Laverne Cox says she’s considering leaving the US after Trump victory

Following Donald Trump’s election victory last week, transgender actress and presenter Laverne Cox has expressed deep concern for the LGBTQ+ community under his presidency.

Speaking on a new episode of Variety’s Just For Variety podcast, Cox said she broke down in tears when it became clear that he would win a second term in the White House: “He had something like 246 (electoral votes). I was just like I’m out. I cried.”

“I don’t want to be in too much fear, but I’m scared. As a public figure, with all my privilege, I’m scared, and I’m particularly scared because I’m a public figure. I feel like I could be targeted. I think they spent close to $100 million on anti-trans ads. It’s deeply concerning,” Cox explained.

Cox has already completed her medical transition so she is in a better position than many other trans people across the country, but she does have to “take oestrogen for the rest of [her] life”.

“I have to take oestrogen just for health. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible anymore,” she said.

As a result, she plans to “hoard a bunch of oestrogen” after her doctor confirms that the website she is looking at is “reputable”.

Cox said that she and several trans friends of hers are so worried about Trump becoming presidency that they are contemplating leaving the U.S.

“We’re doing research on different cities in Europe and in the Caribbean,” she said, adding that she knows of some people who are looking at relocating within the United States to states that are considered safer for LGBTQ+ people.

Cox also compared a second Trump administration, which is expected to be extremely difficult for LGBTQ+ people, to Weimar Germany: “There was this a thriving community of queer people in Berlin pre the rise of Nazism. They attacked Jewish folks. They attacked immigrants, they attacked queer and trans people.”

She said she had high hopes for vice-president Kamala Harris to win due to the ongoing “attack on LGBTQ+ rights at the state level” as well as book bans that have affected “Black authors, Black queer authors” and even “bans on AP African American history”.

“Certainly I’m concerned about LGBTQ+ rights but I think it’s not a coincidence that the attack on LGBTQ+ people, particularly trans people, is happening at the same time that there is an organised attack on reproductive rights,” Cox added.