Laverne Cox told a theatre about her struggles and triumphs as a trans black woman during her sold-out speech at the Bronson Centre on March 25.
“Ain’t I a woman?” she said to a round of applause.
Cox is best known for her starring role on the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, where she depicts a transgender woman named Sophia Burset who has been arrested for credit card fraud.
Burset’s struggles on the show mirror many which Cox and other trans women have experienced.
In her speech, Cox noted 16 per cent of all transgender women in America have been to prison.
Her role on Orange is the New Black is not the first time Cox has been in the spotlight.
She is known for co-hosting and producing TRANSform Me for VH1 television, where she became the first openly transgender black woman to produce her own show.
Cox is also a well-known activist because she represents a variety of marginalized societal groups.
In 2009, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation group honoured Cox with a media award for her work as an advocate for the transgender community.
“I am a daughter, a sister, a woman, an African-American,” she said. “I am not just one thing, and neither are you.”
Her speech raised concerns about transphobia in Canada and abroad.
A survey done by national charity LGBT Egale Canada reported 70 per cent of all students heard derogatory expressions such as “That’s so gay” every day in school.
The study also reported 77 per cent of all trans people in the province of Ontario have considered ending their lives.
Recently, there has been debate on revisions to Bill C-279, which would allow discrimination against the trans community to be a criminal offense in Canada.
As the Globe and Mail reported in February, discussion on revising the bill will be pushed back until after the federal election this fall.
Jeremy Dias, Community Director for the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), said the revisions were “a step backwards [but] only one piece of the puzzle.”
“It’s harder to get 30 million people to be respectful, and to know why they have to be,” Dias said.
Another main theme of Cox’s speech was identity.
She teared up while describing her own struggle with self-acceptance.
“I imagined that my mom knew my thoughts about boys . . . so I took a whole bottle of pills, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up,” she said.
This conversation started by Cox is one example of the many discussions that the United Against Racism Week at the University of Ottawa hoped to encourage.
All week, the university featured discussions from different groups, including an Indigenous solidarity day March 26.
“United Against Racism Week is dedicated to raising awareness and start a discussion on racism with students,” the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa’s website states.
Dias said events like this get society talking.
“We claim that things are getting better, but they don’t get better for everyone equally,” he said. “We are living in a new age of LGBTQ-ness where we are fighting for our rights and values to be put into practice.”
Quoting political theorist Cornel West, Cox called on society to stop policing each other on gender norms.
“Justice is what love looks like in public,” she said.
Dias noted the solution to discrimination is not easy and requires some outside-of-the-box thinking.
“The answer to transphobia, and to discrimination in general is just as complicated as the problem,” he said. “We have to be open-minded, patient, and better people to everybody.”
United Against Racism Week hosted events until March 27 on the University of Ottawa campus.
