wonderful artist, who - we don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time.

MOSLEY: Oh, yeah.

COX: He was - I don't know if he was openly gay. He unfortunately passed away in the late '80s or early '90s. He had HIV/AIDS. And then his - this song was sampled later by LMAFO, I think.

MOSLEY: Yep.

COX: But he, like, had it - you know, his hair was pressed out, and it was laid. His - the hair was laid. He was - he had been a member of Shalamar.

MOSLEY: Always wondering what cherry wine was, though - never could figure out.

COX: Girl, OK, so you are my generation. You know cherry wine. That's a deep cut, girl. Yes. Yeah, I don't know what cherry wine is either. But he was a queen on "Soul Train," like, just getting his life.

MOSLEY: These were the people you were watching. Yeah.

COX: But it was - the '80s was so wonderful in that way.

MOSLEY: You made your way to New York. You wanted to be a dancer. You wanted to be an entertainer.

COX: I always knew that I would transition to acting 'cause dancers, you know, have a short shelf life. And, you know, so I imagined musical theater and broadway and then film and television as to - was what I thought, and I thought I would, you know, maybe be in the chorus or something. But I could never book roles as a dancer when I would audition for things. And I remember the year before I moved to New York, I was at Indiana University, and every year, I auditioned for the "Grand Ole Opry" 'cause there were always auditions and - regional auditions wherever I was.

And that year, I remember the dance captain asking me to show the other - 'cause I learn - picked up the choreography quickly. She asked me to show the choreography to the other people auditioning. And I was just like, oh, maybe this means I'm finally going to get the job. And I didn't get it that year. I got to New York and I did tons of open calls and never booked anything as a dancer. And I, you know, was never masculine enough. By that time, I had gotten a very good technique as a dancer. Maybe, you know, I wasn't the best dancer, but I was very - I was technical. I could pick up choreography. You know, I could do six pirouettes, and I had technique. But I didn't have an ideal dancer body, and I never figured out how to appear masculine while I was dancing. And so butch it up was the subtext of it all.

MOSLEY: It is so fascinating to read about your early days in New York. And it sounds like you were pretty discerning about what scenes you were part of because you didn't see yourself fitting into the drag queen world. You understood and appreciated what they did. And you understood what these other groups - like, there were all these other groups, and you were part of a club kid group.

COX: I was - so there was a very - like, in the early '90s, there was kind of - there was the downtown kids, there were the uptown kids. Like, I was a downtown girl. I was East Village, really East Village because the gender non-conforming thing, the androgynous thing that I was doing when I moved to New York in 1993 fit better in the East Village. By the time I made it to New York, I was wearing dresses, lots of vintage things. I had a black, lamé vintage dress that I would wear. And then I would incorporate dancewear so I could go out and dance and really do my thing. So a good, chunky heel, platform heel. And my head was shaved. And I shaved my brows and drew them on. And a lot of people thought Grace Jones because the look, this look was very androgynous.

The drag scene, I wasn't in. But I also, like - I had internalized transphobia. And, like, for me, there was - because by this time, by the time I made it to New York, I'd also read bell hooks. And so I had - and I'd read other feminist writers who were very skeptical of drag and this performance of womanhood that was sort of seen as mockery by some feminists. And so I was sort of contending with that and trying to, like, navigate my newfound feminist politics with, like, my gender and not wanting to sort of, like, feed into some sort of retrograde idea of womanhood. So there was also - that was introduced in college. But underneath all of that was, like, a deep, deep transphobia that I'd internalized.

MOSLEY: That read as discernment, but really it was...

COX: It was a lot of...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

COX: It was like I was terrified of ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress.

MOSLEY: Dress.

COX: Because I think in my mind, too, if I embraced the womanhood, the girlhood that I knew I was - and in my mind, I thought that, like, on top of, like, you know, all the stigma that you are a degenerate or something that I think I internalized about trans people, it's also that I didn't think I could be smart, even though I loved smart women. There was - I think there was just something about, I was never presented with images of drag performers or trans women on television, if I ever even saw a trans woman on television at the time, that were articulate...

MOSLEY: Intellectual.

COX: ...And intellectual. And even as I entered the club scene, there were so many really, really smart drag performers who were just brilliant artists. But I needed time to, like, let all that stuff go. And I just needed time.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. We'll continue our conversation with Laverne Cox in just a moment. Her new memoir is called "Transcendent." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE BENNIE MAUPIN QUARTET'S "PROPHET'S MOTIFS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today I am talking with Laverne Cox. She has a new memoir out about her life and career. It's titled "Transcendent."

In 2025, you cocreated the series and starred - it's on Prime Video - called "Clean Slate."

COX: Yes.

MOSLEY: And you play Desiree, a trans woman who comes home to Mobile, Alabama, after more than 20 years away to a father who'd been estranged from her, played by comedian George Wallace. And it was one of the last things the legendary Norman Lear made before he died. And here's a scene of Desiree with her father trying to find their way back to each other. And Wallace speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CLEAN SLATE")

GEORGE WALLACE: (As Harry) Look at us, picking up right where we left off after all these years.

COX: (As Desiree) Well, it will be a process.

WALLACE: (As Harry) What's going to be a process?

COX: (As Desiree) You know, unpacking all our stuff.

WALLACE: (As Harry) Well, you ain't got but one suitcase.

COX: (As Desiree) OK. My therapist says that our past and our present are linked. Like, with me, I have a pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable men. And that is linked to my past and to, well, you know, the first emotionally unavailable man in my life.

WALLACE: (As Harry) Well, who the hell is he? Does he live around here? Do we need to go pay him a visit?

COX: (As Desiree) OK. Let's try something. Are you open to writing a letter to me as the 10-year-old girl I always was, but you were unable to see?

WALLACE: (As Harry) Say what now?

COX: (As Desiree) Dr. Vera Rishi Guerrera says...

WALLACE: (As Harry) Doctor who?

COX: (As Desiree) My therapist.

WALLACE: (As Harry) Have y'all been up there talking about me behind my back? Maybe I need to write his a** a letter.

COX: (As Desiree) She's a she.

WALLACE: (As Harry) Well, maybe I need to write her a** a letter.

COX: (As Desiree) So I think I'm just going to retire to what I imagine is my completely unchanged childhood bedroom.

WALLACE: (As Harry) That's where you got it wrong. I put in a ceiling fan.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) That was my guest, Laverne Cox, with the George Wallace in the Prime Video series "Clean Slate." And it's so funny. It's a great series.

COX: Thank you.

MOSLEY: But you have so much compassion in it, in the same way that I see the way you write about your mother. There's compassion there while also just showing the truth, you know?

COX: Yeah. What a joy. I've never - it's interesting, I've never just listened to that scene. I've watched it, but I've never just listened to it. What a joy it was working with George. I just go back to, like, how incredibly funny he was, but also how sensitive he was. And how, oh, just - it was glorious. And it's very, very loosely based on my life. And the sort of question is, like, what if Laverne never became famous, and had a father, and went back home to Mobile?

MOSLEY: Is that healing, to write from that place? Because you write in great detail about the truth about your father, which for many years, you had told a different story - that you had never met him, that he had died.

COX: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And the truth is you did meet him. And it was a pretty traumatic thing. And so watching this series, it kind of feels like a writing of the truth, but a rewriting in a way that kind of takes back something.

COX: It was. The writing of it, the creating of the series - like, first with Dan Ewen, our co-showrunner and cocreator, and then with George - like, for years before we, you know, got a deal, that part was fun. Coming up with storylines and episodes and pulling things from my life, that was fun. But when it was time to actually act it and relive it, I was triggered. Again, hello, trigger. I was triggered a lot because we added a lot of things from my life.

And we gave George a lot of the characteristics that my mother has. I mean, my mother's funny, but she's not that funny. So George is hilarious. And so, yeah, I never obviously had a father in my life, so we had to endow that. But something interesting happened by the end, where I felt this very dysfunctional but sort of paternal relationship with George that, in the moment of the show, felt strangely healing in a way that I didn't expect, particularly in the last episode. I...

MOSLEY: What do you mean? Why? Yeah.

COX: There's a scene where I just - where I needed my dad, and he was there. And it was everything that Desiree needed as a child that she was able to finally get from him as an adult - care and feeling seen by him and feeling protected in a way that he had not done when she was a child. There was sometimes when it's the character, and then sometimes it's just you. And, yeah, that's certainly what I needed as a child. And so there was a - I was - there was a moment I just start - I cry and in my - like, he's holding me, and it just, like - it just wasn't acting anymore. It was George and me. It was - I don't know. It was - I can't, like - I don't have words for it, but it was really beautiful, a beautiful experience for me as an actor.

It's a scene I can't watch. Like, I probably need, like, three more years to be able to watch it with some perspective. But how wonderful 'cause, I mean, George is, like, an icon as a comedian, and there's - the comedy in this show is wonderful, but there's a lot of drama in "Clean Slate." And he was just so dialed into that huge heart and that love and that generosity. And it was such an honor to receive all of that love that he has inside that he surrendered to the character and to our circumstances as father and daughter.

MOSLEY: Do you ever have a desire - you know, you are sitting in who you are, and you are representing who you are in this lane as a trans woman. Do you ever want to branch out and do other types of roles that...

COX: I already have. I've been very...

MOSLEY: And do you feel like it's there for you, that material?

COX: It may not exist yet, but I know that there are artists out there who I maybe haven't met yet who are writing it. I - you know, Shonda Rhimes cast me to play Kacy Duke, who is a real-life human being and a brilliant woman who I got to meet, and she's not transgender, in "Inventing Anna." I'm not fully clear if the character I played in "Promising Young Woman" is trans or not. It doesn't suggest that she's trans, so the audience can make the decision.

And I always have wondered if - with Kacy, it's explicit that she's not trans. But if a character's not written as trans - well, like, if a character's not written as Black and I play her, the character becomes Black. If the character's not written as trans, does she become trans because I'm playing her? And I think in some cases, maybe, and in some cases, maybe not. It depends on if there's source material if I'm playing a real person. And so, for me, it's really about how complicated the character is, how challenging she is to play and less about, like, whether she's trans or not. I certainly I don't see any limitations around what I can play as an actor. And I think what I'm most excited about is, if people see - feel that there's a limitation, I look forward to proving them wrong. Yes. I'm very excited about that.

MOSLEY: Laverne Cox, it's been such a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for this conversation.

COX: Thank you. This has really been wonderful.

MOSLEY: Laverne Cox's new memoir is called "Transcendent."

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, actor Wendell Pierce. You know him as Bunk in "The Wire," and now he's taking on one of Shakespeare's giants, Othello. But it was playing Willy Loman on Broadway that took him somewhere personal, drawing on his own father to build that role. Pierce talks with us about his father and the men he plays. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram @nprfreshair. You can also subscribe and watch some of our interviews on our YouTube page, @thisisfreshair.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS WILSON'S "COMMON")

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