Ĭox was born in Mobile, Alabama, and was raised by a single mother and grandmother within the AME Zion church. She has an identical twin brother, M Lamar, who portrayed the pre- transitioning Sophia (as Marcus) in Orange Is the New Black. Cox has stated that she attempted suicide at the age of 11, when she noticed that she had developed feelings for her male classmates and had been bullied for several years for not acting "the way someone assigned male at birth was supposed to act". She is a graduate of the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama, where she studied creative writing before switching to dance. She then studied for two years at Indiana University Bloomington before transferring to Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she switched from dancing (specifically classical ballet) to acting. During her first season on Orange Is the New Black, she was still appearing at a restaurant on the Lower East Side as a drag queen (where she had applied initially to work as a waitress). Laverne Cox at PaleyFest 2014 representing Orange is the New Black.Ĭox appeared as a contestant on the first season of I Want to Work for Diddy afterwards she was approached by VH1 about show ideas.
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From that came the makeover television series TRANSform Me, which made Cox the first African-American transgender person to produce and star in her own TV show. GAY SEX BLACK HAIRED BEAUTY TVīoth those shows were nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding reality program, and when Diddy won in 2009, Cox accepted the award at the ceremony, giving a speech described by the San Francisco Sentinel as "among the most poignant because reminded us how important it is to tell our stories, all of our stories." She has also acted in a number of TV shows and films, including Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Bored to Death, and Musical Chairs.
In 2013, Cox began her recurring role in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black as Sophia Burset, a trans woman sent to prison for credit-card fraud.
In that year, she stated, "Sophia is written as a multi-dimensional character who the audience can really empathize with-all of the sudden they're empathizing with a real Trans person. In January 2014, Cox joined trans woman Carmen Carrera on Katie Couric's syndicated show, Katie.Īnd for Trans folks out there, who need to see representations of people who are like them and of their experiences, that's when it becomes really important." Cox's role in Orange is the New Black provides her a platform to speak on the rights of trans people.