Anna Martin: I literally just started thinking about that hollow note song. Method of modern love, right? It's hollow notes from the 80s. I'm old.

Leverne Cox: I don't remember how it goes exactly.

Anna Martin: Have you never heard of it?

Leverne Cox: I've never heard of it. There's a B.

Anna Martin: Doing a podcast called Modern Love and no one's ever mentioned that song.

Leverne Cox: And Lever, here's the thing. I was going to lie and say I know that song, but thank goodness I didn't. Thank goodness I didn't.

Anna Martin: It's not journalistic.

Leverne Cox: Well, it's true, but it also God, the truth is so much better.

Anna Martin: From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. And today on the show, I'm talking to actor Leverne Cox. From a very early age, she knew she was going to be a star. And unlike many kids who grew up thinking that, Leverne was right. Decades later, she'd break through as Sophia Buret on Netflix's Orange is the New Black.

Leverne Cox: I need some of these.

Anna Martin: And she'd become the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in an acting category. She's written a new memoir called Transcendent, which tells the story of her life, her painful childhood, her journey to becoming the star she always knew she was, the people she loved along the way, and how she finally learned to fully love herself. Leverne Cox, welcome to Modern Love.

Leverne Cox: Thank you so much.

Anna Martin: We're here to talk about your new memoir, Transcendent. It is vulnerable and honest. It helped me understand you in a very intimate way. I'm excited to dive in.

Leverne Cox: And you mention in the introduction that you're sharing many of these stories for the very first time. People in your life, even those closest to you, I'm seeing this reaction. Are you nervous? When you say when you say that I've been feeling good about it, but when you say that it's a little like

Anna Martin: like it's it is that old bit of shame of like

Leverne Cox: I I mean I start the book off with um an exercise that my one of my acting teachers would give us um tell us something you don't want us to know about you. an improvisational exercise and then he would give us a character and

Anna Martin: the idea was to be vulnerable and to release shame. And usually after that exercise um um Brad would yell cut and have every all the students in the class close their eyes except the actor on stage and him and he would say has anyone here felt like Leverne and invariably almost every hand would go up. And the power of that is that when we have our secrets and our shame, we often feel alone in it. It makes us feel like we're the only one who's ever experienced this. And if anybody finds this out, they'll think I'm just horrible and awful. And you realize that you're not alone.

Leverne Cox: The hands are And that um and those hands are empathy.

Anna Martin: And um as I often quote Bnee Brown, empathy is the antidote to shame. Um,

Leverne Cox: can I ask you like why did you think now was the right time to write this memoir?

Anna Martin: Well, the an offer came and I thought this is a couple of years ago. I thought that with the therapy I've been doing for the past now 10 years. I thought like I thought I was ready that I processed a lot of the trauma that the memories that were buried were buried for a reason and wouldn't come back. and I just thought I could handle it and I I felt ready to to tell the truth. I had a I had a book deal like in 2014 over a decade ago

Leverne Cox: and we started the process and I and we had had a draft of a few chapters and it just wasn't real. It wasn't and I wasn't ready to be real. And a lot of that was actually about protecting my mother. Um, but also like it was so early in my career in terms of like the public getting to know me and I just I just wasn't ready to like I I just don't think there's a point of writing a book if you're not going to be vulnerable, tell the truth, hopefully talk about things that are uncomfortable, talk about things that may have been painful, but also the the the the good things too.

Anna Martin: You're talking about your mom. I want to dig into that. Tell me about your relationship to her.

Leverne Cox: Um, my mom was very My mom My mother's a lot of things. She was very stressed out taking care of two kids by herself. Often had literally four four jobs. I I kid you not, taking care of us. And she was always stressed about money. My mother was also very concerned about what other people thought of her. and us our behavior being a reflection on her.

Anna Martin: Um, and and we were tasked with cleaning the house when I was when we were growing up. And it was never up to par. It was never ever ever good enough. There was always something that wasn't dusted or vacuumed properly, leaves that weren't ra sufficiently. Um, always.

Leverne Cox: And you were growing up alongside your twin brother, your twin brother.

Leverne Cox: My twin brother. Absolutely. Um, a lot of it would like particularly when um in in grade school, our first elementary school, Council Elementary School, my mother thought that the program wasn't great for us and she education was very important to her. Um, she was the first um of her siblings to finish college. And so council wasn't a great school. And so she found this um school called Woodcock Elementary. But we had to lie about our address

Leverne Cox: to go to that school. Apparently people go to jail for that now. So we couldn't take the bus there. So she had to like drive us there or get someone else to drive us a few times.

Anna Martin: Stressful. She has four jobs.

Leverne Cox: Stressed out. So we would wake up and she would be yelling at us that we'd be late. So I would wake up to yelling. I would wake up to her yelling and just my mother was always stressed out. So she would be yelling and telling us what a burden we were. I felt like such a burden constantly that I had ruined this poor woman's life by being born. So she would yell at us that, you know, we were going to be late and she would yell at us in the car on the way to school. And so so much of my life and childhood felt like trying to make sure I did everything right so that she wouldn't go off. And and I and it was really I wanted desperately for her to see and love me. And so I felt like I had to if I perfected, if I made all A's, if I, you know, and I did, I eventually did and won this talent show and cleaned properly that she would love me and that she would see me and want me. Um, I never felt wanted by her.

Anna Martin: I just have to say that's really you're saying all these things and it's really heavy to even hear. I mean, to start I'm saying it very casually. I'm trying not to I'm trying not to drop into it like I as I would as an actor or in therapy, but that's the that's the truth.

Leverne Cox: I mean, waking up, it's very visceral waking up every day to the sound of being yelled at.

Anna Martin: Yes.

Leverne Cox: Have that continue until you got to school to always feel like a burden to feel like you needed to achieve to earn your mother's love. I mean, you write about this so vividly and it is really, really difficult.

Anna Martin: Yes, it was.

Leverne Cox: When you got to school, there was no reprieve. When I got to school, particularly at Woodcock, it was like I was walking the gauntlet out of the car for my mother there and it was immediately like [ __ ] f-word, queer, punk, girl, like just like being called all sorts of um derogatory names by other kids. And that started that's my very first interactions with other kids. Daycare, I think it was maybe three. I did not know what gay was. I didn't Well, they didn't say gay. They said [ __ ] and the f-word. I did not know what these words were, but three-year-olds did somehow. And so I knew that it wasn't good because because of the tone of it. And so yeah, my very first interactions with kids were like where I was being bullied and called names because I was very feminine always. And um that was a problem for the other kids um apparently.

Anna Martin: Did you want to fit in? Was that a desire you had?

Leverne Cox: No.

Anna Martin: No. What what became clear to me writing the book and thinking really a lot of writing this book was like trying to really go back to what I was really thinking honestly even if it sounds bad or

Leverne Cox: sure

Anna Martin: just being honest about it and I and the kids would often say oh you think you're better than us and I and I and I did I did

Leverne Cox: you talk about that as your armor

Anna Martin: and it was an armor and it's a very childish thing obviously and I was a child but I I've there There was something I always felt like I was supposed to be a star. I wasn't interested in fitting in because I thought these children were silly and um basic. I didn't have that. I didn't use that term then, but basic silly and and frivolous. And I'm supposed to be a star. I have to prepare. I have to study. I have to train. I have things to do. I don't have time for all of your bullying and silliness. I need to be I need to prepare.

Leverne Cox: I'm locked in. Yeah. But it is an interesting thing you're describing which is like you are there's all this messaging from your mom from the kids at school

Anna Martin: that you are not worth much. Right.

Leverne Cox: Correct.

Anna Martin: And then at the same time you have this deep visceral knowing that you are meant to be a star. How did you hold those two things at once?

Leverne Cox: What was well what the interesting thing is I was there area I was encouraged in certain areas. I when I started dancing um when I started studying dance in third grade at Culture in Black and White, I started entering talent shows and winning

Anna Martin: or getting second place and so there were many trophies. Um I was always a good speaker and so I would always and I loved being up in front of people. So when we started going to Bethl AM church and when I I got baptized when I was 7 years old at Bethl, I would always summarize the Sunday school lesson like every Sunday. I loved it.

Leverne Cox: But what do you mean summarize? Like to who? To

Anna Martin: to So we would have Sunday school. We would have Sunday school and then we would have the main um um church service. So um right, you know, right after Sunday school, we would have the main church service and the pastor would ask a young person from um to summarize the Sunday school lesson that they had for that we had for that week. And I always volunteered.

Leverne Cox: The hand was always up. Your hand was always up.

Anna Martin: I was that kid. And I loved just summarizing the lesson. I love just getting up and speaking in front of people. And I didn't realize that that was preparing me for so much that that was like that was training the 10,000 hours they talk about like me standing up in church every Sunday sending summarizing the Sunday school lesson. So I was encouraged because I I I I spoke well from from adults and then like the ta the ta the dancing was tricky because I was winning talent shows and I was showing initiative but then I was also like those dance classes are going to make make you g make your child gay. So it was a mixed thing and the kids made fun of me because I was always dancing. So that was a mixed bag. But the encouragement I when I would make alls my mother didn't she was like that's what you're supposed to do. It wasn't like a celebration. It was like why should I celebrate you for what you're supposed to do? But I

Leverne Cox: there was this as a child I felt like if I kept achieving enough I would be worthy of of her love and and acceptance and maybe the worlds and maybe the worlds. And for me the world so I didn't want to be accepted by the other kids but I wanted to be

Anna Martin: my brother said this thing um many years ago. I don't want to see the world. I want the world to see me.

Leverne Cox: And I think that's always kind of been

Anna Martin: for whatever reason me.

Leverne Cox: Is that tears? No,

Anna Martin: it's such a weird thing to say out loud because it feel I don't know like I don't know how this comes across but like this is this is just the truth.

Leverne Cox: I mean I think it comes across as complicated which means it's real. You know what I mean? You you at the same time as you are being you have this understanding of yourself. Is there something wrong with me? Right. You also is that is that is that how it was?

Anna Martin: It was

Leverne Cox: in terms of the bullying.

Anna Martin: The I thought they were silly. I what I they the kids said things were wrong with me. My mother would say things were wrong with me. The men that my mother would date would suggest something was wrong with me.

Leverne Cox: And I didn't think that until until third grade.

Anna Martin: So describe to me what happened. And you were in third grade.

Leverne Cox: I was I was in class and I probably had a really rough morning at home with my mom and we had gone to Six Flags on a church trip and my mother had given me a little bit of spending money and at the um gift shop at Six Flags they had um they had these fans. These fans I remember was hanging there. I just I will never forget walking in and seeing this fan and in church the um women had these paper fans and I had seen Gone with the Wind. Like when I saw it, Scarlet, you know, I was not Mammy. I was not um I was Scarlett Hair Honey

Anna Martin: and Brett Butler and Ashley wanted me and

Leverne Cox: and so I had the fan and so like there was something I would go somewhere. I would I would I would I took the fan out and I started fanning myself and I just would go to this like

Anna Martin: I would be at Terra. I would be at Terara. I would be in some gorgeous pristine um um um Victorian antibbellum outfit

Leverne Cox: before I had to make it out of curtains

Anna Martin: and I would just be the object of desire and longing and it just was it was everything. It was everything. So I was just in my Scarlett O'Hara fantasy just like

Leverne Cox: going, you know, cuz it you brought the fan to school, it sounds like.

Anna Martin: Oh yeah. Yes, of course. Why? I mean, why why not?

Leverne Cox: It's a great I'm sorry. Yeah, it's like your pencil, you got your fan. Of course. Yeah, you bring

Anna Martin: I mean, yeah,

Leverne Cox: it's a school supply, but it's why wouldn't I?

Anna Martin: It's a great question.

Leverne Cox: So, so, um, yeah, I'm fanning myself in class and then, you know, my full Scarlett O'Hara, Gone with the Wind, Fabulous Fantasy, and Miss Ridgeway looks at me and says, "Come here and bring that thing with you." And she she marches me down the hall to the um fourth grade teacher and she said, "Show her what you were doing with that thing." And I I did. And I

Anna Martin: show her what you were doing with that thing.

Leverne Cox: With that thing. Yes.

Anna Martin: Huh. meaning to, you know, fan myself. So, I did and I didn't feel like I didn't and she was, "Okay, stop."

Leverne Cox: And then she had me wait out.

Anna Martin: Do you understand why she was asking you to do that?

Leverne Cox: No. Okay. No, not at all. And and I but

Anna Martin: I felt like and then she then she marches me to the fifth grade um teacher's class and I felt like, okay, maybe I didn't commit enough.

Leverne Cox: So, I really dropped in um and she said, "Show her to the fifth grade teacher, show her what you were doing with that thing." And then I really dropped in. And I felt my invisible hair blowing in the wind and I just committed, you know, and she's like, "Okay, stop. Go back to class." And I think my my mother didn't pick us up that day. Somehow I someone else brought us home or we walked home. And I just remember her coming storming in saying that she had gotten a call um from Miss Ridgeway saying I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we don't get me into therapy right away.

Anna Martin: Well, but I want to So your mom comes in?

Leverne Cox: Yes.

Anna Martin: Angry.

Leverne Cox: Yeah. Very angry. And she says that the teacher said what to you?

Anna Martin: She said that Miss Rididgeway called me on the phone and said, "Your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we don't get him into therapy right away."

Leverne Cox: So, did you understand why she'd taken you to the different teachers to to use your fan? I mean,

Anna Martin: did you put the pieces together? I this was all all I knew is like I'm eight n eight n years old. All I knew is that I'd been taken to show what I was doing with my fan and now my mother was yelling at me and that and this new ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress. In in my mind, I thought I would be homeless in a dress, begging for money and like a criminal like I I that I'm just I that's what that's those are the images that came to mind.

Leverne Cox: And you said your mom was very aware of appearances and it feels like this this anger that she did you understand why she was angry? She didn't she didn't have time for this, okay?

Anna Martin: She didn't have time for any problems from us, right? This is a problem that she didn't have time for. She had to figure out how to pay the light bill. She had to figure out how to pay the water bill, the rent, um how to put food on the table. She didn't have time for this. And people were talking about her, right? So then it's like this is a reflection on her and her being a bad parent or in some way. And so I became a I was a problem. Like this behavior was a problem for her. And I

Leverne Cox: I'm so sorry.

Anna Martin: I'm so

Leverne Cox: And I was I was failing her and um I was a disappointment and I um

Anna Martin: we can take a moment. Yeah,

Leverne Cox: we can take a moment.

Anna Martin: Um I I yeah it was um then it was then it was like okay what's what's wrong with me? Up until then I was just very free. I was I would dance doing um PE. I would dance everywhere. I was just free.

Leverne Cox: And then this moment was

Anna Martin: it was like this emergency

Leverne Cox: And um I had to be handled. I had to be fixed. Um, what are you thinking about right now?

Anna Martin: Um, how there is no one to say that who you are is beautiful, that um you're lovely just the way you are. There was no one to love me. Um, I this is that was always who I was. Um, and that's a part of me, my imagination, my sense of play. I'm an artist after all. And that was not something that was celebrated or um that I was lovable for. And um I was just thinking how unloved I felt and unwanted and a burden and how awful it was that I was born. Oh,

Leverne Cox: these are really hard things to say out loud and I I really appreciate you going there.

Anna Martin: It's just what it was. And um

Leverne Cox: I mean I I just I have to say like I I'm thinking of little lever with the fan. What happened to the fan after that? Did you bring it out again?

Anna Martin: No one's ever asked me that. Not till college. Not till college.

Leverne Cox: You kept it though. You kept it.

Anna Martin: Oh yes, I kept it.

Leverne Cox: But not till college. Not till I was um Oh my god. I hadn't even thought about that. See, these are the things that come up when you write a book. Like I I I I didn't

Anna Martin: I didn't

Leverne Cox: Can I just say and and we will get there in the timeline, but

Anna Martin: Mhm.

Leverne Cox: I am so happy to hear that you brought it out again in college. I mean, I just really actually, you know what, whatever about the timeline, tell me about Dancing with that fan again.

Anna Martin: Oh my god, it was everything. And it became something I I would um dance with at the club when I went to um

Leverne Cox: Oh my god, you kept it. No, I I I had that one and then I got one that would clack. Um, so then I when I would go to Bullwinkles and certainly when I moved to New York, I had it at the club and so I would dance with it at the club. It was something I just had with me.

Anna Martin: Um, when I f like the first two years I was in New York, I always had a fan when I went to the club.

Leverne Cox: That feels triumphant to me. It really does. Yeah, it's there was a what the triumph was like I was away from her and it was just like [ __ ]

Anna Martin: it's like [ __ ] you. I don't know who able to curse whatever

Leverne Cox: you are. Say it.

Anna Martin: It was like [ __ ] you. [ __ ] everybody. I'm doing what the [ __ ] I want to do. Yeah. So that was like Yeah, that's what it was was. I hadn't it was I wasn't in therapy yet in college. Um, I hadn't dealt with any of the trauma. Like I was in that like my childhood was fabulous. Can you imagine all the [ __ ] that I went through in my childhood and I just was like running around like everything is fine.

Leverne Cox: BUT BECAUSE YOU BUT Lever cuz you had to, right? You had to.

Anna Martin: I had to. And it was like

Leverne Cox: because you move forward. Yeah. you had to

Anna Martin: and children don't have tools to like process the disassociation

Leverne Cox: was the only thing I could do and and to sort of be in denial until I could um become an adult and reparent

Anna Martin: in your 20s you moved to New York.

Leverne Cox: Yes. I was 21 years old.

Anna Martin: 21. Kind of a cliche movie moment. small town girl moves to New York to chase her dreams, finds her people. Tell me about that. Were you meeting people who you felt like understood you?

Leverne Cox: So when I moved to New York in 1993, I was already RuPaul had already released Supermodel of the World

Anna Martin: to the right

Leverne Cox: and had become a national sensation. So drag was like all the rage. the club kids of New York City had been on Joan Rivers talk show and Haraldjo and like everywhere. And so when I when I went to New York and knew that there was this club scene with people who were doing fun looks that were androgynous or drag or whatever, it was like this is where I I need to be. And so it that part the way I'd always already been dressing that was people thought was weird when I was in high school. All the things I had been bullied for my whole life I was celebrated for.

Anna Martin: Describe that. Describe walking into a club in '90s. Tell me what you're wearing. Tell me what it looks like. Tell me how people respond to you.

Leverne Cox: I think about Limelight on Wednesday nights. Disco 2000. And Disco 2000 for those who don't know Limelight.

Anna Martin: I'm sorry. That's why I'm asking cuz I really don't know.

Leverne Cox: Well, Limelight is still there. I don't know if they call it Limelight. It was a church. It's on 20th and 6th Avenue is a former church that they converted into a nightclub. It had several floors. There's a basement, main floor,

Anna Martin: and like several floors and in every different room there's different kinds of music playing. The main floor was like techno and then there was the Kenny Sharf room where all the club kids were um as it was, you know, roped off and um the club kids the club kids were the people like me. I didn't really know anyone, but like because of my look, I would go there would be a line, literally lines around the corner.

Leverne Cox: And were you in the line or were you walking past it? I

Anna Martin: I walked past the line.

Leverne Cox: There's kind of no way you were in the line. I asked that question. I was like, you're not waiting there.

Anna Martin: Absolutely not. And what was beautiful is even though I didn't know people like Kenny Kenny was a legendary door person,

Leverne Cox: you and with the British you come come. I'm Le I'm Lever. Can you

Anna Martin: What are you wearing? Describe what was like a typical outfit.

Leverne Cox: I was at that time I was really into pe everything was Salvation Armani. I love that Salvation Army Goodwill. It was all thrift um thrifty. So I loved I had a shaved head um peel a lot of peel box hats with the shaved head

Anna Martin: lashes like out to here. I was shaving my brows and drew them on with liquid liner and black lipstick.

Leverne Cox: When you're on the dance floor Mhm. Are you feeling like Well, I'm just thinking about that question during that turning point when you were young. What is wrong with me? Were you still asking that question when you were when you were dancing when you were in New York?

Anna Martin: Oh god, no.

Leverne Cox: It what what is so what was so magical about that particular time in New York and when I can, you know, I haven't been dancing in a while and and I and I've talked to Honey Don about this um the legendary DJ. Um

Anna Martin: it's true. is church.

Leverne Cox: It actually a really good night at the club was a spiritual experience. There's an experience that like that is transcendent.

Anna Martin: It was a transcendent experience. And that's like that's what I've always been looking for. And there are moments that I have that when I'm acting too when when when you're in character and you're in a scene and you completely lose yourself.

Leverne Cox: You completely lose yourself. Can I ask you like when you were at the club, were you flirting with guys? Like what was happening in your romantic life at the club?

Anna Martin: When I first moved to New York, I didn't I didn't go to I didn't even it didn't even occur to me, which is locked into the dance.

Leverne Cox: Which is really funny and because I told this to my brother, my brother's like, "People are hooking up with gloves." I was like,

Anna Martin: like about 3 years or three or four years in, he was like I was like really cuz I was grow I was dancing. I was I It was about my look.

Leverne Cox: Time for this.

Anna Martin: It was about my look. I was dancing. So, no, not at all. Those first few years, it was about being seen.

Leverne Cox: Sure.

Anna Martin: It was about my look and it was about performing and getting lost. Um, hopefully feeling like I would be discovered somehow in the club. And I did have moments when I people would see me in clubs and I would

Leverne Cox: end up in a fashion show or I end up in a movie or, you know, those things did happen.

Anna Martin: You said that off-the-headedly, but that's never been my experience in a club. I will just say that. They weren't big movies. They weren't big fashion shows, but it wasn't a big um

Leverne Cox: Well, yeah, those things happened. Um,

Anna Martin: but when did when did dating start to come on your radar?

Leverne Cox: Dating.

Anna Martin: So, oh god, this is a really good question.

Leverne Cox: So, I like when I was in Indiana, I did date um a a man. It was weird cuz like what I realize now is that like I wasn't I wasn't in my body. Like so when I when I when I had sex

Anna Martin: then and when I was dating, I was

Leverne Cox: it was sort of about pleasing them. It wasn't about my own pleasure and I was very

Anna Martin: um I don't know if I said this in the book. I didn't I like didn't even have an orgasm until like

Leverne Cox: No, you didn't say that in the book. Yeah.

Anna Martin: Like I didn't even have an orgasm until like I think my

Leverne Cox: sophomore year in college. Like and it was like an No, no, it was I was I was I was alone. Like it was the first time I even had I hadn't hadn't had an orgasm alone because I didn't

Anna Martin: I had masturbate because I was so

Leverne Cox: I was so like I was so disconnected from my body. God, I can't believe again. Like

Anna Martin: this is the podcast on all this all this stuff. It's so weird. Like can you can you like even reading my book back I was like why am I saying this out loud? So you but you know exactly why you said it because someone will hear this or read this and say this and say but I didn't I so I but I didn't m I was when I went through puberty I was just I was traumatized by it and so I the only way I could stand existence is to like I it was like I was floating outside my body. I had to leave my body. So it was just weird like so I so dating when I moved to New York was I wasn't dating. Um

Leverne Cox: And that was a conscious choice or just sort of you were closed off from that.

Anna Martin: I was closed off. I was closed and I was very ambitious and very you know just like focused on being a star. But then when I um and then eventually my brother told me people were hooking up at clubs and you're like why did you tell me sooner? And then I then I started then like probably 96ish or so I remember kind of going out and kind of like looking and you know flirting a little bit and I was be I was becoming I was less androgynous and more fim and I felt a little bit more

Leverne Cox: Yeah. And then that's when I kind of started like flirting and um and looking for boys and allowing them to find me. You call this your I mean I want to hear about this because you call it your Samantha Jones Sex in the City era. This is this time and you are are you had when did you start your medical transition?

Anna Martin: My medical transition started in 98. So but like a few years before that is I I had grown my hair out and I was very I was very fem

Leverne Cox: was wearing dresses and makeup every day heels every day but I wasn't on any kind of you know feminizing anything. So I was very I read as a person assigned male at birth who had a long weave and whatever. So I got lots of attention on the street negative. And so like it was the cognitive dissonance of my life and so many lives of um trans fem people is like I'd be called a man and harassed on one street corner and then the next street corner, hey sexy mama, like can I can I holler at you?

Anna Martin: How did you I mean that feels it feels like whiplash. How did you did you center yourself in some way? How

Leverne Cox: center myself? Am I center myself in my 20ies with a trauma shame based

Anna Martin: there's no centering

Leverne Cox: center myself

Anna Martin: it was girl no

Leverne Cox: I'm glad you laughed at that yeah okay

Anna Martin: no I well tell me this like when you started getting more into your body and you started dating can you tell me about those relationships you were having with men what kind of

Leverne Cox: they weren't relationships so so what what before medical transition when I was very fe but um feminine presenting but like hadn't started estrogen.

Anna Martin: It was it was all sex. It was just I was sexualized. I was still it was the story the story I was telling myself is that I'm not lovable. Oh, but a lot of men seem to want to [ __ ] me. So it was a very dysfunctional um unhealthy um sad deeply deeply sad um series of encounters and years of just and what's what's interesting is when I did start medical transition I started like that's when I started to kind of come back into my body 1998. And then I like actually started

Leverne Cox: pursuing actual dating and I think that like there was something about

Anna Martin: there was something I had to like be in the truth of like my womanhood. It was it was like

Leverne Cox: I think there was like me deciding to medically transition subconsciously was me thinking I deserved more. um that I deserve to maybe have a life to be in the world in a way that was integrated and that was authentic and like I didn't and consciously I didn't think I'm choosing myself by medically transitioning in 1998 at 26 years old but like I think like I started to think that like I deserve

Anna Martin: more I deserve better in terms of how I'm being treated by men and the world and myself. Really, the beginning of medical transition was the beginning of me like telling the truth to myself. It was not like it was the very beginning. It was like a baby step. I didn't even know what a baby step it was

Leverne Cox: until like years later when I just realized. But it gave me it gave me like permission to like ask myself what I want, who I am,

Anna Martin: and to like really just stop running cuz I've always known I was a girl. Like just to stop being in denial. Like just stop like girl like you know you know who you are. Like just girl just get over it, you know? And I was just it was a lot of fear. Um there just tremendous amount of fear but like it was

Leverne Cox: bravery though. I mean it's like you are loving it seems to me like you are loving yourself in this way you haven't before and you're opening yourself up to love.

Anna Martin: If I was going to continue to be on the planet if I was continue to be on the planet I could not go on the way that I was going. if I was if I was going to continue to live, I couldn't keep living the way that I was living. So that was really what it was. It was like I have to do this or I have to go.

Leverne Cox: So I decided to transition because I guess I wasn't ready to go. And um I mean that's really the truth.

Anna Martin: That's really the truth. And um thank God. Thank God.

Leverne Cox: Truly. I mean, I I I'm thinking about I'm thinking about Little Leverne again. I'm thinking about how she always knew that she was going to be a star. And it's around this time that you're coming a bit more into yourself that you do book a role on Orange is the New Black.

Anna Martin: You are Well, there's a lot of other roles before this. Yes, we you know we only have so much time. We got to

Leverne Cox: I started medical transition in 1998 and I booked Orange's New Black in 2012.

Anna Martin: Okay. So, understood. Understood. So, you were 40 when you booked Orange is a new book.

Leverne Cox: Correct. But when I turned 40 and I turned 40 May 29th of um 2012 and then booked Orange like late August of that year. But when I turned 40, I was just like I was in renter rears. I was in credit card debt. My life was a disaster. I wasn't a star. And I was just kind of like you need to [ __ ] get real. You're an old You're old.

Anna Martin: You are delusional. Like, no. I really was just like I was like, you're crazy. And people have been telling me I was delusional, but I just was like,

Leverne Cox: so you thought maybe they're right until

Anna Martin: And then but when I hit 40, I was like,

Leverne Cox: you're insane, huh? You have like spent 20 years in New York chasing this dream and you are a black transgender woman. What? You're crazy. Like I I just was like, Leverne, you need to get real. Like the fantasy that you have concocted for yourself is not look at your life. You are on a payment plan in government subsidized housing.

Anna Martin: You have you're in debt. You don't have any savings. You don't have any future. Like what? You're old. What are you doing? It was like

Leverne Cox: it was an internalized agism, but it was also like

Anna Martin: what am I going to do?

Leverne Cox: It's existential. It's

Anna Martin: It was very existential. Yeah.

Leverne Cox: I mean that's and then you book this role and it's not your life completely changes. Can I ask how did your mom we started our conversation talking about your relationship with her. How did she react to your fame?

Anna Martin: My mom um um was the president of the usher board. So even before orange usher

Leverne Cox: board

Anna Martin: um even before orange she would um make little cards and she would pass them out in church. So everyone's going to be on TV and this this time or that time. So she there was a lot of um bragging. Literally one of her church um um colleagues or fellow church members said you're living vicariously through your daughter. She's like what if I am?

Leverne Cox: What if I am?

Anna Martin: Um so there was it was something to brag about. It was something to brag about. She said she was proud of me and I think she was and is. Um and this is so weird. It's so weird to say all this stuff. I'm in a I'm in a interesting place with my mom cuz the the truth is I I still don't think my mother fully sees me or fully understands me.

Leverne Cox: Absolutely not. She doesn't have the capacity and that's okay. My mother did the very best that she could

Anna Martin: and she is a remarkable woman. the things by putting herself through undergraduate and graduate school. Um, raising two brilliant children.

Leverne Cox: Um, just like she did the best she could and I'm I'm a I'm not for everybody. I'm a complicated gal and I my work is to meet her where she is. I've forgiven her everything because I understand she did the best she could and everything that happened.

Anna Martin: I get to use it in my work

Leverne Cox: and um without a test there's no testimony and in writing this book and sharing all this

Anna Martin: I'm not the only one who's gone through all this. M

Leverne Cox: I want to pivot us because there's one more relationship the the your mom relationship complicated but you landed it in a place of love again a good but a complicated good and I want to talk about

Anna Martin: unconditional love

Leverne Cox: unconditional love I mean it's I want to talk about or close on a relationship your book closes on which is you were talking about how you had these encounters with men that were not fulfilling for you but there is a relationship you discuss um that happened in your 40s He was younger.

Anna Martin: Yes.

Leverne Cox: What drew you to him?

Anna Martin: I I mean, so this we met in 2019 and he I was living in LA, but I was going back and forth between LA and New York shooting inventing Anna and so I was on the app and

Leverne Cox: so you met this guy on an app. Yeah.

Anna Martin: So I met him on an app and um I wasn't looking for a boyfriend. Um, I literally my on an app I swipe right because I think he's hot, you know. And we matched in like November 2019. Didn't get to meet up. Pandemic happens. He starts reaching out really consistently after the pandemic start um happens and we met July 1st and just I felt immediately comfortable with him. He was so charming and funny and disarming. He looked even better in person than he did.

Leverne Cox: Yeah,

Anna Martin: he was fine. His pictures, but like he had this he was very manly in his photos and he like works out six days a week, but in person he had this boyish like charm that was like just very disarming. Um, so he was he was gorgeous. He was stunningly gorgeous to me and funny and I felt safe with him and um

Leverne Cox: Can I ask about that?

Anna Martin: Yeah.

Leverne Cox: Why? Why did you feel safe with him

Anna Martin: after a while? Like I just there's some people you just feel like honestly

Leverne Cox: it was just instinct after after all my years of therapy after all of my um experiences of like identifying when I didn't feel safe. So that's the safety piece is like I learned to set boundaries. So feeling safe with this um man was after years of

Anna Martin: practice

Leverne Cox: listening to my bodyuch and learning to trust myself.

Anna Martin: Yeah.

Leverne Cox: Yes. I mean, it you're trusting yourself. You're trusting your instincts, and then it's a few weeks into dating that this guy tells you something that that really shocks you.

Anna Martin: It wasn't It was more than a few weeks. It was It was several months. We met in July and he told me um October, was it October? No, it was November. October, November, I forget. Um that he was a cop. there was a cop that he had lied to me and told he told me he was in commercial real estate and he said he didn't feel safe telling people he was a cop and when he met me he didn't know me from a can of paint on Tinder so I when he said he didn't feel safe I actually there was something about that that I just got

Leverne Cox: I got and he told me about like he had had to go off social media cuz like people he had arrested like friend his family and I was just like

Anna Martin: telling some random person that like you're a cop I got the

Leverne Cox: feeling not safe. So I I so I didn't I don't know. I wasn't upset that he had lied. I understood why he lied to me about that.

Anna Martin: Yeah. But he had lied.

Leverne Cox: Well, it's interesting to me that you recognize something in his feeling unsafe to to share that with you.

Anna Martin: And that's probably I mean I'm very empathetic. So I I may sometimes I might give too much

Leverne Cox: grace.

Anna Martin: Depends. It depends. But at that by this point by November like I we were we had made this connection. I was I really liked him. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. So I did.

Leverne Cox: Did it give you pause the the lie about the relationship? It sounds like Will you tell me? Did it give you any pause or making you reconsider? It was immediately I remember immediately feeling like

Anna Martin: thinking about what how he felt like how this is 2020, right? So he was, you know, people were spitting on him and calling him a racist every day. There were all these protests. So I thought about like his level of feeling safe or not safe. That's where I immediately went. And and I was like, I really like this guy. Like, and I and I was like, this guy has made me feel by this point, this he had made me feel better than any man I'd ever had made me feel before. Like, I felt like a sense of I mean, the sex was incredible, but there was it was beyond that. It was I It was a spir It was spiritual. And I I I say that to this day. I felt a spiritual, emotional, and physical connection all at the same time. And I had never felt that before. I was in sheer bliss with this man. Um, and you know, things would come up and and we would agree to disagree about some political things

Leverne Cox: and problematic but not like offensive. um just I felt ignorant and like um he had been um the way he grew up and the um algorithms he was in the information he was consuming that he had been propagandized to and so I tried to give him grace there. Um I would understand that his he his facts were not facts that they were wrong. I would express that and and I would you know offer to look things up and cross reference um sources.

Anna Martin: Yeah. Well, was he engaging with you or was it?

Leverne Cox: He was because he was most of the people in his life believed the same things that he did. So, he was he kind of enjoyed talking to someone who believed different things. It didn't necessarily change his mind, but he enjoyed the the banter of it all. Yeah.

Anna Martin: It's a few years, you've been dating him for a few years that these discussions that it sounds like you've been having but then sort of putting to the side because you were so in love. agree to disagree. Yeah. I was so in love and the and the love and the connection

Leverne Cox: was bigger than his ignorance, I would say, around politics.

Anna Martin: You have this conversation a few years into dating where you can't you can't just put it in a box, put it to the side anymore. And it does. Well, what the the initial thing that happened was um he he was playing softball a lot and he was like, "Babe, I'm really good at softball. You should come watch me play." And I was like, "Absolutely. I'll love to come support you. Just let me know when. If I'm in town, if I'm available, I'm there." And one Sunday we're hanging out. And he's like, "Oh, I have softball tomorrow." I was like, "Oh my god, I'm available. I'm in town. Where am I going?" You know, and he's like, "Oh, my dad's going to be there." And I'm like,

Leverne Cox: you know, and this is three three years and three months in. Um and and he was like, oh, but he doesn't know about you and think that'd be awkward. I was just like, why?

Anna Martin: I'm like, why? Actually, it would be perfect. We'd both be cheering you on. It would be great. And he was like, I don't think so. And then I was just like like I had been in relationships where I've been kept a secret. And I was not doing that again. I like my last two boyfriends, I met their friends and family, and it was fine. it's like really not a big deal. Um, and he was making it one and it just seemed really stupid. And so I gave him like a timeline of like meeting a friend or family member was in like, you know, 6 to 8 weeks.

Leverne Cox: That deadline came and went and then um

Anna Martin: I don't know. Are you willing to talk about that conversation you had when you were on vacation that sort of

Leverne Cox: the vacation when

Anna Martin: so this so we were in Miami um and the last week of March 2024 long story short we find um I think the second day we were in Miami we find out that one uh cop um that he didn't know very well but a fellow police officer New York City police officer was shot and then several hours later he um he dies and um my boy boyfriend boyfriend at the time went into a tail spin emotionally and he was angry, he was drinking and so it was just all really hard. And then um the next day we find out that Trump had donated money to the to to the widow and then that Trump wanted to go to the wake. Um and then because um he was in Miami with me, he couldn't go to the wake. I was like, "If you were in New York, would you go to the wake?" And he's like, "Absolutely." And I was like,

Leverne Cox: "You understand that this?" And I said, "You understand this man doesn't give a [ __ ] about police. He's just using you." And he was just like, "Well, he's with me. I'm with him." I'm just like,

Anna Martin: he's talking about Trump.

Leverne Cox: Trump. Yeah. And I just that was a line for me. It was just kind of it really I was like I just felt I found it really unacceptable. And I I said to him I this is something I haven't said publicly, but I was like I've been invited to all sorts of things from politicians and I understand that they're using me and I've said no to them because I understand that. And he just and then he just went off into some crazy ass [ __ ] Partly cuz he was drunk. Later on he told me that he was trying to push me away. But then he just said some crazy [ __ ] that he that became untenable and I had to it was it he said I knew that was it was over. I know I keep returning to this image, but I am thinking of you of young Leverne in Mobile.

Anna Martin: Yeah.

Leverne Cox: And I I think where I want to, you know, it it it's interesting what you're articulating because it's so clear you loved this man so much.

Anna Martin: Yes.

Leverne Cox: And I also, not to get cheesy with it, but maybe to get cheesy with it, you loved yourself more and so you chose to end this relationship. the deepest love. I think you write in the book that you'd experienced because a boundary had been crossed and you'd learned to honor that.

Anna Martin: Yeah. I I just refused to betray myself again. And um

Leverne Cox: and and when I when you mentioned little lever, I I I smiled because I was like that this is adult Lever taking care of little lever. um making sure that she's safe, that she's not put put in situations that make her feel unsafe again cuz she's felt unsafe most of her life. So that that I I love her and I'm and I'm expressing that love um and care for her. So that like so that just makes me smile. Like as much as like that breakup was traumatizing and then talking about it publicly, you know, like so many people turned on me because I dated a man who was a cop and and voted for Trump three times. Um and I get that. I get why people were upset with said with me about that. But I but you know what I what and I have to say this every time I mention this is that

Anna Martin: I never adapted or promoted any Trump policies or any Republican policies. I've remained committed to fighting for trans liberation, for black liberation, for reproductive rights, for um a living wage. And so I fell in love with someone who has opposing political beliefs, but I think sometimes people think just because you are in a relationship with someone, you cosign their politics and and maybe some people do. I don't know. But people and and that people don't know me. And I and hopefully people if they read this book, they'll understand um a little bit more about who Leverne Cox is. I'm not myself if I don't tell the truth. That's part of like I I have to tell the truth because I I don't I don't feel right.

Leverne Cox: Leverne, I I I I want to sorry, but it's important.

Anna Martin: It is important and I want to close on this question which is we've been talking about little you.

Leverne Cox: Yes.

Anna Martin: And I I know you because we talked about closing our eyes and visualizing. I wonder if you'd humor me.

Leverne Cox: You could do that. I will do that to the close my eyes. Okay.

Anna Martin: Yes. And I would love if you could say something to her.

Leverne Cox: You are safe, Leverne. You are safe. You are protected. You are seen. You are loved. You're so adorable. You're so infectious and just really really special and you should always know that and don't let anybody tell you that you're not. And I just love you so much. I love like how quirky you are, how your mind works, how just whimsical you can be to just like break into dance randomly. You are so special and you should know this. You should know this every single day. And um you are lovable and you are loved and you are worthy of the very very best. Thank you. Thank you so much, Leverne. Thanks for coming on the show.

Anna Martin: Thank you.

Leverne Cox: I wish we could fan ourselves with those fans after that. Right.

Anna Martin: I usually I often have one in my purse, but I didn't have it have I don't have one today.

Leverne Cox: Thank you so much.

Anna Martin: Thank you.