Laverne Cox says that from a young age, “I always had music on my mind.” His new memoir is called Excellent. She is shown above in New York in April 2026.
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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
For more than a decade, Laverne Cox has been one of the most visible trans women in America. But 15-20 The star says that she spent most of her childhood hiding herself in a mobile phone.
A turning point came when she was in third grade on a church field trip to Six Flags. He bought a paper fan to cool himself and caught his teacher’s attention.
“I was having a Scarlett O’Hara moment, fanning myself,” says Cox. “And then later that day, my mom comes in and tells me she got a call from the school… and (my teacher) said if we didn’t get me into therapy right away I was going to wear a dress and end up in New Orleans.”
When she was 8 or 9 years old, Cox was sent to conversion therapy, where, she says, a therapist suggested she inject herself with testosterone. “The idea was that it would make me more manly,” she says. “Thank God, my mother said no to it.” But Cox knew he needed to leave mobile.
In his new memoir, ExcellentCox writes about her journey from mobile to show business. She recalls being brutally bullied by other children at school – a situation made worse by her mother’s reaction: “My mother … instead of protecting me or taking care of me or asking if I was OK, she made it my fault,” she says.
In the 1990s, she moved to New York City and began auditioning for roles, first as a dancer and then as an actor. He also began experimenting with gender norms; He began his medical transformation in 1998 at the age of 26.
For Cox, writing her memoir is an act of resistance and healing: “After 2023, it became very clear to me that we, trans people, have lost culture,” she says. “I knew this was the beginning of a disaster in terms of policy. … The dehumanization was very clear to me, and so I think I also thought maybe a more humanizing story might help.”
Interview highlights
He is still angry at being bullied as a child
As an adult, I get angry at boys. I am angry at my mother. I want to protect that little boy. I am very angry. I am very hurt. … There’s also anger about all the kids I’ve met who are trans or queer who are still experiencing this, and anger to know that in states that have passed anti-trans laws, the percentage of bullying has skyrocketed. …There is rhetoric in the media that dehumanizes and stigmatizes trans people. And this creates a permission structure. If, like, your governor and your state legislators are doing it, if your teachers and pundits on TV are doing it, then certainly kids are encouraged to do it. And this makes me very angry.
On starting to wear skirts and dresses in college
I had internalized transphobia. As such, arriving in New Orleans “wearing a dress” was presented to me as the worst thing that could have happened to me. In my young mind I imagined that I would live on the streets and that I would be homeless and be a person who needed to do unfortunate things to survive. So it was just presented in a way that was completely contrary to who I was as a student, who I was as a person, who was determined to succeed. So I didn’t wear skirts and dresses until college… but I started wearing girls’ clothes, which I bought from thrift stores in Mobile and Birmingham. And it was a very fun, wonderful exploration. …In high school I read about Oscar Wilde. He talked about creating himself as an artwork and I liked that as a concept.
When attracted to show business
I’ve always had music on my mind, which is a wonderful gift. From the second I walked on, I was dancing, and I danced everywhere. And it took me away. … (It) was like a character. There was a person whose role I could play. So I was in a character and then I was in a new setting. And so all the time when we were at the supermarket in the grocery store, I would love to push the grocery cart and then dance with the grocery cart as if it was like a partner. …Finally in third grade, I had to start learning dance. And really, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
On growing up with a twin brother
There is a closeness now. It is now healthier than my brother. But…we were not a sensitive family. We weren’t a family that said, “I love you.” We were not a hugging family. There was no affection. So me and my brother, that’s why we didn’t do it. …But we connected most around music, around art. There were times when I would be in dance class and he would come and watch and criticize and he would give me his notes.
His twin brother plays his pre-transition character in 15-20
This was the back story of my character. And the initial idea was that they needed to hire another actor to play my role before the transition. … (And I) asked my brother if he would be up for it. And he said, “How much to pay?” And then he went to audition, but he had an advantage because he looked somewhat like me. …So he booked it and did it and he regretted it for a while because he has his own work and his own life and he wants to be known by his work, not mine.
Ann Marie Baldonado And Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper, and Beth Novy adapted it for the Web.
