Transgender Tipping Point : LaVerne Cox covers Time Magazine

LaVerne Cox has come a long way. We were first introduced to the actress and LGBT advocate on the reality television show “I Want To Work For Diddy”.

After watching LaVerne on that show, I knew she would be a mainstay in the entertainment industry.

And this week proved it as she has made history as being the first transgender to be featured on TIME magazine.

This is not only a big deal for the transgender and LGBTQ community, but all of us.

LaVerne Cox Covers Time

As the headline suggests, it’s a tipping point in the acceptance of gender diversity, and respect for all human beings. In this issue, LaVerne talks about bullying and shame on the road to success. It wasn’t an easy road she says.

Cox said from a very young age, she wanted to dance and be creative.

“I begged my mother to put me into dance classes and finally, in third grade, she did. Tap and jazz but not ballet. She thought ballet was too gay. … Throughout all of that, I was very feminine and I was really bullied, majorly bullied,” she said. “I was also taunted at school. I was called names. I was made fun of.”

Cox also talked about being chased by a group of girls and going to therapy after her teacher called her mother and said, “Your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress.”

“Going to a therapist and the fear of God being placed in me about ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress, that was a profoundly shaming moment for me. I associated it with being some sort of degenerate, with not being successful,” she said. “My mother was a teacher. She was grooming my brother and me to be successful, accomplished people. I didn’t associate being trans, or wearing a dress, with that, or wanting to be a girl with being successful. So it’s something I just started to push down. I wanted to be famous, I wanted to perform. Those things I really, really wanted more than anything else.”

But through it all, Cox said she is now happy, living life, with hopes to inspire others.

Read the Time Magazine article here.

You can currently catch LaVerne Cox on the popular Netflix series “Orange is The New Black”