In a heartfelt piece, actress, producer and trans advocate Laverne Cox shares her personal experience with discrimination and internalized transphobia. She writes:

I do understand that trans women who pass well also have hardships and experience discrimination. I can celebrate my good qualities, acknowledge the reality that life can be hard for anyone, and still have moments when I feel envious of trans women who pass better than I do. Sometimes moments of internalized transphobia just overtake me. I’m human. In addition to therapy, recently I have been working through my internalized transphobia with my current acting coach, Brad Calcaterra, in his revolutionary class “Act Out,” which he designed to help LGBT actors work through our blocks. As a class, we have been exploring, among other things, how internalized homophobia and transphobia develops from us internalizing the voices of our bullies and then turning those voices onto ourselves and each other. Our internalized bullies police behavior, appearance and actions, judging each other as harshly as we’ve learned to judge ourselves.

Many of us can relate to internalizing the voices of our bullies. Sometimes they are the voices of teachers that told us we weren’t smart enough, lovers that told us we weren’t pretty enough or parents that told us we weren’t good enough.

Laverne continues:

Luckily those self-ownership days slowly seem to outnumber the self-hating ones. I still get envious sometimes, but I am slowly replacing the voices in my head, those voices of the bullies and harassers, with voices that celebrate what makes me unique, different and, well, me.

Truth to power. We are enough, just as we are. Read more here.

Category: News