Laverne Cox, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
-Thank you so much. It's so... This is wild. -Um...
This is so interesting, this whole... (laughs)
It's a very strange experience, yes? Have you gotten used
to just meeting and talking to everybody like this?
I-I have, and I kind of prefer it.
Can I tell you, before coronavirus,
I never did video chats,
like, when I would meet guys on dating apps.
I would always want to just meet in person.
Now it's a pr-prerequisite.
-Now we have to video chat. -(laughs)
Um, and it's a great way to prescreen.
So now I'm gonna be... I'm prescreening,
um, all my potential dates via video chat.
So, thank you, COVID-19.
Wait. Okay, help me understand this though.
What do you-- what do you think you get from the--
from the video chat that you wouldn't have gotten in person?
Or do you-- Or is it just for you,
that you don't have to go to the in-person
because you've done the video chat?
-Is that what it is? -You save time.
You-you eliminate a lot of people
that you would have, like, wasted time going to meet.
And so, like, you kind of know in, like,
you know, three to five minutes if-if it's gonna be a match.
So it's just another-- It's a pre-screen.
You have always been, I mean, one of the loudest
and proudest LGBTQ act-activists out there.
Like, you-you became just, like-like, the archetype
for what people hoped trans people could achieve
not just in acting but in any field.
You've come out with a-- with a new documentary now
that you are a part of and you've--
and you've produced as well.
And it's called Disclosure.
And what I loved about it is it's a documentary
taking us through how trans people
have been portrayed by Hollywood
and the entertainment industry for so long.
Tell me why you chose to go with this route.
I am obsessed with looking back in history
to help us understand why we are where we are now.
And there's so much that hasn't been done
around looking at trans history on so many different levels.
And because my work is in the media
and I'm obsessed with media
and want to do better
a-and want the media to do better,
it made a lot of sense.
We don't even think about it.
From the time we're kids,
we're receiving images,
we're receiving images and-- i-images and video,
and we just start to, you know, assemble the world in our minds.
There's no denying that trans has,
for a very long time, been a punch line.
Trans has been, you know, always displayed as the other,
the scary, the punch line.
It's-it's been this thing.
Over the past few years,
we've-we've started seeing the change.
But-but when you look at it as somebody who is trans,
what-- have you seen a big change?
Has that change been enough?
Enough is-is relative, right?
Like, um, what the film--
One of the things the film grapples with
is that there is indeed unprecedented representation
of trans folks in the media that really probably began
about six years ago.
And Sam, his--
Um, our director, Sam Feder,
noted that whenever there's increased visibility
of a marginalized community,
there's often backlash
and there's often increased violence.
And that is exactly what we're seeing
with the increased murders of, um, black trans women
and with the legislative assault as well.
So, yes, things have gotten better in terms of visibility,
and then there has been a backlash that we're seeing.
And I think one of the most critical things
that we should all remember
is how the technique of divide and conquer works,
um, to divide marginalized people, right?
So that, um-- I was so beautifully moved
when I saw that protest for black trans lives,
right, a-a little over a week ago.
-And so many people... -In Brooklyn, yeah.
COX: Yeah. And here in L.A. as well,
um, where folks were declaring that black trans lives matter,
that we understand that all black folks are affected
by systemic racism and that we have to come together
and we-- all marginalized people have to come together.
Here's a question I have for you that-that's a difficult one,
and I-I would only ask you
because I'm comfortable with you.
But how do you think we get to the place
where people can acknowledge their discomfort
and their misunderstanding of a thing
whilst not offending or-or discrimining--
discriminating against the other person?
How would you encourage that? You know?
In the same way we're having conversations around race,
how would you say to people, "Hey, let's try
and encourage just a movement in and around trans awareness"?
I think we have to really learn
how to sit with discomfort, period, right?
I think whenever it is we are called upon
to interrogate our internalized racism,
our internalized transphobia,
and we all internalize these things as Americans,
probably as citizens of the world.
Um, and so we each have to be able
to sit with that discomfort.
I think so often when we are--
when we come up against something
that is uncomfortable for us,
often, we go into this defense mode.
We go into fight, flight, or freeze.
"Oh, my God, someone called me transphobic.
Then I have to immediately defend that,"
instead of taking a breath and taking a moment
and sitting with the discomfort of maybe being called out.
Maybe you weren't wrong, maybe you were.
W-We all have to struggle.
So I think a lot of it's about learning how to sit
with discomfort, not going into fight, flight or freeze,
so we can actually hear what the criticism and the critique is.
And then understanding that, um,
being uncomfortable does not mean that you are unsafe.
Right? So there is a difference between, um--
The bathroom conversation just makes me think so much about--
um, 'cause for a really long-- for every--
for several years, it was all about bathrooms.
-Banning trans people from bathrooms, right? -Right.
In the segregated South,
white folks were not comfortable with black people
in the bathroom with them.
But did that mean that they were unsafe?
And so what does it mean for us to sit with discomfort?
What does it mean for us to really p-- ask ourselves,
"Are we not safe or are we just uncomfortable?"
I know you've been working on programs
to try and help trans people break into the industry,
you know, just behind-behind the cameras,
and you're really pushing
for how trans people are portrayed onscreen.
What are the big changes you think we need to make?
I think the piece is, how do we have, um,
diverse people in positions of power, right?
One of the things I'm most proud of with Disclosure
is that, um, everyone onscreen is trans
and most of the people working behind the scenes
and the crew are also trans.
And in the case when we couldn't find someone trans
to fill a role, um, we had a fellowship program
where we, um, had a cisgender person train the trans person.
But it's not just about, um,
what Cornel West calls putting black faces in high places.
Right? It's not just about, you know,
sort of putting, you know, diverse people
in the same sort of corrupt systems.
We have to, um, change the way that power works.
And so much of that is about, I believe,
changing the material conditions of poor and working people,
the people who are the most marginalized,
and to get them, you know, opportunities
to work in the industry behind the scenes
and then be truly elevated to positions of power,
to not just occupy the same sort of,
you know, corrupt system but to change the system.
Laverne Cox, thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Thank you, Trevor Noah. It's good to see you again.
Great seeing you.