Laverne Cox shared with U of G students her experiences as a transgender woman
University of Guelph students piled into Rozanski, Room 104, to hear Laverne Cox speak on Friday, March 27. Campus organizations set-up information booths around Rozanski’s front lobby, including Student Support Centre, Guelph Resource Centre for Gender Empowerment and Diversity, Guelph’s Women in Crisis, and information on Guelph Pride. It was great to see such a strong sense of community.
“Ain’t I a woman?” was the question Laverne Cox asked her audience at the beginning of her lecture. Also widely known for playing the character of Sophia Burset on Orange is the New Black, Cox blew U of G students away that night with her booming charisma and awe-inspiring words.
Cox began her speech by proudly and immediately identifying herself as a “black, working-class, transgendered woman,” and soon-after, asked her audience once more, “Ain’t I a woman?” – a question that was originally the title of a famous anti-slavery speech delivered by Sojourner Truth in 1851. Many may recognize the same question as the title of a book written in 1981 by bell hooks, a woman whom Cox described “her words were like oxygen to me.”
Cox effectively reiterated that same question in her speech, and described systemic oppression and patriarchal values as, “points of views that suggest that no matter what I do, I will never be a woman, and yet, ain’t I a woman?”
Hypnotized by her words, the audience quieted and was immediately drawn-in.
According to Ontario’s Canadian Mental Health Association, trans individuals are over-represented within impoverished communities in Canada. In an Ontario-based survey, 77 per cent of transgendered participants reported having had thoughts of suicide, while 45 per cent had attempted suicide at least once.
Cox approached these statistics as she discussed her own personal experiences with suicide, violence, and harassment, particularly during the earlier stages of her transformation. She explained that before she made a full transition, there were stages where it was visually obvious to the public that she was becoming transgender, and this attracted negative attention from others, particularly men walking by on the streets. Having grown up in Alabama, she also spoke of her painful journey through childhood, as she was bullied heavily for being too feminine, to the point that her teachers wanted to inject her with extra testosterone to make her act more like a “proper boy.” When asked by a school therapist in the third grade “Do you know the difference between a boy and a girl?” Cox had answered, “There is no difference.”
Cox spoke of intersectional feminism – a concept that has been growing in popularity. To be an intersectional individual is to be an individual that is marginalized by multiple systems of oppression, including race, ethnicity, gender, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Black feminism has worked, and continues to work, to study the way intersectionality works within feminism by noting that rather than treating race and gender as separate issues, these systems of oppression must be examined in combination, in order to view how they work together to oppress an individual. For example, a woman who has a physical disability and lives in poverty is oppressed by systems of gender, class, and ability. Transgender women are oppressed by systems of gender and sexual orientation, and possibly also by race. Intersectional feminism works to examine these systems and argues that they do not work independently – rather, they work together to oppress its individuals.
Cox also told stories of her relationship with her mother and twin brother, and the effect her transition had on these two very important people in her life. Though her mother had a difficult time adjusting to Laverne’s differences as a child, she taught Laverne the importance of education at a young age. Cox’s mother educated her children on the world’s racial injustices, and Cox took this initial knowledge of race and used it to expand on her knowledge of gender identity and sexuality. She told her audience, “Before I knew anything about myself, I knew I was black.” Her acknowledgment of initial identification of race as an oppressor in her lecture, and its interconnectedness with the rest of her speech, provided the audience with a clear depiction of how conceptualizations of race, class, and gender work together to systematically oppress, rather than working independently of each other.
The representation of LGBTQA+(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) communities in the media has increased over the past decade or so; however, there is still a heavy struggle to increase representation in a positive light, and LGBTQA+ communities are still highly underrepresented in the media.
Laverne Cox is currently the most popular transgender individual in the North American spotlight, and she has done wonders for increasing awareness of LGBTQA+ culture and values. Programs marketed toward American youth, such as Degrassi and Glee, are increasingly including characters representative of LGBTQA+ communities. Another notable celebrity that has contributed to the representation of the LGBTQA+ community particularly within Canada is Jenna Talackova, a transgender model that was reinstated into the Miss Universe Canada competition after she was originally disqualified for being transgender.
Laverne talked about the gender-binary model, and the systemic ways in which it is reasserted, including “gender policing” that the oppressed reflect onto each other. These ideas effectively tie-in with the idea of gender as performative – a concept that was introduced by Simone de Beavoir in her book, The Second Sex, with her famous statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” De Beauvoir’s concept of “becoming” a gender was later re-examined by Judith Butler in her theory of gender as “performative” from her book, Gender Trouble. Laverne discussed both of these women and their contributions to gender theory.
Overall Laverne Cox has done wonders for the LGBTQA+ community. Her success in the spotlight has not only raised awareness, but has also opened up a revolutionary dialogue. As Laverne Cox becomes increasingly accepted into the homes of television fans all over the country, transgender dialogue and representation is becoming more common and more accepted. Knowledge is power, and Cox so eloquently articulated this very true fact by the end of her lecture at the University of Guelph.
So thank you for being you, Laverne, and thank you for taking the time to leave a lasting imprint on the students of the University of Guelph. We are forever grateful.