Orange Is The New Black star Laverne Cox reveals she nearly died in abusive relationship
Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox has opened up about surviving an abusive relationship.
The transgender star revealed she spent four years relationship with an emotionally abusive alcoholic.
The actress bravely spoke out about her experience in an interview with women’s magazine Grazia.
She told the magazine: “My biggest regret is that I dated an emotionally abusive alcoholic for four years.”
The actress says that she felt vulnerable as a black trans woman, and didn’t think she had anywhere else to turn.
She continued: “I believed that because I was black and trans, he was the only man who’d ever love me.
“The relationship almost killed me.”
The OITNB star has brought a new level of representation for black trans women on TV, also appearing on CBS’s legal drama Doubt.
She also spoke out against people who don’t see transgender women as ‘real women’.
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Speaking to Channel 4 ahead of season 5 of Orange is the New Black being released on Friday, Cox tore apart the reasoning promoted by so-classed Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists.
In March, Dame Jenni Murray, host of BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, wrote a column for the Sunday Times Magazine that was titled “Be trans, be proud – but don’t call yourself a ‘real woman’”.
Cox said: “Gender is really, really complicated, and everyone experiences their gender in a different way, and gender is different based on the culture.”
But, she said, “when we say that transgender women aren’t women, that is a way to discriminate against us.
“That is a way that folks use to deny us access and deny us healthcare and jobs, and it’s a reason that people perpetrate violence against us.”
11 trans women of colour have been murdered this year in the US, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Cox also called Trump “a president who ran on an overtly white supremacist, xenophobic platform”.
