Why Your Unresolved Trauma is Keeping You Stuck & How to Rewire Your Brain to Move Forward with Laverne Cox

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:59):
Why God put me here on this planet? And how
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up and be there from myself as much as I
can so that I am not a victim of any
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Speaker 2 (01:51):
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Speaker 1 (01:57):
Lemon. Welcome to On Purpose. Grateful to have you here.
I've looked forward to sitting with you for a long
long time, and so I really appreciate your space and
your energy and for you being here. And I want
to start off by asking you what childhood memory do
you have that you feel as defined the person that
you are today or most defines the person you are today.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
There's a few. There was a traumatic one that I
don't like to talk about that happened when I was
two years old that was deeply traumatic that certainly shaped
a lot of the trauma of my childhood, a lot
of the shame based parts of my childhood. My first
interactions with children are the children when I was in

(02:42):
sort of preschool, when I was probably five years old,
when I was bullied and called the F word and
a sissy, and the kids that I acted like a girl.
I often say the irony of my life is when
I was a child, the kids called me a girl,
and as an adult people call a man. That I've
transitioned and accepted my womanhood. That's interesting. So it's interesting

(03:05):
thinking that like other people told me, I was a
girl before I sort of fully was able to accept
or reckon with it, and it wasn't a good positive thing,
you know, right, because I was assigned mail at birth
as a transperson, being called a girl with sort of
a bad thing in the eyes of the other children.
So that's an early memory in terms of interacting with

(03:27):
other kids, and then dancing I am during back in
the day. I think, I don't know if there's still
physical education in schools, but I'm fifty one years old
and we had pe physical education and during free play
while the other kids were sort of playing sports. I
was off to the side, dancing by myself with music
in my head, and I would sort of have characters

(03:50):
that I would kind of portray through movement, and I'd
be imitating what I saw on television from Solid Gold.
For those people who are my age who know solid
Gold was this show in the eighties, was a countdown
show that counted down the top hits of the week,
and they had solid Gold dancers, and there was this
beautiful black woman named Darcel Wynn who was the lead

(04:12):
Solid Gold dancer, and she had long hair sort of
down to her knees, and she was so sexy and
so vivacious, and so I was sort of pretending to
be Darcel as I danced in pe and free play
and then church and speaking in church almost every Sunday.
My mother reminds me that I would summarize this Sunday

(04:32):
school lesson every Sunday, and Children's Day was like the
fourth Sunday of every month, and I was always sort
of getting up and making speeches in church, and that
even though I'm not a religious person now I'm very spiritual.
Church was this performance opportunity. The religious part of it
wasn't affirming. It was very shaming, but the performance part

(04:56):
of it was very affirming. Being told that I was
a speaker and that I was smart was something that
dancing and starting to study dance in third grade and
doing talent shows and then being considered a smart kid
who spoke well became my identity in terms of how

(05:18):
I saw myself, in addition to the identity that was
sort of placed on me that was from the other
kids and from my teachers, the bullied identity, the freak,
the sissy, the F word, the queer, all those identities
that were stigmatized were sort of placed on me. But
I also won talent shows and was a good speaker.

(05:44):
And there was this one moment in seventh grade. I
know you asked for one childhood member.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I this is beautiful.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
But there is one moment in seventh grade where I
ran for vice president of the student council and I
remember sort of doing the campaign. I made little flyers
and stuff, and like, I was this very by middle school.
I was dressing myself with things from the Salvation Army
and it was not quite gender non conforming yet, but

(06:14):
it was going more in an androgynist direction, and I
was kind of this know it all kid, I was like,
you know, raising my hand. You know, to be the
first one to answer questions in class is very annoying.
And I was chased home from school every day by
kids who wanted to beat me up and call it,
you know, this is c F word bullied because I
was very fim. But when the year that I ran

(06:37):
for student council president, we all got to make speeches
and right after the speeches, the kids voted, and I
remember the beginning of my speech was quality is my
principal and qualified is my attitude. I don't know what
I say after that, and I just remember the.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Kids being like.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
And they throwed it for me, and I became vispriad
than in the student council. So this kid that like
no one liked, who they made fun of, there was
something about me speaking in this moment with this confidence
and this sense of something I don't know, maybe speaking
in church every Sunday that they voted for me, and

(07:19):
that was a really wonderful moment.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Of screw you to the kids.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's like they voted for me, but like I was
also like this kid that everyone made fun of and
didn't like. So there was you know, and looking back,
and I've talked to very few people from middle school,
but like I think, even though they all sort of
made fun of me, there was an acknowledgement that there
was talent and there was intelligence there. And how wonderful,

(07:47):
as traumatizing as my childhood was to create a sense
of self it, you know, reading drama of the Gifted Child,
I understand that, you know, in retrospect, my identity became
about accomplishment and not who I was authentically. But how
wonderful to be a kid who valued education because of
my mother, who was a teacher, and had this identity

(08:10):
that was attached to accomplishments and intelligence and talent. That's
a lovely thing, particularly as I, you know, as a
woman in the world where so often now now fifty
one year old woman thinking about aging and who's an
actress in Hollywood, and so much of being a woman
is about how we look, and so much of how

(08:31):
I grew up was about my talent and intelligence and
not that and that's a beautiful thing. That's a really
really beautiful thing to have those things be valued and
associate it with who you are. And so as I,
you know, sort of go into the world and do
a lot of different things, knowing that I'm talented, knowing

(08:54):
that I'm smart, and that because of all that training
in church and doing public speaking competitions and you know,
valuing education is still being just a student of so
many different things that I can lead with those things,
and that that those are the reasons why I've you know,

(09:16):
gotten to where I am. I think, you know, on
God's time, not my time. I thought it should have happened,
you know, twenty five years ago.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
But.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
It didn't happen till I was forty.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
But did it happened right on time and when there
was a sense of purpose attached to it and that
there was something to say. And so that is my
another intention of today is to try to say things
in a way that people can hear. I've been grappling
a lot with how sort of anti intellectual our world is.

(09:49):
There's so many divides in this culture right now around
you know, liberal and conservative and all that stuff, but
it is really one of the big ones is people
who've gone to college and who haven't and how they vote.
You know, I think most non college educated people vote
for the Republican Party. And then I'm an actress. But
I talk in a way, you know, I'm an intersectional
feminist and I you know, read Belle Hooks and I
just did a podcast episode dedicated to her, and I

(10:10):
use phrases like imperless, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy to evoke
bell Hooks's work. So I talk in this way that's like,
that's not always accessible. So I want to be able
to meet people where they are. But I don't want
to dune myself down either. But I'm just aware of
the elitism tie to certain kinds of ways of speaking

(10:32):
and certain kinds of education. But I also am aware
that language. Sometimes to be exacting with language, we have
to use words like patriarchy and white supremacy and heteronormativity,
you know, to really sort of talk about what's going
on or trauma or resilience. So sometimes to really be

(10:53):
precise with language and exacting with language, you might come
across as a little bit elitist. And so I grappling
with that too, just as someone now who has been
a working class person until I was like in my
forties and then now you know, have some class privilege.
So just grappling with privilege. I'm constantly sort of grappling
and questioning myself and my positionality and trying to not

(11:17):
be this that of touch Hollywood actress.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Thank you for connecting the dots for us. I could
see how the experiences you were having back then you
can kind of draw that line, and I could see
you kind of connecting the dots in your own mind
to where you are today. And I love that you
present your experience as so much more of a paradox
and a dichotomy as opposed to clarity, because I think

(11:44):
that clarity comes from the questioning and the curiosity that
you have about your own experience. Earlier, you used the
term you said you're learning to reparent. You're in a
child yes, And you could hear that in the way
you were describing the journey so far. What are parts
of yourself that you think you've spent the most time
reparenting or what does that look like?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
So much of it is about how I framed my story.
I'm a Brene Brown stand slash scholar. And when we
disown our stories, we're defined by them. When we own
our stories, we can write a brave new ending. And
so much and actually, interestingly enough, on the podcast, I
was just watching one of your earlier podcasts when you
had Oprah on talking about what happened to me and

(12:26):
so much of the way I for many years, I
had been in denial about all my childhood trauma. Like
I was in denial about the bullying and the straight
up violence I experienced as a child, a non performing child,
and so I needed to for many years to talk
about that. I needed to reckon with that and just
acknowledge that it happened and feel the pain of that

(12:49):
that there was no tools to experience as a child.
And then so I sort of went from that, you know,
the what happened to me? Well, actually I went I
was what's wrong with me? And then I went to
what happened to me? And then and now I'm in
its base of like was right with me? You know,
and what happened that wasn't just traumatic but was affirming,

(13:09):
and that were resources and the things that sort of
helped me get through. I've been working with an amazing therapist,
nam Jennifer burn Flyer, who I interviewed on my podcast
twice in the first season, and we do somatic work
that is based in the community resiliency model from the
based on the Trauma Research Institute.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Do you know this.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Work I've heard I'm familiar with it, but not well.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
But the Trauma Research Institute came up with this thing
called krim Or, the Community Resiliency Model that is sort
of based in resilience, and it's sematic works. It's all
about sensing into your body and there's six tools of that,
and so we've been I've been working with my therapist
on sort of refiring and rewiring sort of the way
doctor jos Spinza talks about it, and creating new neurotransmitters

(13:53):
in my nervous system and deepening my resilient zone. So
there were things in my childhood that got me through
my childhood. They're dancing and so. Yes, so acknowledge that
there was abuse and that there was bullying and violence
in my childhood, but there were also things that got
me through my life, art and dancing and reading and performing,

(14:17):
and those things continue to get me through, so it
becomes it's a both.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
And one of the.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Tools of krim OR, the Community Resiliency Model, is shift
and stay, and it's all about sensing into your body
and shift and stay is about like I would go
into a therapy session with Jennifer, and she would say,
you know, how are you feeling today? And I was like, oh,
I'm a little anxious. And she'll ask me, where do
you feel that in your body? And often my anxiety
sort of happens in my stomach. I'm feeling a little

(14:42):
bit of that now, I think, just because of being
in a podcast. And then she Jennifer will invite me,
you know, is there somewhere in your body where it
feels neutral or positive? And right now it's my ankle,
and she'll invite me to breathe into that and focus
my attention instead of where anxious, but to focus my
attention on where it's neutral and positive. So I'm focusing

(15:03):
and on my ankle right now, and then we just
kind of focus the energy there and invariably, if I
can focus my energy in my body where it's neutral
or positive, sometimes eventually the anxiety will dissipate, maybe not completely,
but it'll dissipate a little bit. And it's about that's
really about living in the both and in our bodies,

(15:25):
and it's a reminder that we become sort of what
we focus on too, literally in a somatic way, literally
in our bodies but I think in a sort of
more global sense as well, we become the thing that
we focus on. So and the tricky thing for me
is in my attempts to do both, and I do
the and without the both, meaning I focus on the resilience,

(15:51):
I focus on the neutral and the positive, and I
mean a little bit of denial of the of the challenge,
of the anxiety, of the difficult thing that's going on
in my body. And so I have to be able
to acknowledge that part too, and and not just be
in the resilience, because there's a bit of denial there,
and so I'm not in the full truth of what's
going on in my body, what's going on with me

(16:12):
in a moment. So being able to like say, the anxiety,
it is here. Maybe it's attached to a story, maybe
it's not. Sometimes it's just a feeling. Sometimes it's not
necessarily attached to a story. Often it is or thought.
And then go to the end, go to that neutral
or positive place, the resilient place, the thing that brings
me joy, but making sure that I don't skip the

(16:34):
difficulty that might be going on too then be slipping
into denial a little bit, And in an effort to
just sort of be.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Positive all the time.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, because that's just not real.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Absolutely, thank you so much for sharing that tool and technique.
I'm sure everyone's listening is going to try and practice
that in their own way.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
What is amazing last thing I'll say about KRIM or
the community resilience, it's these There are six tools as
an app called eye Chill which breaks down the six
tools and it's and it was due advised by the
Trauma Research Stassue for people who might be you know,
coming from veterans or police officers, people who are coming
from very traumatic experiences that you can take into your
community and share tools that are very accessible. Doing it

(17:15):
is not easy, but they're accessible tools shipped and stay
is one of them. Resourcing with another one I mentioned,
gesturing is another. Tracking is huge. You have to track
what's going on in your body.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Help now.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
So these are skills that are very accessible and that
people can teach to each other the practice of it.
For me, the biggest piece is slowing myself down to
actually track what's going on in my body. And we
all know that book the body keeps the score and
so no matter what is going on, intellectually and all
the work. You know, I've been in therapy for twenty

(17:48):
three years now, that it has to land in the body.
It has to be work, that it has to be somatic.
It has to be because our body. Eighty percent of
our information comes from the body to the head and
twenty percent from the head to the body, right, And
so no matter how intellectual we are, no matter how

(18:09):
much we want to talk it through and understand it,
our bodies have to If there's trauma, if there's stress,
our bodies have to know it differently. Our bodies have
to understand what a healthy connection or healthy attachment is.
I have to know it in my nervous system. There's

(18:32):
this knowing and then there's like this knowing.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Because of that thing.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
I mean, you've talked about it in your podcast. But
so much happens in our lives preverbal between the ages
of one and three, one and five, before we even
have language, so many things will happen to us that
we don't have words for that our nervous systems are
tracking in those moments. And so the work of reparenting,

(18:57):
the work of resetting the nervous system, of deepening our
resilient zone. It's about that that somatic, that pre verbal,
that not even the prefrontal cortex, but that limpic brain,
that that piece that's like that that reprogramming, that fight
flighter freeze so that we really deepen our resilient sound.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Anyway, I could talk about this.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
No, no, genuinely, it's it's so helpful and so insightful
and I and I know our community is going to
love this so far. But I want to go back
to your comment. And you mentioned a few times on
how we like to deny certain experiences and uncomfortable things
and difficult things, and I know that for a fact
I've done that so much in my life physically as well.
It's so easy to deny of physical pain thinking it's nothing,

(19:43):
and emotional pain sometimes even easier to do it with.
But why is denial so unhealthy? And what parts of
yourself do you still find you may deny sometimes.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Deny that is unhealthy because we're not living in the
sh for ourselves. And there's this line I think for Magnolia.
You think you may be done with the past, but
the past isn't done with you. That like, even when
I'm in denial, there's still the stuff is still operating
in my life. Nadine Berg Harris has a beautiful TED

(20:18):
talk where she talks about adverse childhood experiences and there's
this wonderful research about adversity in childhood and how excess
doses of adversity is the way she sort of puts it,
in childhood can lead to physical literal like you know,
sort of asthma, diabetes, all these health outcomes in children
and then later in life, so that when we don't

(20:39):
deal with psychologically and emotional things, they show up in
our bodies in unhealthy ways. All these other different things.
And so when we're in denial about a trauma we've
experienced or something that is difficult for us that is
happening in our bodies, and if we don't acknowledge it
and release it, it has to go. It has to
move through and out of the body. It can be deadly.

(21:01):
Stress can be deadly. And my therapist likes to talk
about we talk about trauma resilience, but then there's different
kinds of trauma and different levels and distressors. Right, stressors
can like bump us out of there's an idea of
the resilient zone. She sort of likes to encourage us
to imagine like these two lines, and that our resilient
zone sort of goes in waves between these two lines.

(21:23):
And then there's low zone, which is like she likes
to think there's a house, and our resilient zone is
the ground floor. Low zone would be the basement, and
high zone would be the attic, and high zone is
when we're in that fight flight or freeze and we're
anxious and we're stressed and we're just like and then
low zone would be this kind of like depressed, I
don't want to get out of bed, maybe I'm suicidal

(21:43):
or I'm just like listless.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
And so we want to have deepening.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Our resilience zone is about being able to go into
lows and highs and be in our and have emotions,
but not be bumped into that high space or bumped
into that low zone. And so if we are constantly
in that high zone, and I've been constantly in that
fight flight or freeze, I'd learned that really early that
I didn't feel safe and nowhere we're safe, and so

(22:07):
I was constantly releasing adrenaline cortisol. That constant release of
adrenaline cortisol over forty years we're.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Not hardwired for that.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Biologically, we're supposed to, like, you know, we see the
bear in the woods, we release the adrenaline cortisol to
fight that bear, to flee that bear, and then we
go back to homeostasis. If we're constantly what if Nadine
Bergier's is, what if the bear comes home every night?
We're constantly releasing that adrenaline cordisol, and then our we're
just depleted after a while and years of this depletion.

(22:42):
And so I've in my forties, I was like, why
am I so tired?

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Why am I so depleted?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
It's just all that constant survival, not ever feeling safe,
and so trying to find so much of like deepening
my resilien zone is creating safety. And if you are
a trauma survivor, much of the for trima survivors, we
often take this is from my therapist. We take an

(23:07):
alarm bell and turn it into a dinner bell because
things have been wired in such a way, in a
dysfunctional way, that everything becomes an alarm everything and so
and so that's so much of our work when we think,
when we think about folks who are I'm triggered by this,
this is triggering for me, and it.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Could very well be.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
But our work individually, if the external thing can be triggering,
but my work individually is like, is this about what's
actually going on? Or is this about my history? When
it's hysterical, it's historical. When it's hysterical, it's historical. When
I remind myself of this, when the verness hysterical, it's

(23:49):
probably not about what's.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Going on in this moment.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Like, I had a moment with my boyfriend a few
months ago and we've been you know, we've been dating
for like three years and it's been lovely and it's
been wonderful. And I have this moment when I went
into this shame spiral doing a conversation we were having,
just went into this crazy and I was like, it
was the first time with him.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
I felt so safe with him. It's the first time
with him.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
And I was like, and it just like I was like,
I felt myself just going into this crazy and I
was talking a lot and I was spiraling, and I
was just like, babe, let me I need to go
to the bathroom and get myself together. He was like,
what's going And I sat there and I was like, luckily,
because I've done my shamework. I was like, okay, you're
in a shame spiral. You were in a shame spiral,

(24:32):
and we can agen it when we can name shame.
I was like, this is not about this incredible man
who's so amazing to me. This isn't about anything he said.
This is about my own story that I just spun
myself out with. So it's historical. It's not about this moment.
So this is about some historical stuff, you know. So
I just had I think I was in a bathroom

(24:53):
like thirty minutes maybe forty minutes, just kind of like
talking to myself, breathing and just being and really take
and in the moment, this is not a dangerous moment.
I created something historical, something historical came up for me.
But this is safe. And the only way I was
able to do that is like I've had like three
years of safety with this man, So I'm like, this

(25:15):
man is incredible. So like, you know, maybe early on
i'd be like, this man is not safe. And you know,
when a man doesn't feel safe to me, or when
people don't feel safe, I'm like, I'm out.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
I've learned very very very quickly to get out.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
And so I've got become very good at like identifying
what safe spaces. I'm like, so this is not girl,
You're just spinning out with something, some historical stuff, some
childhood stuff, some old stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Just came up for you.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And so when once I was able to do that
and regulate, then I was able to go out and say, Babe,
when it's your shame spiral, it's not about you, it
is what it is.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
And he just like held.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Me and I cried, and and what's interesting to me
what I've learned on I'm sure this is an experience
that you have interviewed so many brilliant people. I've had
so many brilliant people in my podcast. And so I
think about that moment through a shame lens. Right, there's

(26:15):
this we can talk about a shame spiral. We can
talk about it through a trauma resilience piece around regulating
my nervous system. There's also a ten attachment piece, attachment
theory piece where there's healthy attachment with him. So there's
just all these different lenses that I was able to
kind of filter that moment through. That was that kind

(26:38):
of kept that brought me back to the present and
brought me into a resilience space where I wasn't spinning
out and it was deep and so like reckoning with
the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves. It just
a thought can spin us out, right, Just a thought

(26:58):
can disrupt my nerve a system that's not it's a thought.
Maybe it's a comment I've seen on the internet. It's
a thought I could have about myself that's like, oh
you're a piece of shit, Oh you're a horrible person.
That could just spin me out, And just like becoming
aware of those thoughts and then you know it, is
this thought useful? I can let this go, This isn't
the truth? Can I reality check this thought? Or maybe

(27:19):
just letting go of all thoughts? You know, there's there's
in some of my meditation. I do transcentional meditation too.
Sometimes it's just about trying, trying imperfectly to let go
of all thoughts and just be just be, letting go
of stories, letting go of thoughts, an absence of data.
We create stories as human beings or heartwire for story,

(27:41):
but trying to let go of story, trying to let
go of thoughts and just be. It is so hard,
and I have those moments when it's just like, you know,
and I'm like, am I an airhead?

Speaker 3 (27:53):
You know, I'm moving an airhead right.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Now, and just like letting go thoughts and just like ah,
you know, sometimes I think like people, yeah, I don't
want I don't want to be judgmental, but sometimes people
who are not like intense thinkers, they just kind of
like chill. Sometimes I like envy those people because they're
not like thinking about like the sociopolitical implications and then
the sort of therapeutic and somatic implications, and then the

(28:16):
attachment theory implications, and then the intersectional feminists, like there's
all this stuff going on all the time. And then
I'm an artist and then like, you know, my humanity
and as an artist and like having empathy for the
character and analyzing human behavior, just a lot going on
in there. And so sometimes it's just I envy people
who just say, it's not a lot going on up there,

(28:38):
and they can just kind of, you know, yeah, let
go the thoughts.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Stressing about being healthy.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Oh my god, especially stressful, especially as a fifty one
year old, because it's not just mental and psychological health. Now,
it's like I'm getting older, and there's the question of mobility,
and I have such a problem consistently working out, but
I want to stay mobile, and I want to stay looking.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Lovely, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
And the aging piece being fifty one years old and
like my mom is seventy just turns seventy three this year,
and then watching her and thinking about getting older and
my job, you know, and I feel like, in so
many ways, my career is just getting started in We're
Own strike and this just it's scary aging as a

(29:24):
woman in Hollywood. And I think what's beautiful about being
trans is that, like you know, the public has been
very as transphobic as people are.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
The transphobia of some people in the.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Public has helped keep me right sized around my appearance
because sometimes I'm like, oh, Laverne, you look cute, Laverne
is sexy, you know, Oh you look pretty good for
fifty one, And then like you know, I'll read a
comment of like some she looks like a man, you know,
and luckily I can laugh about that. Luckily I think
it's you know, I think it's ridiculous, and I understand

(29:57):
people are transphobic, but it keeps things in perspective but
I also would be delusional and not in the truth
if I didn't acknowledge that I'm not just I've not
just been on multiple magazine covers because I'm smart and talented.
That there is there is a desirability politic that goes
into being an actress on screen in Hollywood and doing

(30:23):
a lot of the on camera work that I do,
and aging in that environment is scary, as a woman
in an ageis business in an ageous culture, and the
connection between misogyny and aging, and then being a black
woman and a trans woman and so all of that
is like happening too.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
It's so funny. I was thinking about this.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
You know, I haven't done like the botox or the
fillers or anything to my face, but obviously the trans woman.
I'm not opposed to surgery, but I'm terrified to do
anything to my face. And there may be a point
when I need to or need to and I don't.
And it's funny. I'm like comfortable talking about not having
done it now, but I'm like, once I do it,
I probably won't want to talk about it. So there's

(31:08):
also that in the sort of transparency of that, and
I don't talk about as a trans woman. I don't
talk about surgery in terms of relationship to me because
so often that's a way to humanize chance people and
reduce us to our bodies. But it's just something, you know,
that I'm grappling with around.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Aging and being a woman.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
And so those are other stories and other you know,
thoughts that I spend way too much time thinking about.
Maybe because I'm on strike. We're on strike and I
have a little more time.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I was going to say that I actually find it
remarkably comforting to hear someone open up and tell me
the genuine, real, honest thoughts that they're having, because I
think all of us are actually having those in our
own world, in our own universe. The you're an actress
in Hollywood, or whether you're someone who's dropping your kids

(32:05):
to school, or whether you're me or whoever you are, like,
I think all of us have a kind of interesting tapestry.
You've lived so many chapters of your life. If this
chapter had a title right now, what would it be called?

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Fifty one?

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Fabulous and Anxious as hell?

Speaker 1 (32:23):
That's that sounds like a great It's a fun champing
to read. I don't know, it's fun to live too.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
I guess it is what it is, and it's it's
you know.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
I interviewed Glennon Doyle.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
She's so amazing and what I love about her, what
I love about Brene Brown is that, like we so
much in the wellness space, we hear about sort of
how people are the sort of the result of the
struggle and not the struggle. And I agree, I need
to sort of be with people in the struggle. I

(32:59):
need to like understand what folks are because that's what
I can connect with. People who have it all together.
I don't relate to that. And as much as people
may think I have it all together and I girl,
I am and a gorless into neutral and this case
girl like Compared to ten years ago to fifteen years ago,

(33:22):
Laverne has grown. I've done so much work on myself
to be even just being able to be in an
intimate relationship and tolerated and like tolerate the vulnerability and
the uncomfortable things like, There's been so much growth. So yeah,
I'm so much more evolved than I was ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, certainly twenty years ago. But it doesn't

(33:44):
mean that I'm not still struggling with things that like
the world. I mean, honestly, just being just being a
trans person in twenty twenty three is.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
I mean, I could, I could cry.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
And I love being trans, but there's a on my
community legislatively and rhetorically that is having real world consequences.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
On people who I know and love.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
They are families fleeing states right now, which is insane
to me because of the laws that criminalize parents who
you know, support their trans kids, could criminalize doctors and
healthcare professionals, and that's not unrelated to the you know,
people who need to flee stay because of abortion restrictions
and being a public figure who too, who's trans, who's

(34:32):
you know? You know. I was in the cover of
Time magazine nine years ago with with the headline the
transcender tipping Point, and.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
There was a sense that there was so.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Much progress being made around transvisibility and trans acceptance. And
that's certainly speaking of both, and that certainly is happening
and has happened in a lot of ways. But we inevitably,
when there is a social justice movement where people sort
of come forth and there's more acceptance, there's inevitably backlash

(35:03):
and we are like eyebrows deep in the backlash right now.
On a legislative level, twenty states right now have banned
gender firming care for young people. This year Loan, over
five hundred pieces of legislation have been introduced in state
legislatures all over the country, targeting the LGBTQ community at large,
mostly trans people, mostly drag artists.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
It's insane, and.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
It's supported by our media that is so sort of siloed,
you know, right where people can just like get this
confirmation bias that's deeply stigmatizes trans people and LGBTQ plus
people in general, and don't hear from real trans people
and don't get our human stories and our beautiful humanity.

(35:50):
And it's scary. A dear friend of mine, Chase Stradio,
who works through the CLU is, they're fighting all these
things in the courture right now. They're on Friday, he
was arguing two different appeals for two different states where
they've banned gender from and care in Tennessee and I
think Oklahoma. It's just a scary time when the government,
when the state is targeting your ability, and for years

(36:12):
they were sort of saying that this is about children
it's about protecting children. And you know, earlier this year,
a state, I think it was Oklahoma, passed a law
that would prevent gender from and care up to the
age of twenty six. My home state of Alabama, I'm
from obil Alabama banned gender.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
From and careup to age of nineteen.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
You know, there's other states that you know, So it's
not it's never really been about the children, right, It's
always been about doing what the Daily Wires Michael Knowles
proclaimed at Sea pack erasing transgenderism from public life. That
has always been the project. And to hear that stated
so emphatically and then seeing it play out on a state,

(36:50):
on various states.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Is scary.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's really scary.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
And so there's that piece of like, how do we
as trans folks, just like our mental health, how do
we sort of deal with that? And so what it's
been crucial for me as a public figure but also
just as a person who loves trans people and the
person who's been just terrified by all of this. It's
like how to understanding that the narrative about who we

(37:17):
are has been hijacked and there's a deep propagandistic misinformation
campaign that's going on. Around our identities, that it is
leading to legislation that seeks to erase us from public life.
But there is a reality of our lives. There's a
reality of our existence. There is a reality of our
beauty and our talent and our anointedness that I'm amazed by.

(37:43):
I'm so blessed to have a group of trans people
in my life who I marvel at. I was in
La like in July, and we were doing something with
Hardness Foundation about the relationship between reproductive rights gender firming care.
It's interesting, but not ironic that as access to gender

(38:04):
firming care, bodily autonomy for trans people is being taken away.
Body of autonomy for people can get pregnant is also
being taken away on a state level, on state levels
all over this country. And then a dear friend of mine, Peppermint,
we were hanging out afterwards and we were talking and
she was telling me about this situation she was dealing
with a man, and I was she was telling me
about this, and I was looking. I was I had

(38:25):
watched her at this event that we were at, and
I was just I was just marveling, and how smart,
how charismatic, how resilient, how incredible she is as a
human being, and all of the bullshit she was dealing
good from this man. And I was just like, I
was like, do you know how beautiful you are? Do
you know how amazing and talented and just what a

(38:50):
light you are just because of who you are and
that you're I just am so honored that you're my friend,
and you happen to be trans, and your transness is
part of why you're such a light, you know. And
I just have trans people in my life who are
lights like that, who are just epic and beautiful and amazing.

(39:12):
And then there's this, like these narratives about who we are,
and I just would love for people to get to
know us and get to see what I see when
I see trans people.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
And so that's what I have to hold.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
On to our humanity, our beautiful humanity, and shout it
from the rooftops, and then surround myself continually surround myself
with the beautiful trans people in my life who I.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Just who are anointed, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
I always like to remind people that in indigenous cultures
all over the world, trans people were considered spiritual creatures
who are spiritual leaders. In India, the hydra, you know,
pre colonialism were you know, folks wouldn't get married or
have a christening without the presence of a hidra. And

(39:58):
they understood that if they got a blessing, their child
got a blessing from the hydra, that their child would
be okay, be better. We have two spirit people here
in the native communities here in the United States, the
mahu and Hawaii and in the Philippines. They're all indigenous
cultures all over the world. They were third and fourth

(40:19):
gender traditions. So trans people aren't new. Non binary people
aren't new. We've always existed in pre colonial communities, and
so wellness for me and mental health cannot be divorced
from structures of domination like white supremacy and CIS normativity
and patriarchy. And you know, colonialism is synonymous with a

(40:43):
gender binary that necessarily erases the natural occurrence of people
who exist outside that binary. And so when we have
conversations about health and well being, we have to understand
that I personally know from my own experience that as
a black trans woman for working class background raised in Mobile, Alabama,

(41:08):
that I internalized deeply transphobic things about myself that I
had to unlearn deeply racist things about myself and my
community that had to unlearn. So part of my mental
health journey has been unlearning transphobia, my internalized transpobia, in
learning my internalized white supremacy and anti blackness, so I
can love myself more, so that I can love the

(41:29):
people around me more.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
And understanding that we're all raised.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
In a culture that teaches that for me, creates so
much empathy for people who might be struggling with that,
who might not understand the extent to which they've internalized
transphobia or white supremacy, and so I can give them
a lot of grace because I've been there too.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
I've been transphobic.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
I still have transphobic ideas and thoughts that I have
to unlearn and check myself.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
With, and that is part of my mental health.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I've said on my podcast and I say in life
that they're you know, it's like fifty percent of things
I have fifty percent. I don't know if it's fifty percent.
The other structures are the things that we internalize. Where
on white Supremacy, Bell hook says, imperiless white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.
I add to that, cisnormative, heteronormative, imperiless, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.
The structures that we sort of exist under, these intersecting

(42:21):
structures of domination, is the way Belle Hooks would put it.
But then there's the fifty percent of like, what's my
part in it? What is the fifty percent? I'm responsible
for my life, right, and so I'm more responsible. I'm
able to take more responsibility when I'm educated, when I
have an education for critical consciousness. So in this world
that is anti intellectual, that is where we're defunding schools.

(42:44):
That education becomes so critically important so that we can
like take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives. And
the education is around mental health. That education is around
health in general. It's around these structures, it's around understanding capital.
Right that there's so many people who are frustrated. You know,
my boyfriend who's he's considerably younger than me, he makes

(43:07):
a wonderful living, can't buy a house right now because
real estate prices are just so insane. And that's not
because he's not working hard. He's working sixty eighty hours
a week and he makes a lovely living. But the
system is set up in a way, this capitalist system
where home prices are just like it's out of reach
for so many people, so like, and that can cause

(43:28):
us mental and emotional stress. But if we understand that
there is a system in place that it's keeping a
generation of people from being able to buy their homes,
that can help give us some perspective and hopefully not
feel like we're not enough, because I think a lot
of I see this happening to him where it's like
I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I think

(43:50):
we and he happens to be a straight white man,
and so there's all these conversations now about crisis around men,
and there's a you know, I don't know if you
would agree with that, but I think so much of
that crisis, especially when I see, you know, dating a
very attractive, you know, dirty blonde, blue eyed, straight white
man that this you know, that the world has told him,

(44:14):
this is what you know should be available to you
as a straight white man who's attractive and who works hard,
and then these things are not available because of a
system in place that it really is designed to keep
you know, people, a lot of people down, whether you're black, white, whatever,
and so I think so much of the cognitive dissonance

(44:35):
now and we displaced that we say that that feminism
is the is the reason right.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
I see if you if you go into the manisphere
on the internet.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
You'll you'll hear a lot of men saying, oh, feminism
is the reason why, or or you know, diversity and
inclusion programs are the reason why when maybe you know,
you know, predatory capitalism and corporations who have a fiduciary
responsibility to their shareholders and no one else. Maybe that's
why you the promise of what you're supposed to have

(45:06):
in this country as a straight white man. Maybe it's
not the fault of immigrants or feminism or diversity and
inclusion programs. Maybe it's this capitalist system that is lied
to you and told you. And so I think having
that critical awareness for me is a part of mental health.

(45:29):
For me, having a critical relationship to the world around
me on a systemic level is part of me having
a perspective, placing things in perspective and so that like
I'm not it reduces the beating myself up.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
It reduces the like.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
I should be working harder, I should be doing more,
I'm not enough and you know it doesn't absolve me
of responsibility for my life saying because I think there's
a mentality of saying, oh, racism is this, I'm never
going to get to where I need to go. We
can do that, or we can say racism is this, sexism,

(46:06):
is this misoge new war transfer?

Speaker 3 (46:07):
All of these things are true. But I'm here.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
But I'm here, and I have an opportunity in this
corrupt system. How can I navigate? How can I negotiate
within this system and to let my light shine to
be on purpose? Why am I here? Why has God
put me here on this planet? And how can I,
in the face of all these things, rise up and

(46:34):
be there for myself as much as I can so
that I am not a victim of any of this.
I refuse to be a victim.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
That I can.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Say to myself in the face of all of this,
I'm going to proceed in the world with dignity, with
self respect, with love for myself, with love for other people,
and a deep, deep passion for what I do, and
a passion for getting better.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
And it's gonna be okay.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Wow, I'm genuinely in awe of how someone can internalize
what's going on around them, and at the same time
remain independently thoughtful about what that means. It's work.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
It's worth to stay separate, to detach from that, to
not become hopeless around it. There have been moments this
year when I have felt deeply hopeless and deeply sort
of unempowered in like how we're going to sort of
fight this. And when I think it was when the
gender firming I think it was Oklahoma that when they

(47:43):
banned gender firming care up until the age of twenty six,
I was like, Okay, we have to change this narrative.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
And it just something clicked for me.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
And sometimes I have to go away and think and
I have to strategize, and it's not I can't always
just be on TV or be on a on a
you know, picket line or at a protest. Sometimes have
to go and think and strategize. It's like, we have
to change this narrative, and I cannot have the conversation
about who I am on these terms that have nothing

(48:13):
to do with me, all of the terms that they're
set forth that have deeply dehumanized trans people. When senators
are asking Supreme Court candidates about what is a woman,
and they're talking about mutilating children. All that is deeply
dehumanizing of trans people. What those people who do not
want trans people to exist in public life have done

(48:34):
very successfully propagandistically that have led to legislation that take
away the body of the autonomy and the rights of
transpeoplis that they've dehumanized us to such an extent where
people can have conversations about lg some people can have
conversations about LGBTQ plus people without equating us with things

(48:56):
that don't even like to repeat. I don't want to
repeat any of those narratives, but I think you know
some of the disparaging to humanizing, very retrograde narratives that
we can trace back to the nineteen seventies, right, what
about the children? All those sorts of things, so understanding
deeply that I will not have my identity be up
for debate, that my access to gender affirming care is

(49:22):
actually no one's business. It is between me and my doctor,
and that the access even for children is actually not
up for debate if you're not a healthcare professional.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
It blows me away.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
All of the sort of journalists and all of the
sort of people who feel like it is fine, Oh,
children getting gender affirming care and having access to dien different.
That is up for debate, right, we can debate that
because children go da DA DA DA. When the American
Academy for Pediatrics, when the Indegree Society, when they're you know,
all of these different your very reputable organizations say that

(49:55):
this is the way that we should treat transgender children,
and this is the use of the protocols with parental consent,
et cetera, et cetera, and all these other people say well,
we have to debate this. No, No, it's actually if
you're not a trans child, the parent of a trans child,
or a healthcare professional, it's actually none of your business.

(50:17):
And I feel the same way about reproductive rights. I
feel the same way. If you're not a person who
can get pregnant in need of an abortion, it's actually
none of your business. And I think that that, for me,
needs to be the conversation. It's deeply empowering for me
to say that to myself and to say it publicly
that it is actually.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
None and it's dehumanizing.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
It is deeply dehumanizing for people to sit on televisions
and on podcast debating my access and the children's access
to a care.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
I mean, if a child had cancer, we wouldn't be
having debates about what whether this.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I mean, there's side of all sorts of side effects
to chemo therapy, but we would defer to the experts
on that. Nicole Maynes is a brilliant, beautiful trans woman
who is an actress. She played Dreama on Supergirl. She's
just so incredible, and she transitioned as a child. I
recently interviewed her on my podcast and it was so

(51:21):
lovely to hear from a child. She's in her early
twenties now, but she transitioned as a child. And so
many of these conversations again that people are having about
trans kids and they're not talking to any of the kids,
and then the kids are saying there was a recent
story The New York Times ran where all this whistleblower,
you know, said that this clinic was doing all these things,

(51:43):
and then the parents, these parents came out and said, well, no,
the clinic wasn't doing this, and that my child was
treated well. And the children are saying all these things,
and the children are saying that we would treat it well,
and the parents are saying that we would treat it well,
and then they're just going with this other, whole other narrative.
So people aren't even listening to trans people. They're not
listening to the parents are trans people. So they've just
hijacked the narrative and they're not listening to us. And

(52:06):
underneath all that is them not wanting.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Us to exist.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
And if we think about it, then if you go
back to the beautiful podcast, you I would oprah, what
happened to you? If you don't, if you're so deeply
invested in stigmatizing trans people and saying that trans people
are mentally ill, If you don't know somebody trans, if

(52:29):
you don't have a trade, how does it even affect you?
How in the world does it affect your life?

Speaker 3 (52:35):
What happened to you?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
And so that's the empathetic piece that I have, that
that people are in these times that we live in,
people are in so much pain, and I think that's
why we have so many wellness podcasts and things, and
people are so people are in so much pain for
so many reasons, and so many of those things are systemic.
So many of those things are about unhealed childhood trauma,

(52:59):
not having language, words, skills, neighborhoods that have just been
completely divested from poverty, income, inequality, so many structural things,
so many, you know, interpersonal things, so many, so much
unhealed childhood trauma. It is an inside job when it
comes to my healing, but it is also a structural job.

(53:20):
It is also that we can't just charity our way
out of it, do philanthropy our way out of it.
We have to our governments have to invest in schools
and communities and mental health in a serious way. And
I don't necessarily have faith in our governments. So then
what do we do then do for ourselves and for

(53:42):
each other? And whenever I have a problem, you know,
I'm less there these days, But when I used to
have problems with other people, it's usually about an insecurity
that I had with myself, and so I had to
take a moment with myself and to self reflect. Media
literacy becomes so crucially important in this moment. You know.

(54:04):
Sometimes I get into arguments with my boy friends specifically
about something, and will I'm like, well, let's check that source,
and then like, let's cross reference this source with this source,
and which one is more reputable? So that we're I'm
constantly checking different information and seeing the source and looking
for the biases, right, So because that's where that's really

(54:25):
where we have to be in this moment. And I
think it's a round wellness too, because there's a lot
of people who are grifting around wellness, right, and there's
trying to sell some product or sell something, and we
have to just always have critical awareness around the things
that we're seeing. That the information we're getting on the internet,

(54:46):
information we're getting from the cable news, from the news
in general, just a critical awareness around information is crucial,
and critical thinking skills are so important, and teaching people
how to triple check sources and get inform, you know,

(55:06):
try to get fine reputable sources and thinking about like
how a study can be manipulated. Right, Just having those
that critical awareness it's just crucially important in this in
this day and age, because I think we can spin
ourselves out in a psychological and emotional way when we
think about the people, you know, I think about those
folks who said that they were radicalized around January sixth,

(55:27):
right through social media propaganda and then found themselves, you know,
on trial for their lives and admitting that they were
sort of propagandized and you know, did and their incredible consequences,
and I think they were probably struggling in their lives.
You know, when you hear about, you know, young men

(55:48):
being radicalized into white supremacist groups, so much of that
is about a loneliness about us trying to find a
sense of community, right, and so there's always something going
on psychological and emotionally with people.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
And if we can have.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
That frame for people giving people grace, I mean, I
think there's you know, I think our actions must have consequences, right,
So I'm not like forgiving people for terrorist activities or
anything like that, but I think we can you know,
I'm responsible for my actions and we all are, so
you know, if you do unfortunate things because you've been radicalized,

(56:24):
and then you have to sort of deal with the
consequences of that. But then for those people who've come
out on the other side of that, I think their
stories are very valuable around talking about how they were
radicalized and maybe we're deradicalized and then began to understand
what pain they were in and what they were struggling with.
And everyone is struggling with something and it's like if
we can, if they can, hopefully we can meet people

(56:47):
with love and empathy in their struggles to people in
our lives who might be going down a road, some
sort of very radical road, and a lot of people
are right now. If we can hold them close, maybe
we may not be able to.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
We may have to let them go.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Certain people we have to go up because it's not
healthy for us. But if we can keep these people
in our lives with love and empathy and maybe just
love them through these moments, maybe they won't end up
in situations that become you know, where they're going to
prison for, you know, behavior they engaged in.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
On that point, I want to ask this question because
every time I feel what happens with any difficult, uncomfortable
conversation is that, again you pointed this out earlier, it's
happening in silos. So you have a group of people
over here talking about it, but they're talking about it
with each other. Then you have a group of people
here talking about it talking about it with each other.
If you could sit down not a debate, not an argument,

(57:40):
but a genuine discussion, conversation of learning from both sides
with someone in the world who is that person that
you think you'd want to sit with to have that educated, thoughtful,
conscious conversation around the subject matters that you care about.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
I mean, that's why we reach out to Joe Rogan
because I think, you know, he has had so many.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
But he's kind of in the middle there right, Like
he's kind of trying to talk to me.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
He's interesting because you know, some people would say he
is he represents a lot of normy sort of opinions
on things, and then like there's some things that have
gotten more sort of radically conservative on his podcast. But
he's someone I was interested when I was interested in
going my own to show. It's just like I would
just love to chat with him. I'm not trying just
to be go.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
And be a human being.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
I'm just going be Laverne, you know, just go and
like not necessarily if we want to talk about some
of these issues. I mean, I'm certainly not an expert
in sports. That's a big issue with him trans people
in sports.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
I don't play sports.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
I've never you know, not athletic.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
I know a little bit about the studies that have
been done the very few studies that have been done
on actual trans people in sports, but he's someone who
comes to mind because I think it's really just about
how can.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Can we be human? Can we be human together?

Speaker 2 (58:51):
And I think that's the first piece that like, so
much of what has happened has been deeply dehumanizing, where
they've sort of made trans people into an ideology. I mean,
when people sort of sort of like transgender ideology, I'm like,
what exactly is that?

Speaker 1 (59:07):
And what are some of the concerns on the other side,
so to speak, that you empathize with, or that you
parts of the narrative where you're like, oh, I understand
where that's coming from, but that isn't actually what I
believe our thoughts are, Like what would you say, is like, oh,
I get where that's coming from, But that's actually a

(59:28):
misnarrative because I think what ends up happening and I'm
looking at it from a trying to look at it
from an observer point of view, and going, is it
that people are actually arguing two completely different things and
we're arguing about the wrong things, like we're not even
talking about I think.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
The part of it, I mean, I think honestly part
of the problem is that a lot of the ways
in which for many years, since oh gosh, since the
early since the early two thousands, there have been states
have been attempting to do bathroom bands. I think Phoenix
was one of the first cities, and we were able
to sort of not have that. You know, protests happened
and they were not bathroom bands against trans people using

(01:00:04):
the bathroom. Famously, in twenty sixteen, HB two in North
Carolina was the big bathroom bill, but there have been
other states who've been trying to, you know, ban access
to bathrooms for trans people. So for years conservatives were
working to get trans people out of bathrooms. That actually
didn't really work anywhere. And so after marriage equality became

(01:00:25):
the law of the land, conservative groups focused had focus
groups and they were like they they talked to them
specifically about different trans issues, and what seemed most salient
to them were trans women specifically in sports. And so
then that became the focus and they were like, Okay,
we can take the place they need a buyant paybook
from the seventies and focus on children, trans people in

(01:00:47):
sports and children. And so then there was a proliferation
of news stories on Fox News and conservative and conservative media,
all of the Internet.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Google it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
It's just hundreds of stories on Fox News about trans
people in sports, none in like, you know, more mainstream media,
like we didn't. Like if you're not watching Fox News
or conservative media, you didn't really you wouldn't realize.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
That there was an issue with trans people in sports.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
But if you watch Fox News, you would think that,
like trans people are dominating sports, like that trans women
are like you know that, So that, I mean, this
is really for most people, trans women in sports becomes
the crazy thing that like we can't do. For Joe Rogan,
it's it's it's the issue, and there's not enough real
studies on actual trans women in sports. You would need

(01:01:33):
to do double blind studies of trans women's performance capacity
in different sports. There there's one study that was done
with trans women stetifically with running, but it was a
small sample size that looked at their performance pre transition
in post transition. But then there have been any studies
on like weightlifting, on swimming, on all that and their
different skill sets that are required. People make assumptions because

(01:01:55):
people don't think they're trans women are women, So there
make assumptions that if you've gone through puberty that released
the testosterone that you're going to have a physical advantage.
In two thousand and two, the International Olympic Committee created
standards for trans people to compete in two thousand and
two that had to do with testosterone levels, being on
hormone replacement therapy for a certain amount of time. And

(01:02:15):
since two thousand and two, so that's been that twenty
one years, We've had one trans Olympian and she like
she was a weightlifter a few years ago and she
like failed to qualify, Like she made it the Olympics icition,
then she was out in the first round. So in
the twenty one years that trans people have been able
to compete in the Olympics, for example, trans women are
not dominating. There are a few trans women who win

(01:02:38):
in competitions, and we hear all about those trans women, right,
and like conservatives know those trans women probably better than
I would know those trans women. They're like on the
handful of trans women. And then you look at sports
bands on trans children. I was a governor, I forget
I think it was West Virginia who was on television MISSINGBC.

(01:03:00):
New rule was like, you know, are there any trans
girls dominating in your state that you know of, and
he said no, and he didn't know of any, and
there weren't any. And there was one trans girl who
was playing sports that we knew of in I think
was Utah, and they created a sports band for one person,
for one trans girl, and so so much of this

(01:03:20):
is this anxiety. But what's interesting to me is at
the same time that there are these sports bands that
we're going to ban trans girls from sports to keep
fairness in sports, that they're also banning gender affirming care
and stigmatizing and creating misinformation around puberty blockers. And the
what I do know about sports and alleged advantages that

(01:03:43):
people might have, or trans people might have, is that
that advantage happens after puberty, right that pre puberty that
there's not really because this ustan hasn't been introduced yet,
that there's no advantage. And so the same people who
say that they don't want trans girls competing also want
to take away the ability for trans girls to be

(01:04:04):
able to go through the puberty that is consistent with
their identity and that would actually not give them an advantage.
And so many of the kids, the trans kids who
play sports, are not dominating. They just want to play
with their friends. They just want to have this communal experience.
From what I've was from the trans people I talked
to that there's something I never played sports, but allegedly

(01:04:25):
apparently people who played sports, it's a sense of teamwork
and community. And the young girl in Utah who she
there was a field hockey team that she the team
wasn't didn't even exist. She basically like rallied the girls,
you know, to get the field hockey team together, and
then like after she had done all this work to
get the team, she couldn't play on it. And that
just feels it's really discriminatory. And I think that, like

(01:04:49):
there is I think fairness in sports is something that
we should there are standards in place for that, but
I don't think it's really about that at the end
of the day. And so I think that like even
having this long, sort of drawn out conversation about sports, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Actually not about that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
It's actually not I don't think it's about fairness in sports.
I think it is about stigmatizing trans people, is about
people being deeply uncomfortable. That's almost always where it goes
that they're talking. It's say it's about sports. They say
it's about the children, but it's really about a discomfort
with trans people existing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
That's at the core of it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
If we look at empirically at what they're saying, and
then the public policies that are put in place, so
people make sports an issue, they make gender firm and
care an issue for children, But it's ultimately about them
wanting to erase trans people from public life because we

(01:05:49):
make them uncomfortable for some reason.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Are do you feel me?

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
On that?

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Do you feel me?

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Because I think we can parse out all these different
issues that they say they have a problem with. But
at the end of the day, when we're talking about
banning gender firming care for adults in Florida, effectively gender
firming care for adults is bannedwidth it. They've Medicaid is
no longer covering gender firming care in Florida for trans people,
and DeSantis passed a bill that would allow only doctors,

(01:06:20):
not nurse practitioners, to administer gender firming care when eighty
percent of trans people in Florida get their gender firming
care from nurse practitioners got it. So this is very
similar to what they're doing with abortion bills, right, So
that's why it gets tricky to go into having conversations
about sports and like parsing out and getting distracted about
that that is actually having the conversation on their terms.

(01:06:42):
Having the debate around trans children and gender firming care
is having the debate on their terms. It is actually
not your business when it comes in fairness in sports.
And I think too, because we see a coalition now
of a women who call themselves feminists who care about

(01:07:03):
women's rights, a coalition between them and right wing conservatives
who want to take away the abortion rights of women
and people who can get pregnant.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
So they have like coalesced and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Are like, you know, in common cause around getting trans
people out of women's spaces and protecting women's spaces and
protecting women's sports. And so this is just about transphobia.
It's about transphobia, and so why is it? And I
think there's a larger conversation around gender roles. What you know,
that whole sort of Matt Walsh's question.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
What is a woman?

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
You know? And I think ultimately what is a man
in this moment, in this historical moment right now? Women
are so beautifully independent, We make our own money, We
in so many ways we don't need men, and we
a lot of women have evolved, and a lot of

(01:07:56):
men have evolved, but a lot of men haven't, and
the structure patriarchy has not evolved, and their backlash against
like women having autonomy at these roles being challenged. Trans
people are a part of that, the existence of trans people,
and like defining gender on your own terms and defining

(01:08:17):
what it means to be a woman on your own terms.
Being a woman used to be in anti Bellum United
States of America.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Black women weren't women. Black women weren't even human right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Womanhood in the United States is a colonial, white supremacist construct.
It is a patriarchal construct, and that is being dismantled
as women are taking control of our lives and our abilities.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
To have children or not.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
And just a lot of that patriarchy is just being
dismantled by the lived experiences of women.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
And so many men don't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Know how they fit into that because they haven't done
the work of interrogating patriarchy and interrogating that model. And
you've talked so beautifully on your podcast about being vulnerable
as a man and what that looks like, and vulnerability
is a piece of it, and that is my own
for men dealing with the ways in which they've internalized

(01:09:21):
patriarchy and these systems that are not serving them. Patriarchy
isn't serving most men, especially if you're a man of color,
especially if you're a working classman, right, Patriarchy is not
actually really serving you. And I think the frustration of
a lot of working classmen of all races is that
patriarchy isn't serving them, and it's supposed to be and
it's confusing, right, And then women are so empowered now

(01:09:44):
and don't necessarily need man, but I still want a man.
And then trans people are in the middle of all this, right,
and so then it's like we become a scapegoat. We
can become a scapegoat for like all of the anxieties.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
That people have that some women have who are not transgender,
for that some men have.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
We become a scapegoat for all of this anxiety about
gender roles changing, and these trans people aren't helping. And
then like there we're usurping women all these narratives that
actually have nothing to do with trans people. It has
to do with a certain level of progress, a certain
level of like these systems not working for people anymore,

(01:10:24):
and the uncertainty and the uncomfortability of all of that.
So much of this is about being able to sit
with discomfort and uncertainty and not being able to make
any sense of it. And what makes sense to so
many people is when someone is having a baby, is

(01:10:44):
it a boy.

Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Or a girl?

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
If I don't eat, if I can't even hold on
to it's a boy or a girl? And that binary.
If I can't hold onto that, what can I hold
on to? And so people desperately need to hold onto
some sense of certainty, and trans people and our existence
does not allow that, And there is a cognitive dissonance,
and there is an anger because there's nothing. There's so

(01:11:09):
little that we can hold onto that that we can
be certain about in these times. Cannot hold on to something,
and trans the existence of trans people is another thing
that we can't hold onto. But we trans people have
always existed. It's just it's a lie. Intersex people exist biologically.
All these people who want to talk about biology biological

(01:11:29):
sex and that term is a very tricky term, but
well let's use it for now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
For expedients. Is not binary.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Intersect people exist like there's there are more intersex people
than redheads, right, so that like, even biologically, gender doesn't
exist on a binary, it's exists on a spectrum. So
it's so then it's like, why do we sit with
discomfort and uncertainty and like sit in that and let

(01:11:57):
go again, going back to letting go of the story,
Like the stories that I can tell myself about not
being enough, those stories are so often tied to I'm
a woman, I'm supposed to be this way from people
who identifi as me, they're a man, and I'm suppose
you're supposed to be this way. I'm white and it's
supposed to be this way. I'm from this place. Letting

(01:12:19):
go those stories, and it's sometimes deeply uncomfortable to let
go of the story that like I've always been attached to,
deeply attached to. It's painful, it's painful. And then and
so what conservatives who don't want trans people to exist
have done successfully is play it on the fears of

(01:12:39):
people not being able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty
and have used that to attempt to legislate and adjudicate
trans people out of existence.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
That is what's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
So even having the narrative of the talking to people
from the other side is a false dichotomy because we're
all in the same But.

Speaker 5 (01:13:01):
Of course, yeah know I was doing it as a
fail you and I and I went there a little
bit with you, but it's like, no, I think it's
I think we're all in the same boat around its uncertainty,
around all these questions, and if we can sit with
that and hopefully sit across.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
From someone like we're doing now and see their humanity.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Now that's I mean, sitting and listening to you and
anyone else that I meet, I'm only seeing humanity. And
that's how at least I was trained in my tradition
was to only look at someone for their humanity and
the essence that exists within. And my intention, leven honestly
with this is that I feel so educated in lighting
today and I've learned so much from you, and I genuinely,

(01:13:43):
genuinely do hope even though I was doing it as
a thought exercise, I do hope that And it may
be one of these, you know, idealistic viewpoints, but I
think it's needed, Like I wish we could sit down
with people that we think we have opposing views.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
There's been so many moments throughout my life where I,
you know, waited at tables, worked in restaurants for nineteen
years in New York, and encountered so many people from
different backgrounds. I did not talk about being trans or
trans politics.

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
I was just myself. Yeah, of course, I was just
myself with these people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
And it's just been so beautiful that the empirical evidence
of my life that I just get to be myself
and people are like, oh, yeah, she happens to be trans,
but she's she's cool, she's awesome, And it's not I'm
not the only one who's cool and awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
Like a lot of trans people are cool and awesome.
There's some crazy people aren't cool and awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
There are people across every democratic who aren't cool and awesome,
but a lot of us are. And even if we
weren't cool and awesome, we're still human, you know, And
sitting across some people and just chilling, you know, is like,
it's it's beautiful. I think about all of the sort
of parents of different men.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
I've dated over the years.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
I'm fifty one, and so I've met some parents my
day and I just remember, like twenty years ago. I
was dating this guy and then we met. I met
his parents and they knew I was trans, going in like, oh,
she's so lovely. And then I was another guy's mom
who I met. This is early two thousands, and I
met her.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
She loved me, she thought I was great for her son.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Like three years into relationship, he was in the phone
with this mom and was like, oh, Laverne is giving
herself an estrogen shot and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
She's like, oh my god, what is she pregnant? What's
going on?

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
And she's freaking out, like and he used to starts laughing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
She's like, she's trans, and we thought she knew, but
she didn't know. She had met me and loved me,
and then she freaked out.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
And then she comes to visit. She's from Minneapolis. She
comes and visits, and then we have dinner together and
she's like, Laverne is lovely, she's great. I'm so happy
that she's in your life, you know. And she had
whatever story she had around me being trans, and then
we had dinner together and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Hung out and was like she's great.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Yeah, And I've just have so many of those experiences
in my life, and so I part of me is
just like, let's just sit down and have dinner.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
Girl's just chill. It's all good.

Speaker 5 (01:16:02):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
Levine Cocks. You have been a joy to be around today, honestly,
and I love how smart, intelligent, intellectual, thoughtful you are
about the words that you share, the way you present them,
and you're you're a change maker. And I'm really on
it to have sat down with you for this time,
to learn from you, to grow with you, and I
really hope that we'll continue to have this conversation offline too.

(01:16:26):
Me too, I really look forward to be definitely definitely
that you are very on perpose I try. Thank you
so much. Thank you, honestly. If you love this episode,
you will enjoy my conversation with Megan Trainer on breaking
generational trauma and how to be confident from the inside out.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for
five minutes. It was already tough for me to love
my body. But after the C section scarf with all
the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've
been hacked. But day three, when I did it, I
was like, you know what her thigs are cu

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