Laverne Cox

0:05Hello there. Hello Laverne. Thank you so much for being here and doing this. I want to say what I think everybody in the room is saying. How is it possible that you're even more gorgeous in person than you are on television?

0:21I am just awestruck. It's going to take me a moment to get my sort of wits about me.

0:30From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, Debbie speaks with Laverne Cox about her life and career and about the effects of fame on her aspirations. I know my job is to be myself and to become more of myself.

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2:20This episode is sponsored by Kohler Smart Toilets. The objects we interact with most are often the ones we notice least. The Kohler Smart Toilet challenges that assumption. What if the most overlooked space in your home could become the most considered? Their Vail Smart Toilet is a sculptural silhouette that isn't just intentional. It's a philosophy that design changes everything. The Kohler Vail Smart Toilet is sleek, with a rounded shape that's more like architecture than just plumbing. and it goes beyond looks. The touch screen controls and customizable cleansing features offer a level of comfort and cleanliness that exceed expectations.

3:04It's all about elevating those ordinary daily rituals into something extraordinary through thoughtful design. Kohler has been pushing these boundaries for over 150 years, mastering that balance of stunning form and high-performance function. That's a long time to get it right, and it shows in every detail. Experience the difference of Kohler Smart Toilets. Find out more at Kohler.com. Laverne Cox is an Emmy-winning actor, producer, advocate, and one of the defining cultural figures of our time. She became internationally known for her groundbreaking role as Sophia Bursette on the television show Orange is the New Black, a performance that made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category.

4:02Since then, she has continued to expand what visibility can mean as an actor, a producer, a host, a speaker, and an artist whose work insists on complexity, dignity, glamour, truth, and humanity. Her brand new, instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Transcendent, offers a portrait of an artist whose life has been shaped by survival, discipline, beauty, and truth. Laverne Cox, welcome to this very special live episode of Design Matters at the Pride Book Fair in New York City. Thank you so much. That was so beautiful. I appreciate that. Laverne, first I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your love of Salvation Armani It's a phrase I sort of coined in the book I started in middle school thrifting, going to thrift stores and that's when I started dressing myself and we had, in walking distance from our house on Broad Street in Mobile, Alabama there was a Salvation Army and Goodwill right next to each other and this would have been the early 80s and I could literally get like you know a pair of pants for 25 cents or a whole outfit for like 99 cents or something so I would like you know with five dollars I would come out with quite a haul and it was fabulous and I got to kind of experiment and begin to kind of fashion myself and create myself anew with my Salvation Armani with the clothes I got from thrift stores.

5:44And the great thing about me as an adult now is that I still love vintage clothes. Not necessarily, you know, we've elevated maybe a little bit. I am wearing Comme des Garcons today, not Mugler. And many people, like people, it's always Mugler. It's mostly Mugler. But occasionally, it's Comme des Garcons. As one does. Vintage, of course. Transcendent opens with the prompt tell me something you don't want us to know and then moves towards a sentence that reads more like a declaration let the truth in after years of being asked to represent history, visibility and progress, what truth about your own life finally needed to become speakable through your new book?

6:40all the things that I still had either shame about or felt if I told the truth it would reinforce some narrative about trans people that wouldn't be helpful I had to let go of that and a lot of I've made a lot of choices and decisions about what I disclose publicly because I don't want to feed into a stereotype, a negative stereotype about trans people or set us back in some way. But my truth is my truth. And I have to, I mean, I quote, this is a quote from the book, the Brene Brown quote. And when we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we can write a brave new ending. And so this is me trying to own my story even more fully and I thought I had processed all of my trauma and with my wonderful therapist I've been with for 10 years and previous therapists I've been in therapy for 26 years I thought I was like good um and what the book made me realize is that there's a lot of unprocessed trauma still like I've the things that I've barely written about the the childhood sex abuse the orphanage.

8:02There are things that I've never really, I barely skimmed the surface with my therapist. I had never told my therapist an orphanage story. I'm like, how do you? There's some work to do. Then I thought that memories that were suppressed would stay suppressed, but in the process, things came back. That was awful. They were suppressed for a reason. So it was hard. It was really, really hard. But what has been the best part is now. Talking to people, dear friends of mine who've read the book and didn't know all these things about me, but then one friend in particular who's like, our childhoods were so similar.

8:49I like we're we've been friends for like 15 years and she didn't know this about me I didn't know this about her how our childhoods were similar similar how our relationships with our mothers were similar and she hasn't I mean she just started therapy a few years ago so she has so much to process so it just brought up so much for her but it's she's ready to kind of slowly start processing and healing. So that's more than anyone could ever ask for from their work. If you are able to touch someone and inspire them to uncover something or even just give them language for something that they've experienced in their lives that they don't have language for, and I'm finding that as well.

9:36So that's been deeply humbling. Humbling is the only word that I can think of because it's like people are being affected in profound ways, and that's awesome. You talked about your hometown of Mobile, Alabama. It appears in Transcendent as a place of heat, church, family, beauty, danger, and constant surveillance. it also taught you very very early on that the way you moved through space was being watched and interpreted before you had the language for a lot of who you are what were you beginning to understand about the danger of being seen there i instinctively understood that nowhere was safe except my imagination.

10:34That the world wasn't safe, that people were not trustworthy, and that I had to go someplace else. So I disassociated, so I lived in my imagination. I dreamed about being on TV and on stages, and I danced, and I made up characters, and I had music in my head, and I just went elsewhere. I learned that the world wasn't safe. My therapist, Jennifer, she's in San Francisco. We've been virtual since the pandemic. And I had a book event in San Francisco. And she came to the event. And then she finally finished the book. And we've been together. It'll be August. It'll be 10 years. And even after 10 years, she was like, I didn't realize the extent of the boundary violations you experienced as a child and throughout your young adult life.

11:30and it's the language of boundary violations is like really important and it kind of contextualized for her more when I when I became famous and people were sort of running up to me all excited I it you know my whole life people have been running up to me trying to beat me up or harm me so it just it was it's really intense and it's still something I struggle with if I'm not prepared. So there's something about my therapist just saying that that's like, okay, like, this makes sense. You know, like, again, having language, having context, you feel less like there's something wrong with you. And you understand that it's about what happened to you.

12:15And then hopefully you can lean into what's right with you. You begin the book with very vivid recollections of being beaten by your schoolmates over and over. And then somehow making it home to your mom who asked you what you did to provoke it. Yes. Your mother was a teacher, disciplinarian. She was a woman carrying her own history of trauma and poverty and rage, which she takes out on you and your brother over and over. Your father is completely non-existent, the one experience you do have with him I want to ask you about. But you seem, towards the end of the book, to have forgiven your mother.

13:08She comes to a lot of your events now. She seems to be very proud. Yes. But for a long time, she was very ashamed. How have you been able to reconcile that? I don't even know. I guess ashamed, but also like there was, it was always weird with my mother because there was, there was, you know, what's wrong with you? Why don't you act like the other kids? Why don't you fight back? What are you doing to make them, you know, treat you this way? Like never feeling safe around her. She has a hypervigilance and could just go off at any moment. I think a lot of it was the stress of trying to raise two kids by herself.

13:46She was a single mother working four jobs. Actually, my therapist thinks she might have some narcissistic tendencies. I think of it. I've observed that she has some obsessive compulsive tendencies around cleanliness. So she's very compartmentalized because when I was making straight A's and winning talent shows, that was always something she celebrated you know so like the success but there was also the you know why do you dress this way and why are they it wasn't even why do i dress this way it's it was about the other kids and the what the parents would be saying about her and it felt like it was more about that than it was about who i actually was it was more about how people would perceive her and bless her heart bless her heart um yeah um i there is a lot of forgiveness and the forgiveness has come through me getting older and being in therapy learning more about um how trauma is passed down from generation to generation um learning more really listening to the story she told me about her childhood and my grandfather who is really abusive who was raised on a plantation and just the brutal violence that she experienced as a child and witnessed him inflict on my grandmother.

15:08So there's just a lot of compassion I have for that little girl who didn't have the tools that I was lucky to find as an adult to process and heal some of my childhood stuff. Do you feel that your early achievement as such a good student, as somebody that was alive with such a vivid imagination became a form of protection? Absolutely. Yeah. My inner monologue was, one day I'm going to be rich and famous, and I'm going to show all of you to the bullies. And it was also, I was very focused and determined to get out of Mobile, Alabama. And so all of the stuff that the other kids were concerned about and saying, I just thought it was ridiculous and silly.

16:00I was just, I don't have time for this. I have to get to New York. I have to be prepared. I have to study. I have to learn as much as possible. So I was like very, I got to get the heck out of here. This is not it. I was very clear that Mobile, Alabama was not it. So I just, and even, you know, I realized as an adult when I started working in restaurants, how some of my coworkers would like sort of fixate on what customers would do in like a little minutia. I've always sort of been more big picture. And I learned to adapt to some of that, like complaining about customers or whatever. But I'm like the bigger thing around goals and even analysis.

16:43So that's just kind of who I am. So I'm just, that's what's right with me. The thing that I've always had that kept me alive. I mean, I came close to not being alive a few times, but I'm still here, luckily. Your father appears in the book, as I mentioned, in one devastating encounter. More of a sperm donor than a father. Yes, yes. Your mother drops you and your twin brother at his home unannounced. She had had it for a moment. You'd never met him before. upon meeting you he looked at you and your brother and calls you fucking freaks he then drops you off at a police station where you're then moved to the orphanage that you just mentioned and it was weeks before your mother came and got you you didn't even know if she ever would return what did that abandonment teach you about trust what did it distort for years and how have you been able to reconstruct any of it?

17:54I know, big question. Yeah, this one is, this is, that story is like, of all the things that happened in my childhood, you read the books, there were many, that was the most traumatizing, and for my brother as well. I want to note that it was actually the woman that my sperm donor was living with who dropped us off at the police station. I forget the pseudonym I gave her. But, okay, it's kind of messy. It's my mother's messy business, but it's sort of mine too. But I'll save that for the book. If you haven't read the book yet. You have to read the book. It's juicy, girl. It's a mess. And I didn't even figure this out.

18:40Like maybe 10 years ago, my mother kind of gave me the, I was like, you were, ah. and then it like kind of clipped. So there were other, and there were other kids there who were his kids. So presumably like half siblings as well. So anyway, so, oh gosh, the, I mean, the abandonment was, I already felt like unwanted. I already felt like a mistake. Like we were in an accident. My mother didn't plan to get pregnant. And my, I believe that children ruined people's lives. And I felt like so horrible for being born and ruining this young woman's life. She has to take care of these kids and it's like stressing her out.

19:26So there was that. So I never felt wanted. I never felt loved or lovable. Yeah, I just didn't trust people. And my mother would always say, you know, if you don't act right, I'm going to put you out. I'm going to put you out on the street. And like after the orphanage, I was like, oh, yeah, she will. Well, she did. She did. Yeah. So that was devastating. But how did I?

19:51I just I just did another I did another little interview podcast in this and with this woman who met me in like, I think, 2012 or 2013 in Chicago. And she was like, oh, Laverne's cool, but she's very guarded. And I and I was like, thank you for saying that because I am. And I always have been. Why wouldn't you be? Just very self-protective and not trusting of people and very reticent to let people in. And that's kind of been most of my life. I'm very careful about who I let in still. And I think when you become famous, it's a good thing. Because people don't always have the best intentions. But so I don't mind that.

20:39I think that being guarded and protecting myself is a good thing. But learning how to let my guard down and when it's safe to do that has been the work. Figuring out who is safe and who isn't. And that's trust over time. That's people sort of showing that they are trustworthy. And it's wild because I feel more comfortable being vulnerable on stage or on TV in a podcast than I do interpersonally, usually, which is fascinating. So I think it's just learning, doing some rewiring, too. Trauma survivors, my therapist says, turn dinner bells into alarm bells and alarm bells into dinner bells. so most of my right that when she said that i was like

21:35thank god for therapists i know right that one like just that still just knocks me over and it just was like bitch you're reading me like every single man and so much of the dysfunctional things played out less in friendships what very much played out in romantic relationships and I let men in, some men in not ever fully because I wasn't a baby, I couldn't, I didn't know how but they were in way more than they should have been because I turned dinner bells into alarm bells and alarm bells into dinner bells so I was sort of dating and having sex with my bullies for years as a way of working through the trauma unconsciously yeah not i wasn't consciously doing that i it was very unconscious but it was i understand now that that's what was familiar that people um abusing me and um being verbally abusive and speaking to me and like i'm nothing was familiar and like my mother would say she loved me and treated me that way so that's what I thought love was.

22:47It's not. No, my therapist actually, my therapist taught me that you keep repeating a lot of the things or repeating patterns in your life of things that have happened to you in an effort to try to make the outcome different. Yes. It was, I mean, Nate, the alcoholic ex of mine who was emotionally abusive, I'm very clear after that relationship that that was like he was my mother and i through that relationship i was like i'm gonna make my mother love me i'm i'm gonna prove to her that i'm worthy and that i deserve to be loved and i'm lovable it was girl girl that almost killed me and but i but afterwards i discovered um melanie beattie's codependent no more and robin norwood's women who love too much you know that girl i think we're in a room of codependent no more is a must women who love too much is a must so um yeah um so i haven't repeated that done some other things but i haven't repeated that relationship so you left home you went to the alabama school of fine arts for high school and then went to indiana university for college where you studied dance and you were still moving quite a lot through harassment, danger.

24:11Lamar, your brother, your twin brother, he introduced you to bell hooks. Her books gave you a language for the oppositional gaze, internalized racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and the need to decolonize the mind. What did her work unlock that your talent alone didn't at that point. Critical awareness. I actually asked one of my exes, was there ever a moment in your life when you realized everything you've been told is a lie and you have to sort of relearn things and reconceptualize like the world and your place in it? And he said, no. And I was like, wow. He was like, I just try to be the best person I can.

24:56but that was what that moment was it was like the light being turned on that's what woke is about it's about in the matrix what pill are you taking to wake up and that's what it was it was intense because it was exciting just the way she writes is exciting and provocative and sexy but it was also like oh my god like i am filled with self-hatred because of race class and gender and i need to work on this so so it was mental health work it was also a critical analysis of the world that continues to serve me i you know this was been 30 30 plus years ago that i discovered her work and i keep returning to it and um it's a testament to the depth of the scholarship and the wisdom that's there and that she more than anything was interested in optimal well-being for first black people and women and just anybody who's oppressed.

26:06And I love her books and I got to meet her and I got to know her and I had a phone number and we talked on the phone and she became the kind of mother that I figured that I probably maybe wanted to have. Belle had issues too. But I felt seen by her. I felt deeply deeply I felt deeply seen by her. And there's something that's what we all want is to feel seen and known and I understand now my mother didn't have the capacity still doesn't really have the capacity to fully see me and I accept that but Bell Hooks did and what a gift to have someone's work quite literally change her life I was quoting Bell Hooks forever I ended up meeting her because on my first college tour it was titled Ain't I a Woman after her first book A &I Woman was obviously inspired by this Journal of Truth speech from 1851.

27:18It was the tour that Laverne was doing, going around to schools, not looking at colleges to go to. Correct. I had a speaking tour, yes. I had a speaking tour that started in 2013, and I called it A &I Woman. And so, of course, I was referencing Bell Hooks, quoting Bell Hooks. And word got back to Bell through the university system that this Laverne Cox from that Orange is New Black loves her some Bell Hooks. and Belle loves to hear that and she invited me to do a public dialogue with her at the New School I think it was in 2014 and then we just kind of we clicked which was just lovely I still can't even believe it I really I wish she was still here I write about getting this the day before she died she wasn't well she was surrounded by people and she specifically wanted to talk to me I'm sure she was calling a lot of people so she called me and we spoke and it was gut wrenching and she passed the next day but she's written over 35 books and there's such an incredible legacy that she has left and so many, I love seeing so many people who've been influenced by her.

28:45And yeah, we need some bell hooks in our lives right now.

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30:12You initially went to college to study dance, and it really wasn't until your brother Lamar said, insisted that you were an actor, that you really would started to think about becoming more serious about pursuing a career as an actor. and before Orange is the New Black, you went through 20 years of struggle. Auditions, financial instability. At one point you were ready to give up your dream of becoming an actor and began studying for the GREs. What did you think you were going to do with the GREs? Well, I needed to get into grad school, so generally you have to take the GRE. That was my understanding anyway.

30:59I was looking into I was getting I was looking I was because I had been writing some stuff for the Huffington Post pretty regularly and I was I thought journalism was interesting and then I was I was always interested in like gender studies and like post-colonial studies and race critical race stuff so I was thinking of some sort of combination of all of those things that might have a media focus so it would be designing my own major and so like I mean I was getting applications from every place so and I was going to kind of figure it out. I was looking through the applications and just, you know, studying.

31:34And then before I could take a test or start writing applications, the Orange is New Black audition happened. In hindsight, what did those 20 years forge in you that a faster success might not have built? Life experience, getting to like live a life. And to be an artist, you have to live. You have to have things to draw from. And so I had a lot of things to draw from, from my work as an actor. And then when the responsibility of being a face for trans people came along, I had lived experience as a trans person. I hadn't just so often, like with a Chaz Bono or with a Caitlyn Jenner, like they come out publicly and they're already famous, but they haven't gotten to live their lives as trans people.

32:29So they really can't speak to what that experience is. And I used to sort of jokingly say, I don't think any trans people should be in front of a camera for at least five to seven years. And I certainly shouldn't have been. But I started medical transition in 1998, and Orange is New Black came out in 2013. and in that time I was not just living my life as a trans woman I was engaged in, I did work here at the center we had a trans cinema night and I even taught a workshop using acting techniques as therapy and I testified with a lot of other trans people in the early 2000s to get the human rights law changed to include trans people and I went to Equality and Justice Day every year in Albany to try to get gender passed.

33:24And so I was involved in media that was in community with trans people. And I studied beyond just being a community. I studied statistics and law and what's happening in the news. So I had some knowledge to speak about the lived experiences of trans people that a celebrity who transitions publicly might not have right away. and so that is a very good thing I love actors I really love us and I love my profession but a lot of us when we get into talking about politics a lot of us don't know what we're fucking talking about and I say that with love but it's a lot of work to continue to read up and be aware of various issues and I try to stick my lanes but it's like it's a lot of work so sometimes people want actors to speak up but maybe it's best that some of us don't and so when I do I try to be informed I try to be as informed as possible and I try not to speak about things that I don't have some level of proficiency or expertise in but I think I can safely say what I talk about I have a depth of knowledge in I'd like to think Yes.

34:48Your overnight success, so to speak, happened almost exactly 20 years after you moved to New York. Soon after Orange is the New Black, you received Critics' Choice nomination, the cover of Time magazine, multiple Emmy nominations, an Emmy win. You were designated Glamour Woman of the Year, and a new public identity as a first. What is the difference between being celebrated and being seen? The difference between being celebrated and being seen. That's one of the best questions anyone's ever asked me. Thank you. This whole interview, you've turned it. Work.

35:35From my experience, I think being celebrated, for me, just my experience, it's been symbolic. being the first trans person it becomes a symbol and it's not humanizing it's not a bad thing but it's not you become a symbol you become the way the way the Obamas are you know because of their and they've handled all of it so eloquently but they're symbols and so you're a symbol and so then if you want to insist on being a human being, which means you're flawed. Human beings are flawed and we struggle. That becomes more difficult. And being seen is fully seen is someone seeing the flaws, seeing the imperfections, seeing that what they may want to project onto you isn't exactly who you are.

36:35And it's devastating to disappoint people. I've disappointed fans many times over the years and that's partly why i have that prayer give me permission to do this imperfectly and allow me to be of service because i know my job is to be myself and to become more of myself and for some of my fans and followers they want me to uphold a standard that they think I should uphold or that should be upheld that would probably be impossible for anyone to uphold so being seen is flaws and all to quote Beyonce because we must as much as possible quote Beyonce yeah I think that's the difference that you get to be flawed and human when you're seen and when you're celebrated there is a little bit of dehumanization in that you're not allowed to be flawed.

37:40Human. Human. This is my last question. Yes. At the end of your beautiful book, your book becomes not only a memoir, it's an offering to your brother Lamar, to your ancestors and transestors. Great, such a beautiful word. And to readers who may need to hear and feel your very human story. In this moment of renewed backlash and scapegoating to the entire LGBTQ plus community, what do you want this book to make harder for people to deny? The humanity of trans people. What we have witnessed in real time over the past seven years is a well-coordinated, systematic, well-financed, disciplined dehumanization campaign of trans people rhetorically and in the media.

38:43and that has created a permission structure to pass public policy that strips away rights from trans people. I've said this before publicly and people are like, what rights in the comment section? What rights? Name them. And I'm just like, oh, they're not paying attention or they don't know. And one morning I was in the, I had time, so I went through the comment section. I was in the comment section on People Magazine and I was like, you know when you're in the comment section and you're typing, you run out of space in the comment section. So you have to continue. I'm like, that's how many rights have been taken away.

39:20I mean, we don't need to list all of them. You probably all know here. But the dehumanization, and we have a sense of some of the dehumanizing language when it comes to black people. And I mean, we saw a great example of that from our sitting president when he posted a video depicting the Obamas, speaking of them as apes in a video. That's... Wow. Wow. Deplorable. Yeah. Our president. Not my president. Not mine. Not my president, girl. And we understand this about other groups that I think we really need to get clear about how they're dehumanizing trans people, the language, and understand what they affect.

40:09A few examples I've been giving, when they talk about trans girls in sports, they usually say men in girls sports. So they evoke a grown man in girls sports. So they don't talk about a trans girl playing other girls, because that's a different image. But a man in girls sports, dehumanizing. Gender ideology. I'm not an ideology. I'm a human being. What's gender ideology anyway? It's a turf word to dehumanize and like make it seem like trans people are some kind of rhetorical flourish or academic endeavor instead of like human beings who've existed since the beginning of time.

40:57I could go on I could go on but being really critical when they do things like talk about gender reforming care for young people as mutilating young people or just becoming aware that this is intentional language that invites the listener, the viewer to not see a human being when they think about or see trans people but to see an ideology to see a monstrous person who is there to like jeopardize the safety of children and women and that is that's an old very old Anita Bryant kind of um um trope and it's another way of um pitting women against you know like divide and conquer and the reality is that all of the anti-trans policies that are being implemented negatively affect trans people, but they really negatively affect cis women as well, like, across the board.

41:56I mean, I can go into the weeds on this. For you examples, just with the bathroom policies, when random people are sort of deputized as bounty hunters to find trans people in bathrooms, most of the people that they're spotting as trans aren't. They're cis women. So, like, who wants to be in a bathroom stall and somebody's knocking on it? You're not supposed to be here and then you're terrified. I'll never forget one video of this woman coming out of the stall pulling up her shirt. She had a bra on. I'm a woman. I'm a woman. What? What are we doing? And then even with the sports thing, are we inspecting genitals?

42:37Are we doing chromosome tests? And then there's a bigger piece when it comes to this scrimmety case with that band in at least in a limited way, gender-affirming care for young people in Tennessee. But that was not a heightened scrutiny case determined by the Supreme Court, which actually affects how all gender discrimination laws will be able to be brought forth to the Supreme Court. So we're all in this together, really. And all of our fates are tied. And so the divide and conquer, we can't allow that. No one's free until all of us are free. and that's not just trans people and LGBT that's like immigrants that's like poor people everybody so if this is happening for us this moment and not to us and I'd like to believe it's happening for us it's hard it's hard what's happening for us is to me the election the other day Brad Landers is my I'm in his district.

43:43I voted for him. But our mayor and the fascist regime that we're currently living under that is so deeply corrupt and just brazenly so. And just the lack of care that this regime has for regular people, for working people, and the lack of interest that the Democratic Party has shown for working people. We're really aware of that. We feel that in a really deep way. And we're mobilizing. And we're saying no more. And I think the only way to defeat this fascism is a movement from the people. From all of us getting together, organizing, and demanding something new and better. You know, God, I want to end.

44:34But South Africa, when they ended apartheid, they got a new constitution. it may be time for a constitutional convention. We need to start thinking big. Project 2025 is a robust document that is the wet dream of the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society for 50 years. They are having their dreams come true right now. We need our Project 2029 that is a vision for power back to the people. power back to the people not corporations, not billionaires but power back to the people Laverne Cox applause applause applause applause on behalf of us all thank you for being you thank you for being here thank you for writing this remarkable book thank you for doing so much work that matters and thank you today for being with me here on Design I just saw that Roxanne Gay is a shout out to Roxanne Gay.

45:45The icon, the legend. Thank you for being here. I know. Laverne, she's my wife. You're married to her? Hi. Good for you. Aren't you both lucky? I'm single for two years and celebrate for two years, but very happy. Very happy. This is prime real estate, honey. It's not for everybody. Not anymore. It's in the book. Laverne Cox, everybody. Thank you.

46:33Thank you. You guys. Thank you.

46:40Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-running branding program in the world. The Editor-in-Chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland. Ah,

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