What is up, daddy? Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with call her daddy, Laverne Cox. Welcome to call her daddy.

Hey, daddy.

Whoo. Okay, I have to ask, because I'm obsessed. Hey, daddy. I'm obsessed with your outfit. And every single time I see you on a carpet or on your instagram, I'm like, she knows how to dress.

Thank you.

You've got a vision.

I still, at 51, love to play dress up, and I've been collecting vintage Mugler for the past five years. Like, obsessively. My business managers are like, you need to stop. Basically, I've done about 15 years of collecting in five years, probably.

What the. So I need to stop it is giving. As the TikTok kids would say, cunt. It's giving cunt. Giving cunt.

Okay. What I love about so many things I love about Beyonce is that Beyonce, through the Renaissance era, has made cunt mainstream because cunt is a term. As a trans woman, cunt has been a part of my lexicon since I moved to New York. So giving cunt. But then when you go into mainstream context, it's like, people, like, for many years, I was like, people won't know what I'm talking about. It will seem kind of like I'm being vulgar. So I couldn't say cunt. But, like, for LGBTQ plus folks, giving cunt is like, you're giving. It's fish, it's woman. It's everything.

Yes. They try to make all feminine parts feel so like, oh, you're such a pussy. Or a weak bitch. But cunt gives the same energy where it used to have such a negative connotation. I fucking love that we can now be like, we're serving cunt.

These are the contributions of queer, LGBTQ plus people, trans people. Because in the trans community, pussy has always been fabulous. If you're giving pussy, if it's giving pussy, you're lovely, you're gorgeous. She's pussy, right?

Like, next time someone calls you a pussy, be like, there's a song from.

The 90s, girl, I see this when you're old, you know, there's a song called she's giving pussy. She's giving cunt. She's giving pussy, giving cunt.

I need that song when I walk into the studio every fucking day.

Laverne, what's it called? Serving pussy. Serving pussy. Cunt. Pussy, cunt. Pussy, cunt. Pussy, cunt, pussy. I don't know who sings. I have to look it up. But if you just YouTube it, that.

Needs to be our anthem. Today, I know all the girls watching this are like, thank you, Laverne. Because anytime someone says something, I feel like a lot of times to a woman, we can always relate. It's like they're trying to put us down. They're trying to make us feel small, and now we're like, pussy, cunt, bitch, fuck off.

And this is the sisterhood we can have. From trans women to non trans women. There is a celebration. For me, there was a celebration of the feminine, of womanhood. And for a while, I resisted my femininity, but when I started to embrace it, I felt such power in it. It's wonderful.

So you grew up in the deep south in Alabama?

Mobile, Alabama.

Mobile, Alabama. You have a twin brother.

I do.

I need to ask, like, what is the best part of having a twin?

There's a lot of things that I love my brother immensely, but having someone who's literally been there my entire life, we shared a womb together, which is a little creepy, but when my mom. My mom and I are really cool right now, but my mom was emotionally abusive when we were growing up because she was emotionally abused when she was a kid. So I'll say something, and I'm like. And I'm like, it was a month, or whatever. And I'm like. And she's like, no, it was just a few days. And I'm like, no, it was a month. And I remember it as a month. And I'm pretty sure I'm right. And I'm like. And I call my brother, and I'm like, it was a month, right? And he's like, yeah, it was a month. So the best thing about having a twin brother at this point is that there was someone else who was there who can confirm that I'm not crazy and that I'm not misremembering. Right? Because I think that sometimes. Not that my mother's intentionally trying to gaslight me, I think a lot of it is that I think if she remembered some of the things she did and said, she might not be able to live with herself.

And I say that with the utmost love and respect for my mom. We've worked through all of that, and I can't believe we have, and we're in such a great place. But I think telling the truth about it is really important. And what I understand now, as an adult, as a person who's been in therapy for 24 years now, is that my mother did the best that she could with what she had, and she actually did an incredible job, considering my grandfather was raised on a plantation in the context of share cropping, if we've seen the color purple or watch 13th, we know that even after emancipation in the United States, black people, once incarcerated, could be sold back into indentured servitude. So slavery in so many ways did not end if you were incarcerated. So my great grandfather ended up in jail. The long, crazy story. And so basically, it was slavery 2.0. So they were still beating the black folks. It was an extremely abusive situation. My grandfather was terribly abusive to my grandmother and to his children. Horrible. Like, horrible, horrible, horrible. But then he was abused on the plantation. That's what he knew.

So it's like. I mean, yes, my mother was emotionally abusive, but she put herself through college. She has a master's degree. She was a teacher. She raised two brilliant children by herself. She owns her home that is paid off. She's retired now with a pension, and she's set herself up. So this is incredible. My mother's incredible.

I appreciate you sharing all of that, because you're so right. A lot of us can just, at face value, describe what we experienced, and we have to start to peel back the layers to understand why our parents are the way that they are. And obviously, we've progressed so much as a society, still so much fucking work to do. But to be able to look at the previous generations and understand what they were going through were just taken time. So much.

It's taken time. I needed years, particularly when I really got into therapy, late 20s, into my thirty s, I went through years of just being angry at her. And I needed to be angry, and I needed to get that out.

It's normal, right?

Yeah, I think so. Because I hadn't dealt with. I didn't have the tools to deal with the trauma of my childhood. I was bullied at school. I was chased open school every day. And then I came home and my mom would be like, why aren't you fighting back? Why are they bullying you? It's just like, so there was no sense of safety that I had anywhere. And I escaped through my imagination, and I escaped with dancing. And being a straight a student, being a nerd, basically was my escape. And so I'm grateful for all of it. But it took me a minute to be able to do some of that healing work, start to get into the intergenerational piece and come to that place of forgiveness and understanding and even just, like, understanding now that there's just certain things my mom won't get totally. And that's okay. It's fine. I'm meeting her where she is.

You're right. You don't have to take away from the fact that the abuse you endured happened.

It happened. It was real.

But when you understand more of the backstory, because, again, each generation does get a little bit better, it does help you. But first, I agree, when you go into therapy, first you're just fucking pissed because you have to heal yourself. You can't have empathy for your mother. Yet once you get to a better place of actually understanding. Let's talk about it for a second. You saying you were bullied, that completely shapes a child at that age. And you talking about being chased off of the bus. What, were they specifically bullying you?

Because I was a really feminine kid. It's so funny. Before I even knew what sissy and the f word were, I was being called them. So, like, my first interactions with kids in preschool, like, I'm three, four, five years old, and I'm in daycare or whatever, and the kids are calling me sissy. They're calling me the f word. And it's just like, where do three year olds and five year olds learn this? And so I just was like, what is this? And I learned that it wasn't a good thing. And there was so much shame around it, too, because my mom didn't know how to handle it. And her whole thing was like, why aren't you fighting? Her whole thing is like, you fight the bullies. And I just was not. There was something. I was not a fighter. I'm a lover, not a fighter. And even as a five year old, six year old, seven year old, I felt I was above duking it out in the schoolyard with other kids. It felt beneath me. And that was another thing. The kids also thought I thought I was better than them. And I talked white.

It was a lot of stuff. Being a black kid from a working class background, it was that I was very femme. So I was bullied because of that. I was bullied because I taught proper. Thought I was. They said I thought I was white. And just everything. Honestly, just wanting to sort of be more. I don't know. I just. I think because the circumstances in the world around me were so not it.

Yeah.

And I understood that early on, I lived in my imagination. And when I discovered television, I was like, there's other stuff out there. When I discovered the library and books and reading, there are other things out there for me. And I lived in those other worlds. I lived in the world that I saw in fame on television, I was like, I'm going to New York. I'm going to an art school. I'm going to dance on Broadway. I'm going to be an actor. That was like, there is a world out there. And so I lived there. I lived in that world because what was going on around me was too traumatizing and I disassociated. So the disassociation was a way of coping. The escaping into fantasy and dancing all the time was a way of coping. I learned not to even talk about it because when my mother would find out, she would blame me and my brother. Why are they bullying you? And so it was like my fault. And so I wouldn't tell her about it. But then I remember this one time, it was probably 6th or 7th grade, we had gotten off the bus and we had to start running.

And then the kids caught up with us. And I remember they were kids in band. It's so tragic. The band kids are like beating you up. But they had the drumsticks and they were like, hitting us with the hitting, beating us with the drumsticks. And so we were getting beaten up. Like, really, it wasn't cute. And some parents saw it and called the school. And then the school called my mother. And so my mother then goes mad because I didn't tell her about it. And then she was mad that we didn't fight back. And it just was a whole. It was always my fault. And so it was something I learned not to talk about. And I remember this time in high school, I said it and then I remember crying and then just kind of like cleaning it up really quickly. And so it wasn't until years later that I think when I was in therapy, when I was able to say all these things happened to me and it wasn't cool and it was painful because I didn't have any tools to deal with the trauma of never feeling safe anywhere because I think, in a.

Way, obviously dissociating is a way to survive. You can't in that moment do anything other than, like you said, go to a different world in your head, watch television, find ways to escape. Which breaks my heart because as a child really, the peer dynamics are just so fucking important to our formative years of understanding how to treat people and how you can interact with people and the fact that you're running off of the bus and you're being scared shitless, like, I'm going to get the shit.

Even when I did have a friend in middle school, I had one friend, and then eventually I remember him sort of turning on me and calling me the f word and calling me a sissy. So I learned early on not to trust people too. My freshman year at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, a kid that I thought was my friend, my freshman year, I had never said. I only said. I said it for the first time in therapy. Oh, God. Just literally, like, a month ago, I finally said what he said to me in therapy. Wow. I'm sorry I'm crying. I still can't say it out loud. I can't. But he called me a racial slur that was so, like, oh. And then there were gestures involved, and it was just like. It was another betrayal. So I learned very early on not to trust people, and that sucked. It is funny that I'm 51 years old, and I still can't say it out loud. It's just so horrible. Maybe eventually, but when you say that.

Too, laverne, when you think about that, first of all, I'm so sorry. I genuinely cannot imagine, as you're saying that I'm so sorry, what you dealt with. And I'm trying to think what comes up for you when you are explaining this. What do you feel when you're like, I can't say it.

I feel like that's a good question. There's a humiliation attached to it because he did it in front of a group of people, and he was, like, kind of showing off for them. I think it was that we had sort of been friends, and I was the black kid, and I was also the really femme kid, so it wasn't cool. And I was a freshman, and so to distance himself from me, he called me a monkey, and he made eight noises when he did it. And, wow, it's so funny because I had been called everything by the freshman year in high school, I've been called it. Let's just see a queer f word. I had been called all these things. There was the first time I had been called something, like, racialized, and it was so dehumanizing, and it was someone I thought I could trust, and so it was like, the betrayal of it. And that's get really angry when I see things. I remember it was humiliating. It was degrading and dehumanizing. There was a betrayal attached because I thought this person was my friend. I just want to jump out of my skin right now.

It's so funny. And I've dealt with a lot of trauma. I dealt with a lot of stuff, and this was just. It's still like, yeah, this is the first time I've said it in public. Hey, yay. But I have to say, what I'm grateful for, though, is that for better or worse, I have had my guard up most of my life. I learned when it's safe to let it down and who it's safe to let it down with. And part of why I love being an actor is that hopefully, with the right director, in the right context, I can let my guard down and be vulnerable and share these things, even in a podcast context. Hopefully this can be of service by sharing it with people. And that is the gift of sharing things like this that hope to hopefully be of service. But it made me I don't let people in easily and honest and quite honestly, it has served me so well in my life that I'm not. When I arrived in New York and all sorts of things, and there were some things that happened that weren't great, moving to New York, for sure, but I learned to be very protective of myself and not to let a lot of people in and then becoming famous and dealing with all the Hollywood stuff and all the fakery and all that stuff.

And I think being famous later, too, also helps. But I haven't succumbed to a lot of things, and I don't let people in easily, and I keep my circle very small, and I'm grateful that the people I do have in my life, who are my real friends, I can be vulnerable with and I can let my guard down with. But I think that's been a really good thing, believe it or not. I think eventually I had to learn to let my guard down, be vulnerable, because that's part of life, part of being an actor, being an artist. But it's also served me very well.

I was going to say, I think you are damn fucking right for not trusting and opening up. And I think from your childhood to then what you're explaining happening to you in college, it's like, why the fuck would you trust anyone? And I think it's so disgusting and disturbing how this still is present today. Like, how have we not progressed enough as a fucking society where there are still.

There was a nazi march a few days ago.

It's fucking mind blowing. But I'm just so sorry because it makes me tear up listening to you. I'm like, the fuck is wrong with people?

You, I loved that you wanted to do some fun dating stuff. I love talking about dating because I have. I was talking to a girlfriend, and she just started therapy, and she's, you know, trying to date. And I realized, like, how much work I've done around myself, around dating, and I have a lot to say.

Oh, my God.

Very useful.

Okay. I love this.

In my humble opinion.

Here she comes.

I'm 51 years old. I started Internet dating in 2000. So I have been online dating, dating apps for over 20 years.

Give us the tip. All the girls that are like, okay, Laverne.

But I met the love of my life on Tinder. And it is possible. It is tricky, though. And what I've learned, I think the biggest piece about dating apps, but dating in general, what I just said to my girlfriend is, like, she just came out of a really rough relationship. He was emotionally abusive. He was a gaslighter. And so she's in therapy to try to heal from that. I'm a huge advocate of making a list of all the qualities that you want in a partner. Getting really specific. I've done this multiple times. Getting specific and learning from the last relationship all the things that didn't work then. Okay. He was emotionally abusive. Okay. I want someone who's kind. I want someone who's loving. I want someone who's working on themselves. I have a height requirement. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't. All the things that I've listed. It's really funny. Everything the current boyfriend does meet the height requirement. The previous one did not, but I went forward anyway. I was open. So making a list, and then everything on that list. Are you that person? Do you meet all of your requirements? If these are the things you want in a partner, they need to be the things that you have in yourself.

Because what I learned dating on being on dating apps on and off for years, being in a relationship, breaking up, getting back on the apps, learning from that relationship, processing it with therapist, is that after a certain point, I was vibrating on a different level. And the fuck boys, they couldn't hear the frequency. I was vibrating so high that the fuck boys couldn't hear the frequency. And it's a beautiful thing. And what I mean by that is that there's just certain things that became unacceptable in those first few messages. I mean, when I was on dating apps. So I've been on Tinder. Hinge was. I only met one guy on hinge. Hinge was never the app for me. Hinge. I did okay. Cupid. I met a boyfriend there, Tinder. Two different boyfriends. Raya was a total bust for me. Hinge. And then there's trans pacific dating apps. I've been on that. I was on j date for six months because for a minute, I lived in New York most of my adult life, I was dating a lot of jewish men. Like, for whatever reason, they were just. I. Literally, years ago, I was on Chelsea handler, and I said, I'm America's premier black transgender.

Shicks the goddess. I was dating a jewish man at the time, but for whatever reason, I was just jewish men. I was finding myself dating a lot of jewish men. Part of it's being in New York. I don't know what was going on, but for a good ten years, every guy seemed to be jewish. I don't know what was going on. Anyway, we love that. Happy Shabbat. Finally, after all these years, I got to do shabbat dinners with two exes ago. I did Hanukkah. We did some things.

We love it. Okay, need your opinion on this. So someone goes on a date, and this is what happens on the first date. Tell me if you would go on a second date with this person.

Okay.

He, on the first date, admits he's cheated before, but he'll never do it again.

I would need more information. I would ask him why he cheated. Has he done work around why he's cheated? What's different about the dude that cheated and who he is now? How did he feel after he cheated? And did how he feel change the behavior? I need more information. I would need more information. And then I think that. Would people tell you who they are if you cheated before? I've cheated before in the past, but I have not cheated on my current boyfriend, and I would never. But I have worked on myself, and I've learned from it. And there were things missing in the relationship, so there were a lot of reasons why I cheated. Right. And I thought about it, and I did the work around it, so I would need more information.

I agree. I think that's a really great answer, too, because listen to everyone listening. If you have cheated in the past, I don't believe in the once a cheater, always a cheat. It's just such an immature statement. People grow. People can change. And again, you need more information.

Have they grown and have they changed? Exactly. Because unfortunately, I wish people worked on themselves, but a lot of people don't.

Oh, you'll be able to tell the minute you ask your first question, why'd you cheat? They'll show the true followers. Most men would be like, I don't know. Okay, bye. If he's like, this is what happened. If you can tell, they care and they've grown. Yes, but more information.

That's useful information.

Okay, he's a ten, but his friends absolutely suck. How do you handle.

That's rough. I think it depends on how much his friends are in his life. I had my jewish ex, he was in his late thirty s and all his friends were married with kids. And they were all lovely people. But I remember hanging out with them New Year's Eve and all of them were talking about their kids. And that's the tricky thing about being like, 51. A lot of women who I love, who are amazing in my age group, who I would have great friendships with, they have kids, they're married, and it's like kids are a whole thing. So friends aren't. It just depends on the dynamic. It depends on the dynamic. How close are his friends? But friends aren't everything because I loved my ex's friends. So true.

And he's out of the picture.

And he's out of the picture. Yeah.

Okay. He gets way too drunk on the first date.

That's a major red flag. That's a deal breaker. I didn't listen to those signs when the alcoholic abusive alcoholic I dated for four years, he was really drunk and he was mean to the cab driver. I think those kinds of mean to cab drivers mean to service people. I worked in restaurants for 19 years. Those are deal breakers.

Great. Absolutely. Don't put up with it. Okay. He's hot but has horrible style.

I would see him again, honestly. Fuck that. I mean, how does he look naked? Yeah. My boyfriend, he doesn't care about my boyfriend. He looks good in anything. Right? But he's not a fashionista, but a girl. When he's making me breakfast shirtless, I could give a fuck about his style.

I completely agree. Also, it's like you can help a little bit if you really get in there.

But insanely superficial it is. I think it's really superficial. And it's like, that's some immature shit.

I agree. Who gives a fuck if they're a good person? And also, again, if he's hot, who cares?

You don't like a sweater, you want to make him. I'm not even into giving a guy a makeover. Some women are like, fixer. I don't believe in fixer up either.

Right. You don't need to change out his closet again. Let him be him. And honestly, maybe it's a good thing that he doesn't spend too much time on his style. There can be one person in the relationship.

Okay, clearly I spend enough time in a closet for like six or seven people.

And your bank account does too, bitch. I know. Okay. Extremely into PDA on the first date?

It depends. At this stage in my history, when there's a lot of PDA on the first date, it's not going to go anywhere usually, and it just feels like a boundary thing. If he's hot enough and I'm into it. When I was younger, maybe not now, yeah, I would go with it, but I wouldn't necessarily think that that was a guy. And if it was fun and good, I might go out with him again, but I would keep my options open.

I agree. That's a great answer. It's like, if the vibes match it, yes. Sometimes you go on a date and you're like, holy fuck, that was electric. The vibes are flowing great. But I think for a first date, if it's already going so fast, so physical, if that's what you're looking for, I guess.

I think what my experience is, when it gets hot and heavy really quickly, it fizzles just as quickly. That has been my experience, and it's really borne out over the years. I'm 51. I've dated often and a lot. And when it's hot and heavy from the jump, it fizzles out quickly. That's been my experience.

Amen.

When I was single, I was like, I dated this guy before I met my current boyfriend. And I was like, I met him on the first date. He was so into me, but he was like, pulling out the chair and opening the door, and I was like, whoa, this is probably a month. The treatment is cute. I'm feeling this. But we probably got a month because it was too much. Little under a month. He showed his full crazy and it was done. But it was a fun, like three and a half weeks.

Yeah, like a little life thrill.

Being clear about that is fine. I was like, okay, I can do this for a month. For me, it's about the treatment. And this is what I say to my girlfriends. It's like, we have to get used to being treated well. We really do. Because so often we'll find ourselves out there with men giving us for many, many years. I took crumbs and acted and treated them like a six course meal. I would take crumbs from a man and make that a six course meal. And this is what we must stop doing. We must get used to abundance. And I mean, you're laughing, but, girl, how many of us have done that?

No. Me, everyone in this room, we're like, right?

And so we have to get used to being treated well and loved on. And it's not about money. It's about care. And that looks different. I mean, honestly, just like, babe, do you want coffee? Do you want some coffee this morning? Can I make you some breakfast? Can I rub your feet, bitch girl? Please.

Yes.

Just care.

You're so right. It's like we get little crumbs. And what's so bad is if you get used to little crumbs, then when they give you a little bit more, you get hopeful, and you're like, oh, my God. It's like, you shouldn't be scrounging around. It should be consistent. And I think consistency is the key to know.

Consistency is so crucial because that really separates the keepers from the non keepers because most of them are not going to be consistent. So really check for that. I think that's one of the big things when you start dating someone, when you get to that phase, how consistent are they? Do they show up? Are they booking the next date? Do you even want another date? So much of it is how they show up in their work, too. So much of it is like, if they're not organized in their work, in their lives, they're not able to be organized with you.

It's a good point.

When I was on the apps, literally, it was auto saved in my phone. This is for me. So my profile would say in the first paragraph by itself, I'm a proud transgender woman. Because as a trans woman, guys don't read profiles. Even when it's in bold, all caps, sentence as a paragraph, I'm a proud transgender woman. They still didn't read. So my first sentence, it was literally auto saved in my phone when they would finish the sentence for you. Did you read in my profile that I'm transgender? So that was, like, the first thing. Whenever match with the guy. Did you read in my profile that I'm transgender? That was the first sentence out of my mouth that I would text. And then either they did or they didn't. Sometimes they were like, oh, they were cool with it, sometimes they weren't. And then, have you dated a transgender woman before? That was always his second question. And then I remember writing in my Tinder profile, said, I have high hopes and no expectations. I'm open to a relationship, but I'm not necessarily looking for one. And unfortunately, I feel like for women, we have to put that in our profiles.

I feel like guys freak out on a whole. I don't want to generalize, but most guys freak out. If you say you're looking for a relationship, if you say you're dating and you're open, it's a little less pressure.

I agree.

There are guys who are actively looking for a relationship who wouldn't be scared by that. But statistically, most men will be afraid of that. So I always recommend that women don't put that they're looking for a relationship, that they're open to one if they meet the right person, but they're just seeing what's out there.

I think that's a better way to message it too, because it's like you don't want a relationship with anyone. You want it with the right person. So yes, you're open to things, and if the relationship presents itself with the right person, yes. But you're not just going to go fucking date Joe Schmo because he was like.

And you just get, ideally, there's a screening process after that, but then you just get more traffic to screen and then, so then ideally you want to get off the apps too. You don't want to message endlessly. There is a guy that I met on, like, I was on Yahoo chat in 2006 or something and chatted with this guy. We never met, literally, like last year, he texted me out of the blue. No, he texted me out of, they always come back, hey, what's going on? Still have never met him. If you are texting for longer than a month, if you're busy, like now that I'm busy, it's so tricky. But before I was famous and I had a little more time when I was single, I would try to go on three or four dates a month just to practice sitting across from someone and making small talk. And if you meet someone on a dating app, the first meeting is not a date, it is a screening. I suggest never doing dinner. I think coffee or drink is the way to go. If you can put a time limit on it, it's great.

I'm really busy. I have 45 minutes or even half an hour, so you can go if it's not going well. And don't be afraid to end it. In my experience, guys stand trans girls up a lot. Probably stand. I don't know about non trans women, they're stood up a lot, but I got stood up a lot, so I would not leave my house until they were there. Text me when you arrive. You're like, oh, I'm here, where are you? I'm 2 minutes away. And I was, but I hadn't left my house yet because I'm not sitting around waiting at a bar for you to stand me up. This is the wonderful thing about it being a drink or a coffee. You can peace out. If it's not going well, if the chemistry is off, whatever. If it is going well. Oh, my God. Let me just move my meeting. Let me move my meeting because I'm just having so much fun. But then you can get the f out.

So true. You're so right. I think, ladies, we linger too long. And I have personally been on dates where I'm like, I'm in fucking pain right now. Leave. Just leave. Save your fucking time. Because what happens is, we don't want you to get burnt out by dating. Speed date. Like, you're so right. You don't have to go to a dinner. Just quickly test out. And then if it's, like, super quick and you still want to see him again, then see him again. But I just feel like we have to protect our energy, because what I hate is when the girls get so depleted and they're like, I can't keep fucking doing this.

And it's depleting and it's annoying. Even the process of getting to the date has to have an efficiency as well. Ultimately, you want my most recent ex before the guy I'm currently dating, he was like, what? Can we meet? He was trying to get off the app, and that was. I was busy. I wasn't sure he was short. It was so funny, because the first message, I was like, did you read I'm trans? He's like, yes. Have you dated trans women before? He's like, no, I haven't. But that's usually where I've matched with other trans women before, and they're not usually into that. And I'm like, honestly, I'm fine that you haven't dated a trans woman before. The height is an issue for me. He was five eight. I'm an honest lady. And then he says something really funny. I don't remember what it was. And I was like, well, short men do try harder, and they do. This has been my experience. And he was so charming and respectful. Over the course of, like, a week, I was like, I'll give this dude a chance. And so much of it is about the treatment.

And so, for me, I had to shift my shift in dating after what I learned, because for a long time, I was dating men. I was dating investment bankers. I was dating stockbrokers and real estate guys because it's New York and there's, like, a plethora of them. And after a while, I found I was not being treated well by those men, that the energy was off, and I just was like. And ultimately, what I realized is I had a thing for assholes. I had a thing for men who treated me badly because they were a reflection of how I felt about myself. And so I was consistently choosing men who would reject or abuse me, who would treat me horribly. I dated an alcoholic who was emotionally abusive for four years, from 2001 to 2005, and that was a reflection of how I felt about myself. One of the most important things I can say about dating is getting therapy and then getting a group of people. What I just said to my girlfriend is getting a friend group, getting a therapist, getting someone who can reflect back to you how beautiful, amazing, and powerful you are.

And you can start practicing being in an intimate relationship with friends, maybe repair stuff with family, if they're that kind of family. But then you get used to being seen, being vulnerable, being intimate, and having the beauty of who you are reflected back to you. So that is what you get used to instead of the other stuff, like the gaslighting, the abusive stuff. And then that is what I had someone in a group therapy situation tell me. You don't even know how amazing you are. I was struggling in a time in my life. You don't know how amazing you are. I'm going to love you until you learn how to love yourself. And they did. I had people who saw me and saw the beauty in me that I didn't see in myself. And we have to learn to surround ourselves with those kinds of people so that we get used to it. Because when the intimate relationship emerges, when it's time to be in a relationship and to show up and be vulnerable and intimate, that shit's scary. That shit is really scary. And if you have not practiced that, if you don't know how to do that, that's, like, weird.

I remember with my ex, he was so available and so cool, and it freaked me the fuck out. I was like, what is this? And you have to get used to it. And friends are a great way to do it. Relationships are, too. You hopefully will pick people who help you, who see you and understand and treat you as the queen that you are, but you actually have to be in that energy. You have to see it in yourself first. Because if someone is telling me how amazing and how awesome I am and I don't believe it, or if I'm talking negatively about myself in front of them, then my partner might start thinking and questioning, right? And loving myself more, too also means that I have to set healthy boundaries for myself so that I don't become enmeshed in some dysfunctional stuff that I take care of my 50%, my side of the street, that I don't get into business. That's not mine. Loving myself means setting healthy boundaries. Right. That the self love. And it's self love. It's like people don't talk enough about that. The friend I was talking to recently, we had a long talk.

This is partly why I want to talk about this, because people always talk. I love RuPaul, love yours. How you gonna love somebody if you don't love yourself? But what does that mean? It's how we treat ourselves, and it's our self talk. What are the things, the subconscious things we say to ourselves about ourselves, becoming aware of that? How then do I replace that negative self talk with affirming self talk? And it's tricky because it's like sometimes you feel silly being in the mirror. Laverne, you're beautiful. Laverne, you're amazing. Laverne, you're smart, you're talented. Laverne, you deserve love. You're lovable, because everybody deserves love. And that's the piece for me. That's the empathy piece. It's like, not that I'm special, I've been very blessed and grateful, but I deserve love. Because everybody does. Yeah, because everybody does.

I think that's such good advice. I'm thinking of everyone listening, driving to work or at work, like, writing this down, because it is so helpful and it's actually tangible advice.

If we treated a child totally and said the things to a child that we say to ourselves, the department of children and Families would come and take that child away. And the reality is that all of us have a little child inside of us who needs nurturing. And that for far too long, I abandoned that girl. I abandoned that little girl inside me. I had to let the hot, hot man go for a minute because I needed to go with the treatment, with the better treatment. And so I was like, let me date this nerdier guy. And we have to try to date differently, too, because if we keep dating the same person and getting the same result, we have to try something new. So I went with attractive enough to him, but he treated me well, and I felt safe because for a long time, I was choosing unavailable men because I wasn't available emotionally, because I didn't love myself enough. I hadn't done the intimate work. I wasn't available. So I was choosing unavailable men, and I was choosing men who treated me badly because I treated me badly. And so then it's like, okay, to break that cycle, I needed to choose kind people who would treat me kindly and people where I felt safe.

And I remember this one dude when Orange first came out and I thought he was safe. He was a comedian, though, and I can't believe I'm going to tell this story. After we had sex for the first time in my then 315 square foot apartment, he said, this does not look like the apartment of someone on a hit show. And I had lots of shame about not being poor most of my adult life. And I had shame about the apartment. And I'm naked, girl. And he says to me, I just felt so unsafe. But I had done enough work on myself to know this does not feel safe. Like, our bodies are talking to us all the time. Does this situation feel safe for me, for my inner child, for the person who needs to feel safe in the most intimate of situations and when. Listen to that. Learn to listen to that voice and get the fuck out. If you. The second I don't feel safe with somebody.

Done.

And can I tell you, my boyfriend is hot as fuck. He is physically like everything I've ever thought I wanted. And I let that go. I let that go. And luckily, he's not just hot, though. The treatment is there. The love, the care, the safety, all of that is there, too. But he has his issues. He's not perfect, but all of that's there. And I feel safe. And he's beautiful and he's amazing. So it's like, hey, he's hot. And he treats me well. So like, hey, wow, cool. It's great. And I think the biggest thing, once you start dating someone, how consistent are they? I think the biggest thing, especially in big C's, is that guys are flaky as fuck and they ghost. And the inconsistency is infuriating, but it need not be because they will show you who they are pretty much right away. So the inconsistency clock it. If they're not showing up regularly or if they're not getting back to you in a timely, respectful way, then move on. And it's not about these boundaries are not like, a man must do this and must do that. It's to protect you, to protect your energy and protect your safety and your time.

So if he's like, being flaky, and I think you should, until something serious, you should have a roster. You should be dating a few people. You should have a few people you're dating to see what cream rises to the top if it does. Once upon a time, I was a ho, so I had a slut. I was friendly. I was friendly, and I had a little rotation going, and you got to do what you got to do. So until you have that committed, whatever, have a little rotation going so that you just have options.

So for people that are becoming bigger fans today or fans today, what do you hope that they take away from this and learn about you through this?

Know, Laverne contains multitudes. It's so what? The most fun thing about my own podcast is I get to be this Laverne. The wonderful thing I think about being 51 is I give myself permission to be all the aspects of who I am. I love opera. I sing opera. Not really well, but I do. I love classical ballet. I'm an actress. I'm really into healing. I've done a lot of dating and learned a lot from it. I think about politics. I'm complicated, and I think that I would want people to take away that people can be complicated and people are. And I think that whenever I come into a context like this, I just want people to see my humanity and hopefully have the humanity that they hopefully see in me transfer to trans people that they might encounter in their real lives, or when they think about legislation about trans people and that they may rethink a misconception or an idea that they might have about trans folks. Like to see my humanity and then begin to imagine the humanity of other trans people. That's always what I want. When I go into particularly diverse, to maybe an audience that might not be a core fan base of mine, that's always what I want.

For them to see my humanity in hopes of them seeing the humanity of other people who might have a similar.

Experience to me as a white woman. I can't even express how much I understand my privilege and why I'm so happy I'm getting to speak to you is like, I want to understand more, and I want to hopefully use this platform to. Even if there are a bunch of fucking white people listening, or whoever it is, it's like understanding what you've been through is it's just the beginning, because we need to continue to talk like this. And I'm sorry. It's not your obligation, though. And I want you to know that it's not your job to come on and you know that.

The thing I want to say about privilege, privilege does not mean that you haven't had struggles. It doesn't mean that you haven't gone through stuff. It just means there are certain things you haven't had to think about. And I had the wonderful opportunity many years ago. I was doing a college talk in South Carolina, and I got to speak with a group of young people before the lecture I was giving. And we were sitting at it in a conference room, and they had sat themselves at this roundtable, and ironically, it was like white, asian, latin, and then black. That's how they sat themselves. And I go around and I ask the kids, the students, I should say they were all freshmen to seniors who they were, and most of them were with the LGBTQ group or with the black Student union or the women's studies, women and gender studies group on campus or whatever. And so the president of the LGBTQ group is there, or whatever. And then so we get to the last student. He's a black guy, and he's just like, I'm really frustrated here on campus because at the black student union and student government, I feel like I have to choose my blackness over my gayness.

And when I'm in the LGBTQ group, I feel like I have to choose my gayness over my blackness. And I'm like. And he's just like, it's really frustrating. And I turned to the president of the LGBTQ group. I'm like, well, what do you think? He said this. What do you think about that? And he said, I had never thought about it. And I said, that's privilege. That's privilege. It's not that he was a bad person, that he was like, he just had a blind spot. It wasn't that he was secretly racist. I mean, I think we're all racist, honestly. And when I say that, I think what I mean is that I have internalized white supremacist, patriarchal, transphobic ideas about myself as a black person, as a woman, as a trans person, because we live in what Bellhouse calls imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy. We live in a culture that celebrates whiteness over blackness, devalues blackness, celebrates men over women, has all these. We live in a culture, and we all learn that. And our work, if we want to come to critical consciousness, is to become aware of that and unlearn it. And so I think we're all racist.

I think we're all sexist, and I think that puts us all in the same boat. So it's not like saying. And I don't like calling someone racist or calling someone transphobic. I like to say this behavior is consistent with a history of transphobia, or this behavior is consistent with a history of racism. Like Brene Brown would say, a focus on behavior and not the person. Right? So shame is I'm sorry. I am a mistake. And guilt is. I'm sorry I made a mistake. Guilt is adaptive behavior. If we focus on the behavior, we can say that behavior, that language is consistent with a history of dehumanization of black people. Calling, comparing them to apes and monkeys is consistent with a history of dehumanization and racism in this country. So whether you are racist or not, this language is consistent with that history. And if you are interested in evolving and not continuing that history, then you may want to think about not using that language. And then to take it a step further, what does accountability look like? Because we don't really know. We don't really know in this country because we don't see people really held accountable.

This whole cancel culture thing. And people say it's accountability culture, but no one actually models it. Accountability is acknowledging that you did something wrong and then taking the steps to make it right. One of the best examples I can think of of this happened a decade, lord, it was a decade ago. I was on the Katie couric show when she had a daily talk show with the model Carmen Carrera. And Katie had asked Carmen about, she said, well, you have different private parts now. And Carmen is like, I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about my modeling. That's personal. It's private parts that are private. And then I was backstage when this happened, and I come out to talk about Orange's new black. And then Katie asked me, well, Carmen doesn't want to talk about this. What do you think? And then I had a whole spiel, people can google it. But I was focus. I said, a focus on surgery and transition objectifies trans people. And we don't get to talk about the real lived experiences because that becomes a takeaway. And so many of those portrayals, even when they were humanized, whenever there was a focus on transition hormone surgery, even if there were humanized portrayals, I found that the takeaway for most of the non trans audiences were camp.

Can you believe what they do in that surgery? And, oh, my God, they take hormones. And this is what happens. And so it becomes all about transition, this physical thing, and it sensationalizes us and it takes away from our humanity. And so I've consciously chosen not to talk about the details of my medical transition because I'm more interested in our humanity and even know multifaceted and as human as I always try know be. Whenever I show up somewhere, that becomes the takeaway. And to Katie Couric's credit, she aired the episode because it was a pre tape. She could have scrapped the episode. She kept that moment in when I was like, we should be focusing on other things. Then she invited me back and said, if we shouldn't be talking about this, what should we be talking about? So I went back on her show, and we know Chase Strand here. I met him for the first time. He was a Laurie for the ACLU, my friend Teak Milan. And we talked about the real lived experiences and issues of trans people. And then a few years later, Katie reaches out and says, I just did this documentary called gender revolution where I interview all these trans people, and I'm like, what?

And she's become this amazing ally for the community. And that's what it's about. That's what it's about. And it's uncomfortable because there were many people who were calling her out. This is 2014, so it was really one of the first times. It's the first time, actually, trans people had pushed back against that line of questioning on television. So Carmen and that I knew about, and I've watched a lot of these interviews. The first time I'd ever seen a trans people push back against that line of questioning. And to her credit, people were very mean to Katie online. And she absorbed the critique. She and I had a lot of conversations offline and personally. And she is just incredible. And there's just so few examples of people holding themselves accountable, allowing themselves. The vulnerability of being publicly shamed, too, and then rising above that, because it's actually bigger than my public humiliation at the end of the day. So then the uncomfortability, right? Because then there's moments of being uncomfortable because you've been called out, and the vulnerability that's required there. And then the amends piece and the accountability is like, what is the amends? What does the life amends look like?

How do I live my life differently? And everybody maybe isn't going to become the fierce advocate for trans rights that Katie has. But what can you do? What are the little things you can do to be accountable? And this is across the board. How do we begin to model that?

You just said so many truly brilliant things, Laverne. No, like, literally, I'm like, fuck, I should have had a pencil. I do want to.

I do this a lot. I go all.

I love it. Because you just gave a fucking TED talk. Truly. I wish I could just clip that. I will. I'll clip it and just put it on fucking YouTube. Because everyone should hear what you just said. Back to the first point that you were talking about was, what is privilege? Right. And I think when you are talking about everyone's struggle is a struggle, and it's all relative. There is, I'm sure, like a white kid in their house that's getting it. That's trauma. Right. But there are different levels of trauma.

That, yes, maybe I don't have to think about this. My boyfriend has had his struggles and has been through things he doesn't have to think about. I'm always like, whenever I'm in a store as a black person, I always make sure my hands are visible and everything's cool so people don't think I'm stealing. I still do that at this stage of life.

Absolutely. And what I think is important is, like, of course, we all have our struggle. However, there is a different level when you are talking about race and when you're talking about sexuality, because there is a complete different scope of hate and abuse and hate crimes that have been specifically targeted toward race and sexuality.

Gender.

We would be remiss to not. Yes, bring this up. So when you say that about that, professor, I thought it was so interesting, and you're so right of like, how do we start to acknowledge of people of maybe more privilege? Like, Katie Kirk is a perfect example. I love that you brought that up. It's like, wow, what an interesting dynamic for we can all acknowledge with everything going on now that we are more progressive, I think people can be nervous to be Laverne. Like, what am I allowed to ask? And I think there's a way to go about it so respectfully and for Katie to acknowledge, like, fuck, maybe I didn't approach it the right way. So now let me take accountability and let me do the fucking work to make sure I can understand. So the next time I sit across from you, I am giving you the space to feel comfortable, because also, you are the one that's living it, and this is your experience. I have no fucking understanding what it is like to be a trans black woman. But I would like to hear from you, and I think we can do better as a society instead of canceling people, like you said.

I completely agree. Let's welcome conversation. Instead of closing the door on someone, be like, oh, you fucked up. You fucked up. You said this. Why did you say this? And you're so right. We all are born with internalized misogyny and racism. That's a fucking fact. And I think what you said is so brilliant. It's like, if you can acknowledge that, then we can have progress. There's a lot of fucking people in this country that cannot acknowledge it. And that's where there's a movement, too.

There's, like, this backlash against it, too. And I think for people who are interested, though, when you get off the Internet and start watching television and get out our phones and the algorithms, there are people out there. And when you interact with people, what gives me hope is when I interact with different people from different backgrounds who are beautiful, loving, who might be from a very conservative background and had all these ideas about who I might be because I'm a black trans woman. And then we just get to sit down as human beings, and then my experience has been. All of that melt away. My experience has been when I sit down with people, like the meeting the parents or the boyfriend, I've done that many times at this point. It's so nerve wracking every time.

Terrifying.

Even at 51, it's still nerve wracking. But all of it just. We get to sit down and be human beings. And all of the ideas that people have about that they think they might have about a transport, it's just like, oh, no, she's just a person. She's just a woman. It's all good. I'm not here to, like, live my life 100%.

I think something, again, that when everyone's listening to this, it's like, I'm asking you about your life and your life experiences and what you have been through, and I believe there's going to be some people that can relate and some people that can't relate, and that's what the fuck. The point of this is to talk and understand. And through your experiences in childhood and through your family's intergenerational trauma, you have gotten to a place where there is so much still to work on and discuss. And so who the fuck is anyone to tell you not to speak about this? Let's talk about your new song. I was watching the music video, and I'm like, I just have to hype you up for a minute of, like. It's like a trilogy, right?

It's a second in a trilogy. It's so weird. I'm like. I'm so weird. I'm like, I am an art school kid to the core. This called Gretchen a triphopper, part two. It is a german lead or song written in 1814 by Fran Schubert. Schubert wrote the Ave Maria that everybody sings at the weddings. We remixed it with this trap beat. And in the video, I'm giving, like, it's based on the story of Faust, too. Gretchen at the spinning wheel. Is what it's called in English. And in the video, I'm giving this guy a lap dance. And then I'm also like this robot fembot that glows in the dark. And it's sort of set in the future. So I'm weird. I'm really weird. And I love it. And I love how weird I am. I love that I'm like an artist and I have things to say.

I fucking love it. I think so many people just try to conform and be like, cool and do whatever the fuck.

I mean, like the first song, truly, I don't know if anybody cared about it, but I have being. Like I said before, what's great about the podcast is just me. And I love getting. I directed this video. I assemble the edit myself. Every frame of the video is like. I put it there. If we repeated something or something sped up or slowed down, I did that. My editors had a great title card and ending, but everything else is me. And they put it together beautifully, the editors. It's an invitation if people want to think about, like, so many men find themselves attracted to trans women through sex work, through porn. And we often associate lap dances with sex work. Doesn't have to be. I've given many lab know out of the context of sex work. It's really funny. When Lil Nas X came out with call me by your name, Montero. Call me by your name, he gives, of course, the lab dance to the devil. I was like, I've been doing that for years. I can do that. And even better, I want to do that in a video. So Lil Nas X gave me permission to step out of my respectability politics and bring some of the things I've done in private, public.

And I'm 51, and if I can still do this, we should record it. So part of it was that, but it was also like this meditation on, is there a way for men who find themselves attracted to trans women sometimes in the context of sex work, for that to move out of that context? And Gretchen in the song, the original song, gretchen at the spinning wheel, Gretchen has been seduced by a foul. She's 16 years old, she's a virgin, and she's tormented by these sexual feelings, sort of this sexual awakening is what the song really is about. And I remember when I realized I was attracted to boys being tormented by my sexuality when I was in high school. And I discovered this song when I was in high school. And I thought, what an interesting reverse lift. Like Gretchen is the seductress in this context in Faust, I call him Fausto. In my trip, opera is the one tormented and struggling. And so it's a way to sort of have a conversation about straight men who find themselves attracted to trans women. It's just a cool visual. It's a fun opera remix reimagining. It's fun, hopefully.

And cool looking. And, yeah, it's something to unpack. It's something to unpack. It's something to unpack. Period, period, period. With love and empathy.

Yes. Laverne, thank you so much for coming on Colorado. Holy shit.

I knew this would be the place to spill tea to go in. I came ready. Did I not come ready?

You slayed.

I came ready.

You came so fucking ready. You left no crumbs. Left no fucking crumbs.

Done.

That was fucking amazing.