Best Of: Laverne Cox /Comic Ali Siddiq

Fresh Air

Laverne Cox and comedian Ali Siddiq discuss their lives, struggles, and resilience on Fresh Air. Cox reflects on her traumatic childhood, identity, and the release of her memoir 'Transcendent,' while Siddiq shares his journey from prison to comedy. Both highlight the lasting impact of early trauma and the power of self-expression.

Key takeaways

• Childhood trauma shaped Cox's early sense of self.
• Disassociation and dance were survival tools for Cox.
• Siddiq uses comedy to process prison trauma.

Transcript preview

From W. HYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley in Los Angeles. Today, Laverne Cox, for over a decade, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. In her new memoir, Transcendent, she writes about growing up in Mobile, Alabama. And the bullying and harassment she faced as a feminine child who could not conform to what was expected of her. She writes about how she got through it. I, in a way, leaving her body and going someone else in her mind. A lot of the time that place was music and dance. I just love pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery cart as if it was like a partner. Did you have headphones on, a walkman? No darling, the music was in my head and the groove is in the heart. Also we hear from comedian Ali Sadique. He served six years in a Texas prison and turned his life into some of the most watched storytelling and comedy. I'm Tanya Mosley and my guest today is Laverne Cox. Chances are you met her the way most of the world did as a transgender woman in prison doing hair and fighting for her right to gender affirming care in the Netflix series Orange is the new black. Listen doc I need my dosage. I've given five years 80,000 dollars in my freedom for this. I'm finally who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand? I can't go back. I can't go back. I'd like to help you. Unfortunately you have elevated levels of A.S.T. and ALT, which could mean liver damage. That's bullshit. That could mean anything. We're going to take you off your hormones entirely until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read. But that could take months. I can offer you an antidepressants. Sophia Versette in 2014, the role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a prime time Emmy in an acting category and put her on the cover of Time magazine next to the words, The Transgender Tipping Point. For a decade now, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. But the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone, not even her therapist. She's written a new memoir titled Transcendent. And it arrived. at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country. But the book makes clear that for Cox, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was. Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things. And she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life. Lvern Cox, welcome to Fresh Air. It's such an honor to have you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I have not heard. It's rare that I just hear the clip from Orange and it's been so long and I, gosh it brings back memories and it's really what's interesting is even for actors out there often when I watch a scene that I've done it's hard for me to have distance I immediately am in the character again and I'm in the emotion of the scene and so I'm immediately like feeling what I was feeling When we shot this this is 2012 that we shot it so it was funny I was just like yeah did you laugh why did it make you know at the end when I mean the writing is so fantastic I maybe I can offer you an antidepressant was it's hilarious Well orange is a new black was revolutionary for the time and your character I was very surprised to learn from the book that you weren't a regular Reoccurring character you were a guest star yes and I mean that's really a contractual thing. I was a contractual thing. I was in I was in I was in I was in I was in I mean that's really a contractual I remember how many episodes I was in the first season but I remember it was a day-to-day thing I didn't have like a contract the first season I was literally a day player guest star day player but I was kind of making day player rates I wasn't making like guest star rates the second season I was my salary was like a guest star rate and I had it like I think a seven episode guarantee and it ended up using me for nine episodes so I was there a lot and they wrote generously for me I think because that my backstory episode episode that people thought felt like you were a cast member. Yes. Yeah. I think people think because so much of the work that you have done feel so true to life that so much of that show might be your life and I think it's part of what makes this book really eye opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know. I want to start with the beginning of your book. Okay. Because you're eight years old. You decide to start at a moment when you're eight years old. You are at a park near your family's apartment in Mobile, Alabama. You're doing your kid thing and just playing out. And there are these boys that come up to you, the Carraway Boys. And they begin teasing you, and then it gets violent. Can I have you pick up the story from there? During one of these teasing sessions, why you talk like that? One of the Carraway Boys shoved me. I don't even remember which one of one. They were interchangeably menacing figures. This time I couldn't keep my balance and found myself falling, hitting the gravel of the playground. I scowled, annoyed at first. But then, looking up at them, I saw the switch flip in their eyes. I saw that flicker of threat. The way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. it by me. I was no longer a friend up here. Someone to play with. I was an easy target. I was prey. Their fist landed in unison on my face, my chest. Hmm. You see this fisses. Look at this sissy, like a girl. One of them sneered. Half laughing and glee. me, their voices blended into one as they pelted me, hurling every name they could think of, and my instinct, from as far back as the days of daycare bullying took over, rolling me onto my side and into a ball. The words rang in my ears. Those from the past intermingling with those of the careway boys. I had heard these words before. At first, I had not known what they meant, but now, after years of it, I recognize them. Words that meant I was different from the other kids. A girl, when I should have acted like a boy. And finally you're able to make it home and you get into your apartment and your mom sees you and she doesn't say what happened to you. She immediately says you let them beat you up like this. What did you do to make them do this to you? Why did you want to start the book off with that particular story? was like the physical violence of the other children that was persistent throughout my childhood. And then my mother finding out and instead of having an impulse, and then my mother finding out and instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay, she made it my fault and it just in a way it sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected not feeling safe. You sort of encapsulates a lot of a lot of the childhood. I'm you know reading that again I have to say it's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to You grew up inside of people's reactions to you. An effeminate child, a gender non-conforming teenager, a trans woman, and everything that you received, it was like race, gender, and class converging into one person. What really struck me from that very first story throughout the entire book is, the shame and hatred that people carried, they took it out on. you and it even happened in your home. Yes. I'm just trying to gather my resilience and like I guess I'm like having it's like there's like reading that I'm just like I'm emotional I'm angry it's like it's like it's hard to read that. Obviously I lived it but it's hard to read about it again. I'm just like I'm emotional I'm angry it's like it's like it's hard to read about it again. I'm I'm angry at my mother I'm I want to protect that little child I'm I'm just so I'm so angry and I think like Yeah, I don't know if I can I can be able to read excerpts in this book again. We'll see I'm just I'm so pissed. I'm so angry. I'm I'm? Yeah, I don't know if I can I can be able to read excerpts from this book again. We'll see I'm just I'm so pissed. I'm so angry and I'm so anger comes from you having to experience it. And it's, it's, there's also like the anger of all the kids that I've met who were trans or queer who are still experiencing this and the anger of knowing that in states that have passed anti-trans laws that the bullying, percentage of bullying is like skyrocketed in those states. You hear a lot of stories. A lot of stories, but that's actually, those are statistics, like there's the anecdotes, but those are stats from the Trevor Project. Because to manufacture the consent to pass anti-trans laws that would ban gender-forming care for kids and all the minutes of trans girls and sports, all like two of them. There's the rhetorical piece that happens in the media that is dehumanizing and stigmatizing trans people and it creates a permission structure if like you're, you're you know governor and your state legislators are doing if you're you know your teachers and you know pundits on TV are doing it then like of course kids are emboldened to do it and that makes me so angry and you know it's like the sadness is like you know it's just the loneliness and I couldn't process it fully as a child and I don't know it just really sucked This was so, it was torture to write this and the reason I wrote it is to, to tell