Laverne Cox and hosts dissect her abusive dynamic with Austin, her 2020 breakup with a MAGA officer, and Project 2025's bans on terms like "woman." They critique how right-wing populism weaponizes "protect the children" rhetoric to dehumanize trans people and cis women alike. The conversation exposes billionaire interests exploiting tax loopholes while suppressing artists like Cox, whose earnings dropped 90% post-Oscars controversies. Ultimately, they argue for unified cross-racial and gender solidarity against corporate power and Christian nationalism to secure bodily autonomy and healthcare access. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome Back to Fear and00:14:09
But if you care, you can practice.
You can practice.
Because the mouth was really tight.
You could have released there.
And there's an internal.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Jesus Christ.
Well, don't do that.
How about this, Laverne?
I hated that I looked.
That's terrible.
That's also ass.
What?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Fear and podcast.
And we are joined today by a tremendous guest.
She is an Emmy Award-winning actress.
Yes.
She is the first trans woman to be on the cover of Time Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and British Vogue.
You also have an honorary doctorate degree.
Why are people not calling you Dr. Laverne Cox?
Woo!
Cox.
Good research, Austin.
Great research.
The list goes on and on, by the way.
From the new school in New York.
That was a decade ago.
I got my honorary doctorate.
Yes.
What have you done with it since?
Have you cured anything?
Heart surgery.
That's a really good.
You'll have to ask the people.
Okay.
Defer to the fans.
Have I made any kind of difference?
The problem is.
Sometimes I wonder.
Austin and I both have hypochondria.
And so just knowing that you have a doctor in your name, you're going to get a lot of people.
Yeah, you're going to get a few calls.
Dr. Cox, Dr. Cox, please.
I can't help you with any of that.
I could maybe.
I've been asked to take people's temperatures, but that's a different conversation.
Oh, man.
Laverne, I have to be so honest with you.
I practiced that intro in the car and I was sweating bullets and I was looking at them and they were like, don't fuck this up.
Do not fuck this up.
You did a really good job.
Don't faint on time.
Yeah, I got it.
Although technically, I'm an Emmy-winning producer.
Oh, I mean, with a trainer.
And an Emmy nominated actress.
I've had four on time nominations.
That's right.
Which okay.
You won for the T-word, which I which I watched.
Don't worry.
We'll beat his ass afterwards.
It's okay.
It's really not that serious.
No, you're a big fucking deal.
It is serious.
Yes.
It's kind of a big deal.
You know, I don't feel, it's interesting because I don't feel like a big deal.
What?
And we're a huge deal.
I got credit for asking you to come on the pod.
The internet was like, go will.
I know.
That was a fun comment.
I saw some like reactions to the video we did.
And I'm trying to claw credit back from him because I'm like, I then made the connection.
I DM'd you constantly.
Austin was very persistent and professional getting me here.
Thanks for watching.
Oh, he can be.
He can be really stubborn.
When he wants to make something happen, he will constantly prod.
But I knew you the way you did prod.
Like a little knit, like a prick.
Yeah.
We're not saying he's a prick.
We're saying it's a deal with Laverne.
I'm saying.
No, I've seen it.
I've seen it.
And so you guys were like friends from back in the day.
From lovers.
It's almost been like from lovers to friends.
It's almost been like a decade at this point.
We have an abusive relationship.
Well, I know.
It seems like you both enjoy it.
And I think the audience does too.
So I think you're really just doing it for the fans, right?
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
It's a really abusive relationship, but like he abuses me the most, I think.
And then I try to get back at him on camera every now and then.
And then it just, the script flips on me every single time for some reason.
See, this is a typical abuser.
Here, I'm going to call it out.
Okay.
I'm going to call it out.
Call out time.
You're familiar with Boeing Yang, I assume?
Of course.
I DM Bowen after Tallarico won because he was under a lot of fire.
I'm aware.
Oh, I'm aware.
So there was a lot of drama for those of you who don't know at home in the Jasmine Crockett versus James Tallarico Democrat primary in the state of Texas.
And Bowen on his podcast had sent something where they were like, yeah, you know, don't waste your money on Jasmine Crockett.
And a lot of people got very mad at them.
And I thought, you know, it's okay.
You can express your preference if you have one over, you know, one candidate over the other, even though on the policy side, they're fairly close to one another.
But I think Tallarico has like a different style of communicating.
And Crockett has some, you know, cryptocurrency-backed packs that she got money from, whatever, right?
But everyone.
It's really not whatever, but go on.
It's not, but I'm, so go on.
I'm trying to be as nice as possible about it.
But like, but he's.
It was so tricky.
I'm black.
So I have to be very like black.
If I say something bad about Jasmine Crockett, black people will hate me.
And I love Jasmine.
I love Jasmine Crockett.
Can I tell you, can I interrupt for just a second?
Yes, she is, please.
When she announced her Senate run, so I live for Jasmine Crockett.
I posted the remix of Bad Bill Butch Body.
Like, I live.
I love her interrogations of, you know, her performances on the floor.
She's a, she's charismatic AF.
Yes.
She's a fighter.
But I, when she announced her sonic, I called her office and I was just like, I love you.
I love, you know, I didn't speak to her.
I spoke to someone.
You know, I don't know if I spoke to someone or left a message and said she's so charismatic.
She's wonderful, but she needs to not take any corporate money because like we like, I love that the bass has moved, that we are like aware of this.
Don't take any corporate money and then, you know, get clear about some policy stuff.
I literally call the office because I love her.
But that's, you know, who you take money from is a problem.
Yeah.
Okay.
You said it, not me.
I was being.
I love you, girl.
I was being very nice.
But, you know, it is upstairs.
I'm scared too.
I came after, you know, Kamala stands on Twitter came after Boeing Yang pretty hard.
I DM'd him.
And then when Austin found out about this, he was like, oh my God, I love Boeing Yang.
The reason why I'm telling the story is because I'm going to New York for some, you know, like a dinner with some political people, maybe Zoron, whatever.
And while I'm there, I thought we could maybe do something with Boeing Yang.
And Austin, ever since he found out, he's like, I'm going to fly out to New York.
We're going to do this podcast there.
And he has not stopped asking me every day on whether or not we have the podcast ready to go.
And we just haven't because, you know, it just didn't happen.
You know, and I have to be there for him because Hassan.
Bowen is fashionable.
I've interviewed him.
I interviewed him when I was Greg Carpet host for E, and I adore Bowen.
Yeah, Bowen's fantastic, but Hassan needs me there for him.
Oh, totally.
I would not know how to talk.
You can tell that I carry the social dynamic of the relationship.
Got it.
Got it.
Are you kind of introverted, Hassan?
Like, okay, no.
I mean, you talk on screen for like.
I do, but I'm a little bit autistic for sure.
But when it comes to politics, which, you know, obviously Bowen is also very interested in, I can talk for hours.
We're working on hello.
Unfortunately, I talk way too much about politics.
Yeah.
No, no, you don't.
I love to talk about politics.
I try to balance things and we've already gotten political.
Yes.
But it's, you know, it is what it is.
No, it is what it is.
Personal is political and politics actually affects every aspect of our lives.
Yes.
But there is kind of like there's a desire to be apolitical.
I'm going to go into all that, but like politics actually does affect everything.
But I do also simultaneously acknowledge that like politics and left, right, all this also social constructs.
And I'm thinking specifically about my ex-boyfriend.
I got like excoriated, lost followers last year when I disclosed that my ex-boyfriend was a MAGA.
Oh, you're aware of this.
Oh, I'm aware.
Was a MAGA Republican cop.
Oh, my God.
And it was the way I talked about it.
People were...
Very Lana Del Ray coded.
Sorry, what?
It's very Lana del Ray coded.
People were very upset.
And I talked about the relationship in my solo show last year, and I write about it in my book, Available for Pre-order.
LeBron Cosmetics comes out June 9th, available pre-order right now.
Can we link it in the description?
We'll link it in the description.
When I talked about it, I thought in my mind, I was like, people obviously know I'm very politically progressive.
And I thought the conversation would be about how two people who have totally different politics find a way to make it work or not.
And the connection that actually exists beyond politics, the soul connection, because I think our souls, you know, can disagree with this.
There are souls that people have that are like, that transcend, I think, who we vote for and the things, whatever programming we have.
And I had that connection with my ex.
There were a lot of beautiful things that happened.
A lot of the reason the relationship didn't work were politics and other things.
But like, I thought that would be an interesting thing in how do you, is it possible to have a relationship?
I think now, like, it's streaky when there's fascism and when there's, you know, how did you, how did you find out?
Was it like you went to his house and there was like a red hat?
It was the on the bedside table and you're like, they were like, oh shit.
We met in, we matched on Tinder of all places in fall of 2019.
And I was shooting a show in New York, but I was living in LA.
And then we did manage to meet up in the fall of 2019.
When the pandemic started, he started messaging me a lot.
And we started talking like almost every day.
And then I bought a condo in New York and closed on it at the end of, I went to escrow before the pandemic, closed end of June and went to New York.
And we met July 1st.
And I wasn't looking for a boyfriend to be, you know, to be clear.
And he told me that he was in commercial real estate, first of all.
So I knew nothing about his politics.
And, you know, I wasn't looking for a boyfriend.
The boyfriend screening is a different from like a friend's benefit screening.
100%.
It's a very different screening.
Yeah.
You don't want to.
When you're looking for like just something casual, we don't ask questions.
And I didn't even live in New York.
So I was, you know, but I don't like, I didn't like sweeping around then.
So I wanted someone consistent when I go to New York that I felt comfortable with and trusted and who's discreet and whatever.
So we meet, sparks awesomeness.
We start hanging out.
I start coming to New York more and we both catch feelings.
Like November of that year, he told me he was a cop.
And then like, oh, Jesus, he was like, I should honest with you about everything except what I do for a living.
And I was kind of like, and he said, I don't feel comfortable telling people.
I don't feel safe telling people that.
And this is, but it's 2020, girl.
And when we met, and when we met on, to be fair, we met on Tinder.
He didn't know me from a can of paint.
Why would you tell some random girl like what, you know, especially when people have a lot of judges?
And it was 2020.
It took three months for my boyfriend to know my name.
Wait.
Okay.
What?
Like, yeah, I thought he would murder.
We still don't.
He doesn't know my last name still, but we're working on it.
How long have you been dating?
Well, because, well, now we've been together for six years, but at the time we'd met online, and I go by my stupid online username, which is Cutie Cinderella.
So he was calling you that.
Yeah, so he's calling her.
We still call her that.
We've known her for a decade and we still call her.
And it's weird being in public, being like, hey, cutie.
Why?
I need the compliment.
Well, no, no, you are cute.
Oh, well, you lovely.
She's beautiful.
But like, I have no problem.
This is great.
I have no problem telling her how beautiful she is.
But it's a problem.
I don't feel like you had a problem a few seconds.
No, no, I didn't have a problem.
Do I sound like I have a problem with her?
Beauty?
A little bit.
No, I don't.
A little bit.
I'm jealous, Austin.
No, I have her beautiful.
My name's Blair, but I don't use it online.
And so then now people know, like, the internet knows, but my boyfriend at the time, I didn't, I wasn't telling him.
I want to thank you.
It's very cutie of you.
I remember when I like offered to give him my phone number, he like shot up from his chair and like knocked stuff over to go get a paper.
And I was very cute.
I get that though.
I gave him a fake phone number when I first met him.
That's true.
He gave me his burner phone.
Ludwig could be a cop.
I think that, I think all that makes still be a cop.
But just to like wrap up, my ex, God, I can't believe I'm talking about this again.
People, like, people, my thought, people, a lot of people will never forgive me because I, they were like, you should have taken that to your grave.
You slept with an enemy.
You slept with someone who voted against your interest.
And yeah, all that the enemy, I think, is a little extreme.
I think people are complicated.
I think.
And we in the beginning, it was interesting when he was sober.
We would like, we would get into political conversations and he actually liked having them with me because all of his friends like agree with him.
MAGA guys love that.
All his friends agree with him.
But I was like, I don't think that's accurate.
Let's look that up.
What do you think is a good source?
Let's cross-reference this source.
So I was always right.
But it's also the only way you can see progress.
Like if, you know, if someone stays in a corner, like without any exposure to other ideas, then like how do you do that?
I didn't, I didn't, I don't, I think with trans issues, I don't know where he was before he met me.
He had never dated a trans woman before me, but he's very, he was, he's also pro-choice, whatever.
But I don't, I don't think I changed any of his politics and he still didn't change any of my.
Verifying Political Claims with Sources00:03:40
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Okay.
I was hoping that maybe he would.
I think with trans issues, yeah, but otherwise.
Well, that's helpful at least.
You know.
Yeah, but is he going to fight?
Is he going to, yeah, is he actually going to be an actor?
You know what?
Actually, he told me about, I think there is a sensitivity.
He was telling me about this one.
He had a call where a trans woman had been assaulted by her boyfriend.
And definitely in those situations, he's going to have way more sensitivity than other cops probably would.
Oh, good.
So in those cases, for sure.
Yeah.
And he's going to be medicine.
For cops in general.
It's like notoriously a problem, especially any instance of domestic abuse where they have an issue with like dealing with the cops are usually the ones doing the domestic.
Well, that's a home cruel.
Domestic statistically.
They don't bring their home passions to work.
Right, guys.
Well, sometimes they do.
Sometimes.
But what's also, but what's fascinating to me is the one time I've called the police, it was in, I think I write about this in my book.
It was 2008.
I was like physically assaulted on the street called the cops and they were actually really sweet.
I was in Manhattan.
The cops, really cool.
A week later, I went to this bar, Sunny, after Sunny Duly, she had this, and I was performing at this bar that is for trans women and our admirers.
And this guy comes to me.
He's like, hi, we met last week.
I was the cop, you know, and I was like, oh.
So like, he was.
Yeah.
And ironically, I had a no cop, no dating cop policy before my ex.
I had a really, really bad experience with a cop like 20 something years ago.
And then just meeting them online, I just was like, even beyond like, crazy people lied about it.
I wouldn't know to lie about being a cop.
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No, I think it's because it's not only it's 2020, but also like you can attest to this.
I mean, you have a much more familial, intimate relationship with a cop in your, in your background.
Wow.
Wow.
There isn't a sense of perceived victimhood that cops live with at all points in America.
I think they're one of the most babied professions we have.
I think I can't disagree with that based on my empirical research.
Yeah, it's just like, because it's like with love.
Unconscious Dehumanization of Criminals00:04:15
There's a lot of like, we're constantly under attack.
We're just trying to save people.
We're trying to dive in front of, you know, we're trying to save.
That relationship ended two years ago, by the way.
We broke up in March of 2020.
Talk your shit in 2024.
March of 2024, but go on.
But my point is like, in my experience, both anecdotally.
Oh, he was fine.
Oh, shit.
Damn it.
And also what I've seen in my reporting is that police are babied for the most part.
They have tremendous benefits packages.
They basically live like a different lifestyle.
They almost live in like a Nordic democracy with like how much their workplace benefits package is beefy in comparison to like a teacher, for example.
Right.
And yet, you know, they have tremendous power.
Yeah, their jobs are difficult.
You have to enforce authority in like really tricky situations, but.
And there's a lot of trauma as well.
And you're seeing a lot of horrible things.
You're meeting people in their worst moments almost all the time.
Every day.
Right.
And I think that is precisely the reason why they have to be infinitely more sensitive.
And yet there's no training on that side.
And over the course of many, many years of doing this job, I think they just become like permanent victims where they think like everyone in society hates us.
Like they don't understand that we have this like incredibly important necessary function.
And they don't understand that like for the average person, they're seen as like this unaccountable force that can do a lot of wrong in the moment, in a moment of crisis.
And they don't, they don't, it doesn't translate to them in the same way where they think that they're just under attack.
It really, it really doesn't.
And I think that there's also something I don't like to disparage him because I was in love with him.
But what was, it was curious to me.
I remember we were, we were having a conversation about, because for me as an artist, as an actor, a huge part of my training is not to judge the characters that I play.
You can't play a character and judge them.
That's interesting.
when like if I were playing a murderer or something, my job as an actor is to understand the humanity, why someone does what they do and to not judge.
And so I actually try to take that into life, like to understand that people are human beings, because if the second you judge your character, you're not going to be able to get fully into their skin.
So I take that into real life as well.
We were talking, so I was like, basically, I think we were talking about incarceration.
And I was saying that like, you know, pedophiles are the most, they, they're the worst.
I think they're some of the worst people that exist.
No, say it loud.
That one can do.
They should, I think, you know, you're in good company here.
Even though like, you know, I'm like prison abolition.
I'm not a prison abolitionist.
I have issues, but I think they should be fucking in jail.
I think they should be held accountable.
But once they're in jail, they're still human beings and they should be treated with humanity.
And I mean, I did a show, you know, where I played a prisoner for, you know, seven years.
So, you know, we have an Eighth Amendment, right?
Against cool and unusual punishment.
And they're still human beings.
Yeah.
They should be held accountable.
They should be punished.
They should be in jail.
And he lit my exit.
That is the most insane thing I ever heard in my life.
And I was just like, treat the incarcerated like human beings.
No, thank you.
But I think what I, what I realized in that moment for him is that there is unconsciously a dehumanization that happens when he, when someone is perceived as a criminal to him, there's not a full acknowledgement of their humanity from his perspective.
And I think it's an unconscious thing.
It's an unconscious bias.
Lord, we sound, and I think we need to bring back these, this language, this, this, you know, all this sort of anti-woke stuff.
We need to bring back the woke language because it's not benign.
Like when we are like talking about like, you know, pronouns, for example, or like treating people, it's really about treating people with humanity.
And what we see now in our fascist regime is that the dehumanization of groups of people actually leads to policies that decrease their life chances, ICE trans people.
Bathroom Access for Trans Athletes00:14:44
And I mean, I think trans folks, we were talking about this earlier, trans people are a really good example of how you can dehumanize a population rhetorically.
And we've seen it just like methodically calculated, well-financed messaging that effectively dehumanizes trans people.
Sports was the Trojan horse.
And I avoided talking about sports for a long time because I don't know a lot about it.
I follow tennis.
I love Serena Williams and Roger Federer and Dokovich.
A lot of people don't like Jokovich.
I love Jokovich.
Don't swear I follow, but like.
I know, right?
But that was, that was a way to sort of talk about performance and bodies and strength.
And that was a great way to objectify trans people, reduce us to our bodies and dehumanize us.
That was the Trojan horse.
And when they weren't successful with bathroom bans in 2016 and before there were several, you know, people forget like Donald Trump ran objectively as a pro-LGBTQ, like down to the T candidate.
I remember when the transition when the trans bathroom bills were advanced in North Carolina and there was tremendous pushback and corporations said they would pull out of the state.
Donald Trump came out and was like, I don't care.
I don't care where Caitlin Jenner pisses as long as she's pissing at Trump Tower.
That's what he said.
And that was seen as like, that actually made him look more moderate in the eyes of a lot of voters that aren't super tapped into everything that's going on.
Right.
And that's part of the reason why he won.
But of course, when that initiative failed, these guys, these like family council style organizations.
Alliance Defending Freedom is the biggest culprit.
Obviously, they work with the British Foundation, but the Alliance Defending Freedom is globally.
Yeah, they went back to the drawing board, and we were just talking about this earlier, but the New York Times that actually, for one of their only decent pieces of trans investigative work, was this, where they went back to the drawing board and they found, and this has been my theory for years.
So I, you know, actually loved seeing it backed up with real investigative reporting.
Americans are actually not transphobic in the way that the Republicans are.
Like by and large, most Americans, I think it's like 60% are always, will always say trans people are unfairly discriminated against, right?
And that sounds confusing.
You're like, what do you mean?
That's insane.
Except for when you pair up transphobia with two key issues, right?
Protecting children and also sports, which is perceived as like, yeah, which is perceived as like the last bastion of meritocracy in this country.
So they actually went back to the drawing board and focus tested these messages.
They realized that if you just directly attack trans people and say trans people are gross or weird or they should, you know, not use the bathrooms that their gender corresponds to.
People were like, yeah, that's odd.
Why are you singling out trans people?
I don't really care.
I don't really understand it, but I also don't think we should be this unfair to them.
But when you pair it with like protecting children and sports, all of a sudden it's an 80-20 issue, as they love to say, right?
And many people retreated from that conversation.
They allowed the hundreds of millions of dollars in messaging campaigns to just completely dominate the collective consciousness.
I was not one of these people that entertained it at all.
In my experience, one of the best ways that I've figured out in like dealing with this kind of thing is just say, do you actually care about this?
Because I don't think you care about this.
I did this with Christian Walker.
Do you know who that is?
Oh, I'm so aware of Christian Walker.
Christian came to my house and Christian is entertaining.
Yeah.
And he was, at the time, he hadn't like fully gotten, you know, woker-fied, I guess.
Is he vocified up to now?
But he has like become very anti-Republican because of his own, you know, involvement with his father and all this stuff.
But at the time, we were having a normal conversation until the trans issue came up.
And he was like, well, what about trans athletes?
I was like, I'm not going to have this conversation with you.
I don't care about this.
And I know you don't care about this either.
And I'll prove it.
And he was like, what do you mean?
And I think he brought up, what's that kind of butch blonde lady?
Riley Gaines.
And I was like, okay.
He was like, all right, well, what about like Riley Gaines, like all this stuff?
He was heating up at the time.
Time for fifth.
I was like, she's tied for fifth place.
She lost to four cis women, right?
So she sucks.
She's dog shit of swimming in general.
She's calm the fuck down.
Fifth place isn't too bad.
I know, but like, I feel like it would be still better.
It wouldn't have matters.
Yeah, it'd be a better message if you were like in second place in the first place.
It'd still be ridiculous, but like at least it would be a little bit more convincing, right?
Turns out people don't need much convincing.
But the way I dealt with it was by asking him who got first place in that swim meet.
I didn't know.
Brilliant.
I said, who got second place in that swim meet?
He didn't know.
Brilliant.
I said, who got third place in that swim meet?
He didn't know.
And I was like, see, you don't give a shit about this.
You don't care about...
What's the last time you went to a women's sporting event?
You don't care about women's sports.
No Republican cares about women's sports or maybe their pedophiles, you know, but we're not going to get into that.
No, if you're, if you're like a, like a 45-year-old man and you don't have to.
I just like rhythmic gymnastics, man.
45-year-old man and you don't have your daughter competing in this athletic competition and you just sit there.
You sit there and watch teenagers swimming.
It's a little strange.
Okay.
Anyway, but it was a great way to dehumanize trans to dehumanize trans people.
The goal ultimately ended and then protect the children.
Then it went to like gender-affirming care for young people and the old Anita Bryan protect the children thing.
And so, God, remember loads of TikToks, but for years it was like calling us groomers, saying that we were trying to trans children.
And we're less than 1% of the population.
That famous Joe Rogan moment when I think Matt Walsh was on and Matt Walsh was like, I think it's millions.
And then Joe actually looked it up and it was like over like three years, there was like less than about a thousand trans kids who had, and this is like trans kids who had actually gotten gender-affirming care because there's lots of trans folks who may be non-binary, who may be trans who don't actually get medical interventions.
And gender-affirming care is not just, and I think this is a huge part of the issue in terms of like trans kids, is that when people think about trans folks, they often think about a surgery, right?
And so like, and they think about a sex change.
And so so much of my early career when I got like, you know, kind of known after Orange is New Black was trying to like take, move the conversation away from like surgery, transition, and genitality and focus on the humanity of trans people.
But I've not been successful with that.
People think here trans and they think surgery and they usually think about cutting something off or that's usually what people think about.
So then when we, so when people think about trans kids, they don't think about gender-affirming care being before puberty, it's therapy.
It's maybe growing out your hair or cutting your hair.
Yeah.
Changing your name, changing your clothes.
That's it.
Like it may be puberty blockers and puberty blockers have been around since the 80s.
And there's a thing called precocious puberty.
And so they've been used.
And what was crazy about the Scrimetty case, I digress.
So the Scrimetty case that was at the Supreme Court that ended up banning gender-affirming care for kids is that the argument.
So basically they were saying that it is fine for non-trans kids to use puberty blockers.
And if they need estrogen or testosterone, it's fine for non-trans kids, but trans kids can't do it.
And it's not gender discrimination because we are basically saying that like all trans kids can't get it.
So we're not discriminating.
Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense.
It's like purposely discriminatory.
It's totally ridiculous.
And like you said, the entry point into that conversation was a lot of people getting duped into consistently arguing on the boundaries that Republicans said.
And I always try to, I always try to combat that where I'm like, why are we having this conversation?
Do you care about this?
But also what about the humanity?
I mean, I think like so much of like the great pivots, right?
Are like, you know, this is a distraction.
And from, you know, a Republican agenda that's about billionaires and corporate interests, obviously.
Yeah.
However, there are real life consequences for trans people.
The Kansas law that just happened, it was a bathroom bill that actually like people, there's a bounty where you can, people like basically.
Yes.
So if you suspect someone in Kansas of being trans, you can call the police.
I think you get like, you know, a thousand dollars.
And then the trans person, alleged trans person has arrested.
I think they're charged.
They're fine up to six months in jail.
They could experience.
And the problem is that we've seen the videos.
If you're online, we've seen videos of people being accosted in bathrooms.
It's hardly ever actually trans people.
It's usually cis.
So many more cis women than there are trans women.
So the likelihood is you're most, most of the time you're targeting a cis woman.
I am just imagining the worst bounty hunter in the world, like dog the bounty hunter.
No, there's this video of this woman, this cis woman, she's accosted in the bathroom.
She's kind of, but she pulls up her shirt to show her breast to like, I'm a woman.
Excuse me, ma'am.
I'm a nice person.
She's in a stall.
Can you imagine like being in a stall and someone's like, get out of it?
I mean, it's insane.
It's utterly insane.
And in women's rooms, there are stalls.
And sexual assault has always been illegal.
If you do something untoward in a bathroom, it's illegal.
But it's a way to dehumanize trans people.
And the goal has always been to eradicate us from public life.
I remember being on the Daily Show, I think in 2016, and talking about if trans people can't use bathrooms, we can't participate in public life.
But that is the goal.
And they've now made it explicit, right?
Like there's a bill to ban gender-affirming care for adults.
That's like a national bill now.
They've effectively banned gender-affirming care for most adults.
And they always said that wasn't the point.
They're always.
No, no, no.
This is not about trans adults.
It's just about trans children.
But they've done such a great job of dehumanizing us and scapegoating us with no push, with no effective pushback.
And I've been trying to figure out like rhetorically what we need to do.
And so much of it is about like getting really clear about what the dehumanizing language is, challenging that, and then trying and like encouraging people to see trans people as human beings.
But that goes like not just for trans people.
It goes for people who are immigrants.
It goes for black and brown people.
It goes for people who have different political beliefs.
Like, I don't need to be friends.
That's, I mean, that kind of goes back to my ex.
Like, I'm not being cops or people too.
But no, I needed to break up with him and I needed to like set some boundaries, but he's still a human being.
And I'm not going to like, he's still a human being.
We disagree.
And I just think there's a lot of, you know, brainwashing is a little extreme, but it is brainwashing.
Social information.
Social conditioning is straight up.
It is brainwashing when you think about it because like gender is such a self-perceived, unimaginably important part of people's identity.
And the way we are taught about gender, especially in the United States of America and in most places in the Western world, is so rigid when it's not the case at all.
And we were, it was opening up.
A lot of it was because of feminism.
And so much of this also too.
Most of these anti-trans laws and policies will actually disproportionately affect cis women.
And the case, the trans case, trans and sports case that just was heard at the Supreme Court, well, actually, if it's, you know, trans women are banned from sports, you know, nationally, it actually will affect all gender discrimination law, discrimination on the basis of gender in this country, because most of the precedent was actually about gendered stereotypes and not about this idea of quote-unquote biological sex.
And side note, shout out to my friend Chase Strangio, pointed out to me that the term biological sex did not appear in any law until 2016 and the North Carolina bathroom bill, the phrase biological sex.
So even when we think about the phrase biological sex and the Trump administration has declared that there's only two sexes and it's biological sex, that term biological sex is also like kind of a misnomer.
Obviously, it's not binary because intersex people exist.
And biology, it would be more accurate to say maybe talk about people's reproductive organs or biological sex is just not really an accurate term.
It's not dissimilar to the argument in some ways about abortion where you can also tackle the issue, not from like just autonomy.
Because first and foremost, everybody talks about the autonomy of women being able to have this medical procedure, right?
It's life-saving medical procedure in many instances.
But I think like one of the most efficient ways of tackling it for those who don't care about that, especially, and unfortunately, there's a lot of people that don't.
even with the trans ban and issues that pertain to that is to talk about the regulatory process.
Like in my experience, a very effective way that I push back on this stuff is like when we talk about high school athletes, the perception of a high school athlete being trans creates this weird environment where you have to do basically penis inspection day on children.
And it's like, I always ask, I'm like, do you want some random Republican dad who is mad that your daughter's team is actually destroying theirs to falsely go in there and say that's a trans athlete and then have some other adults in the middle of the school day go and look at your daughter's genitals.
Because that's what this is.
That's how you regulate that.
How do you put up 30 points in that mask?
Abortion as Dehumanizing Framing00:03:45
We're going to need to see your person.
It's fucking ridiculous, but like that's basically what it is.
And when you talk about it like that, when you get people to like understand what this means in terms of like regulation, that's when you enforce it.
But can we actually go to abortion?
I actually think abortion is a really good example of how the Democratic Party has seeded the framing of abortion to right-wing framing.
I believe whenever we start talking about how many weeks, what trimester, that's deeply dehumanizing.
Because all of a sudden, the person, the pregnant person becomes irrelevant.
So you're dehumanizing the pregnant person.
And we're talking about this fetus, this unborn.
So we really have to change the language.
So we're not, it's not about trimesters.
It's not about how many weeks.
It's about the person, the human being.
When someone becomes pregnant, they're still a human being.
The way that Republicans talk about and anti-abortion people talk about abortion is like, you're no longer a human being when you're pregnant.
And that is disgusting and misogynist.
And so we have conceded that.
And we need to take that back and say, this is dehumanizing framing.
And we should be talking about the humanity of the pregnant person.
And this is still my body.
I'm sorry.
And it's also bullshit, right?
Because like it's a, it's, it's not a real problem.
Like the third trimester abortion, what Republicans call late-term abortion is not a real problem in the way that Trump was even talking about.
But they lie.
They lie.
He was talking about afterbirth abortion.
They make it seem as though they were.
That's what he was saying.
That's what he was saying, though.
But when we did have the debate on those terms, we have to completely reframe it.
I think.
Like we like, we can't.
Obviously, that's not happening, but it's like, what about the humanity of the pregnant person?
What about like the right of me?
I can't get pregnant, thank God.
But if I, this is my body autonomy for trans people.
This is my body.
I should have a say over whether I want to carry a baby or not.
Carrying a child is a huge responsibility.
It has all these effects.
There's also like a very libertarian, very American principle to be like, don't touch my body.
Don't care.
You don't get to dictate what I do in my day-to-day experiences as long as I'm not hurting anybody.
But, you know, Nick Quintez and the like, you know, your body, my choice, they, a lot of people reveal that a lot of this is about misogyny.
And I think Project 2025 is so explicit in that so much of the policies that they are interested in are really about turning back the 20th century, taking away rights from women, from trans people, LGBTQ plus people.
Page four, page four of Project 2025, they were like, all these words need to be banned from every government document that exists.
The words were gender, woman, DEI, transgender, gender identity, abortion.
These words need to be banned.
And what we saw at the beginning of the Trump administration are these words being taken off of government websites.
So erasing these words, like effectively, it's like, we still exist, but you are taken out of the space of legal protections.
And then recently there was a report that, you know, the Trump administration is given ICE permission to basically profile trans people and detain them.
And we, you know, I remember being on Outlaws podcast with T.S. Mass and chat to T.S. Mass.
And I was like, I was like, I think we had about a year before they're like putting us in Africa.
Banning Words from Government Sites00:02:24
I'm like, I was right.
Now I see.
Yeah, that was, that was like eight months ago you were on that?
God, it feels like it was a year ago.
I don't know when it came out.
Excuse me.
Roughly.
Yeah.
I'm curious with your ability to like see humanity in people.
Like, you know, even the worst of people, like you're seeing humanity in them and finding it.
I try.
And it's something that's been lost over the last few years.
It seems like.
I'm curious.
Do you think that comes from a place of like empathy or like, where does that, because a lot of people lose that?
Hey, guys, you know what I was doing the other day?
It's just me.
No.
I was opening a business.
Oh, wow.
What kind of business?
I was thinking of, you know how I do a lot of artwork with trinkets?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Famously.
Yeah, famously.
I was thinking of opening and expanding that business and making it online.
What?
Yeah.
And you know the best way to do that?
No, I have no idea.
With Shopify.
What Shopify?
It is the easiest way to expand your business online and in person.
Honestly, for a dummy like me, even I can figure it out.
Sometimes I was trying to make a website.
I got overwhelmed.
I ended up on different websites that I shouldn't be on and markets that maybe I shouldn't be on.
And then I learned that I can just use Shopify for everything to expand my business and the back end.
You can even, I can control my inventory.
Did you know that?
But won't that cost millions of dollars?
No, I don't have that kind of money.
You know, sign up with for only $1.
Oh.
Sign up for only $1 per month.
$1?
That's hardly not even money.
Yeah, $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash fear.
Go to shopify.com slash fear.
That's shopify.com slash fear.
I'm going to sell C-Glass.
Do you know what C-Glass is?
This is my ad, Will.
I think some of us are more hardwired to question.
I, you know, when I was, I just, when I was writing my book and really trying to do a deep dive into like my life and like who I was as a kid, I, I think because I didn't have, I'm 53 years old, I didn't have the language really to understand.
Like I knew everyone was telling me I was a boy, but I knew that I was a girl.
So I, so from jump, I was, I was questioning what people were telling me.
I questioned like this doesn't, this isn't adding up.
Questioning Assigned Gender at Ten00:15:20
I had my stepdad, my some of us are more hardwired to question than others.
I remember my, my stepdad, and this is always a funny thing that I've, I've said on the podcast before, he was, he was the type of person that was like, Osama bin Laden is Barack Obama's like cousin.
And I was like, oh my God, what?
Like, and I remember like, even like, I was like 10 years old and I was like, I don't understand that.
That doesn't make sense, right?
Was he joking?
Oh, he was a big like yeah, no, I grew up in a very interesting Washington, but I grew up Mormon Washington State Washington Washington State.
Yeah, okay, oh, that's Mormon, yeah, Mormon and you know, family, remarried, all this stuff.
And it was just my, my stepdad's a funny one.
We've brought up his qualms a few times.
He just like, he was a big like Rush Limbaugh listener and very funny.
He got family members.
And that pipeline, the Rush Limbaugh, like talk radio pipeline, you know, I just watched that Murdoch's family documentary, docu-series on Netflix.
That whole sort of Republican media ecosystem that Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, it has done such a great job at like sort of pushing this propaganda to like large swaths of largely uncollege educated like white folks.
And yep, checks out.
Yep.
And I think what I get, it's so tricky because I think part of what I would say to that is I, and what, what is slightly encouraging about some right, at least rhetorically about some of the right-wing populism is that there's questioning of like corporate power, there's questioning of like billionaires, but like they're not connecting, there's a misconnection around because they seem to want to blame women and trans people and minorities and not the system.
You know, Ronald Reagan ships so many jobs overseas.
Like so much of like the decimation of the working class, I mean, started in the 70s with unions, but Ronald Reagan did so much damage around like work for working class people in this country and corporate interest in general.
And that, if we could find a way, like across working class people of all, and I, after, you know, the actor strike specifically, we saw all these actors, some of them famous, like talking about getting, you know, not making a lot of money.
I think if you make your money, if you don't make your money from the labor of other people, you're working class is the way I think.
I was, I was listening to you, you said this on T.S. Madison.
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I don't know if you're the familiar.
No, that's what I was, I was, I was going to ask you about this today.
Because I say that because you're work, you're kind of living check to check, maybe.
And if you're not, like, ultimately, you're, you're taxed differently too.
Like, I'm like, I'm, most of my money is income, right?
So income is taxed differently from like capital gains.
And we know that like billionaires basically borrow money and have all these great ways of like escaping paying taxes.
So if you're, and so all of us in this, in this culture, if we're not like making money off other people's labor with a little, probably a little bit of exploitation, we can be subject to become, you know, becoming destitute in some way.
And so it's our responsibility, I think, to like come together and fight the corporate interest and the billionaires, like come together across race and gender and all this, because ultimately, like so much of what this project is, Christian nationalism is they're serious about their anti-trans misogynist stuff.
They're really serious about it.
But there's also like, that's an interesting thing about Project 2025.
There's the Christian nationalist piece, and then there's like the corporate like billionaire class piece, right?
And they like kind of come together and coalesce and just screw like so many of us over.
And so if we can begin to see our humanity across racial differences, across gender differences, and I'm not a class reductionist because it's all intersectional, but like understand that we're all in this together, that they're not going to stop at trans people, right?
That like so much of this actually affects non-trans women.
they're not stopping in immigrants.
Obviously, many citizens of this country have been targeted by ICE and have been placed.
Oh my God, into detention center.
It's so disgusting.
It makes me want to cry.
Actually, I can't, it's hard to talk about.
And also, I think I'm a highly sensitive person.
I think that's also the humanity piece is that I'm an artist and I'm highly sensitive and people being treated badly like just affects me and it's too much for me.
And so I, yeah, I see people too many, but I think that like it's just, I think if we don't acknowledge, though, how there's, cause there's trauma that leads people to, I mean, if you think of a JK Rowling, right?
Like in her transphobia, she's clearly, you know, I'm a survivor of sexual assault.
There are a lot of survivors.
I'm sorry.
It's black mold.
I think she literally, we found out, like, she posted a photo of her house and it was just like covered in black mold.
I think black mold is that would explain a lot.
I think I have a theory.
I genuinely think like people will say like, oh, being trans and mental illness.
No, I think transphobia is.
I think all bigotry is mental illness.
Yeah.
It's, it's fucking insane.
A lot of people haven't ever even met a trans person.
Yeah.
And they have this whole kind of idea about who we are.
And so I think that like, and there's been a suppression of our voices, actually.
How many, how many people, like there was a point, because I'm old enough to like been that person where they would talk about trans issues in like 2008 to like 2018 or so.
They would talk about trans issues on CNN or MSNBC or somewhere and they would actually invite trans people on to talk about it.
They don't do that anymore.
They just talk about trans folks and the issues and don't include our voices.
And that, but that allows them to not see us as full human beings.
If there's an actual trans person sitting in front of you and they're a human being, it like begins to dispel the sort of mythic trans boogeyman that like they've created.
No, for sure.
And it's like your grocery prices are high.
You're working paycheck to paycheck.
You don't have health care.
And none of that is because of trans people.
I very famously said on the view a year ago, they're worried about the wrong 1%.
Yeah, exactly.
We aren't the ones who are responsible for all that.
Which I wish the Democratic Party would adopt more of that messaging.
And we've seen it then.
Some of them adopt the messaging, like in Texas with Tolerico.
And that is.
Green Planner had a pretty solid bar on that too.
I saw that.
This is not something to compromise on.
I understand that when you're running an election and you're like worried about these issues and you consider them to be sensitive, it's one thing, but like that's also precisely the reason why you got to make an argument that is as broad spectrum coverage as possible by saying like, look, you're going to get health care.
We're going to do health care for everybody, Medicare for all.
But that means trans people are getting it too.
Correct.
At that point, it's like, I always try to stress the importance for Democrats to listen that, you know, racist people need a house as well.
Racist people also need shelter.
They also need health care.
So at that point, they're going to make that calculation in their mind.
It's like, how badly do I want this?
Like, how badly do I want to dominate trans people and like throw them in prison?
But the Democratic Party, though, I think part of the, they see to right-wing framing, often because they have the same donors.
Exactly.
So I think, again, like my, I had a, you know, I was on the majority report and I posted Sam Cedar.
I had this like silly idea.
And now acknowledge, I know he's amazing.
I'm now acknowledge how silly it is.
I was like, what if we had this benevolent billionaire and we like who would fund ballot initiatives in all 50 states to like get money out of politics?
And Sam was like, it may be illegal because it's Citizens United.
Obviously, the idea of a benevolent billionaire.
Beyonce is a billionaire, so.
Yeah.
I know, right?
Leave Beyonce alone.
Is that your diva?
Like my pop diva, pop RB diva.
Absolutely fucking lying.
Beyonce.
But I also, I love opera and I studied opera and I have a degree in dance.
So I love opera and ballet.
So my diva of all divas is saying price and opera singer.
But what was I saying?
You were benevolent billionaires funding a bad thing.
Oh, yeah.
But now, but that's not going to happen.
But I think like primary Democrats who take corporate money, I think is probably the way to go.
I used to think, I used to think about if I were a billionaire, I would be a great billionaire.
No, you would not.
But okay.
And a lot of, you know, I'm talking about, but, but what I found out is to become a billionaire, you kind of got to shit on a lot of people.
You got to be kind of a piece of shit to get there.
So I've been talking about it.
What are you saying about Beyonce?
Now that is different.
When you're Beyonce, I don't think she shit on anybody, to be honest with you.
Beyonce.
But most billionaires.
I'd say 99.9 without, except Beyonce.
And maybe Taylor Swift.
Thank you.
But I don't know.
We'll work on it.
We'll work shopping.
There is a very strong argument that someone is to be exploited when someone becomes a billionaire.
And when I learned that, I was like, well, I'm never going to become a billionaire.
Our Lord and Savor Taylor Swift is not innocent.
I'm sure it was holding you back.
But if I happened to come into immense wealth and I was a billionaire, I think I would be the guy you're looking for.
You're not.
I would deliver.
I would deliver for the working class.
I would deliver.
Nobody fights for the working class like I do.
He says he does, but I am out there in the trenches.
That's right.
How are you in the trenches?
Well, let me give you an example.
You'll get people refunds.
Yesterday, just yesterday, I was at a hotel and I ordered breakfast.
And I was just an innocent bystander.
I went up to the counter, I ordered breakfast, and I didn't look at the receipt or the price.
There's a counter at the hotel, so it's the hotel restaurant.
Yeah, the hotel restaurant.
And I went and I and I was like, okay, I'm going to order this food.
And then I looked at the receipt that I actually had got.
It was in my pocket.
And I looked at that receipt.
$65 for a breakfast burrito.
What?
$65 for a breakfast burrito.
Because you've got it at a hotel.
Was it a twagu?
No, it was a skirt steak.
Burrito.
Oh.
With egg whites.
And salsa on the side and cheese off the.
Damn.
It was the blandest ridiculous thing.
So, you know what I did, Laverne?
I said, you know what?
This is unacceptable.
Right.
So I ate the burrito.
And then I went back to the counter and I said, this is ridiculous.
I didn't realize I was paying $65 for this.
So in your five-star hotel, when you were having your five-star burrito.
So wait, where are you fighting for the working class?
Because he's a member of the working class.
I got a refund.
I got a refund for the burrito.
And that's, do you now understand what I was saying?
He's a hero.
There's many such examples of this, Laverne, where I will get my, if we all collectively get our money back and then after we eat the food that we and we eat the food and we get money back from the return.
We need a systemic billionaires of further.
We need a systemic critique, Austin.
No, no, no.
No, but no.
This is Austin's throwing the first brick.
If we all collectively fight back against these corporate demons that are charging $65.
But like, this just wasn't.
That's what the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau was for that they did.
Yes, but they've gotten it, right?
No, but on a real note, these corporations are predatory.
They attack consumers on a daily basis.
And I will always fight back specifically against healthcare.
Oh, no.
I met him.
Oh, yeah.
Doesn't pay his health.
No, I don't.
I don't.
I said, that's like, I will fight because you know what, my, you know what, my, what I think?
If they're having affect your credit rating, um, it does, it hasn't yet.
And every time it does, I pay it really quickly.
But, but I do, I do fight, I do fight them, and I'm a pest to the healthcare industry because I fucking hate it.
And they, they take advantage of sick people that can't afford it and they do, and they do sleazy stuff, and I can afford it.
I can pay for it.
But you know what I say?
I say, I tell them on the phone, I say, this is sick.
There are people that can't afford to pay this.
I said, I can afford to pay this, but I'm not going to pay it.
I'm going to stop you now.
I love you.
Think about taking your advocacy to more systemic level and organizing, perhaps, the policy level.
These individual acts are lovely.
Well, that's questionable.
Did you know you're going to be on a podcast?
I'm doing civil rights heroes.
I'm also doing hero.
No, I'm doing the other things too, where I'm fighting for the policy standpoint.
I'm supporting progressive.
I'm supporting progressive candidates.
He's like Robin Hood.
Robin Hood, I'm like the shading thing.
He's like Robin Hood, but just for himself.
And also, he's gotten me refunded.
They're dealing with me.
They're not dealing with somebody else.
Yeah, he likes being a pest so that he thinks it's taking resources away from.
You know, the insurance.
It's a racket.
Out of network, in-network.
What the fuck?
We need to talk about something that is pop culture related.
This has been a particularly politics-heavy episode.
Yeah, I actually have an I have a line of inquiry I want to make as well.
But the Oscars took place this past week.
Film famously not political.
And well, the reason why I'm saying we are still going to talk about politics.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
The reason why I brought this up is because I think there is an environment of fear in Hollywood, and you're a Hollywood icon yourself, and you're in these rooms.
And I wanted to hear your perspective on it.
No, you were just the Vanity Fair party, Oscar party.
If that's your first time going to Vanity Fair Party, that's my first time ever participating in the future.
That is kind of the elite of the elite.
Yeah.
And I went and I was scared.
I was very scared.
We don't know how he got in.
I know your face.
It's a sketchy image.
A lot of people were like, oh, he's vlogging.
And I was like, no, he's genuinely concerned for his well-being.
Yeah, it looks like you're searching the room.
I watch Airbnb.
First, I walk in and they're like, oh, would you like to do hair and makeup?
I was like, no.
Hair and makeup.
Where is this?
Where did you walk into?
At the Vanity Fair party, they have like hair and makeup station right before the right corner.
Exactly for people like myself who don't have a hair and makeup team.
Wait, who?
Wait.
So if you didn't have hair and makeup, would you sit there for like an hour and a half and get it done?
Scared at the Vanity Fair Party00:04:01
They would probably like touch you up.
Yeah, they do have that station there.
A little power station.
I didn't realize that the PR person that was like handling me at that moment was like trying to be nice and be like, you need hair and makeup.
So do you have a publicist or no?
They just invited me.
No, no.
I want you to, look, this is how he looks.
Look at the tags, Marsh.
Could you show more?
Okay, this is the video.
Okay.
Why did you guys get tagged in this?
You look like if they did a porn parody of German rocket scientists.
You can work on that.
Like, because you're a very attractive man.
That was like.
I wasn't serving.
That was not.
I was not serving.
Like, you need it.
Like, people are being very critical of Top Model right now.
But the introduction of SMIs into like the Lexicon.
And I learned to model from America's Next Up Model.
And we all have a camera.
Thank you.
Look at us.
We all have cameras on our phone.
So if you care, I know you have a lot going on, and I appreciate the research that you do every day.
Going to Cuban in like two days.
Exactly.
But I'll figure it out.
But if you care, you can practice.
You can practice.
Because the mouth was really tight.
You could have released there.
And there's an internal.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Jesus Christ.
Don't do that.
How about this?
I hated that I looked.
That's terrible.
That's also ass.
What?
Dude, Junior's.
No, I'm nervous.
I'm shy.
I get shy.
I'm going to do it again.
No pressure.
Oh, God.
Oh, my God.
May I offer?
May I offer?
Like, when I make suggestions to people, I actually, I'm like, smile.
And then just so when we smile, but no, but when we smile, like our faces kind of light up, our cheeks go up, our eyes kind of just naturally light up.
And then just smile.
And keep the lips relaxed, you know, and then like practice what like looks good on you.
Dude, that one.
So funny.
That's a smile.
That's the face of a man who's.
And then take the smile down, like, keep everything the same, but just let the smile go.
Close your mouth.
No, you got to keep your eyes have to stay alive.
Oh, yeah.
Your energy.
It's an intention that I got.
Ready?
No, look.
No.
This is bad.
This is not funny.
I feel like there's just a lot of pressure because there's a camera here.
Yes.
But the idea is that you do have a thought.
Okay.
Oh, God.
No.
It's hard.
It's not easy.
What I was trying to say is, like, what I was trying to say is I didn't realize at that moment that like every single other person that is on that carpet, like this is their once a year moment.
So of course they have like hours and hours of hair and makeup and like, you know, designers and people that like just put it together.
And I just kind of rolled up with like a fit that I pulled together from my closet with no hair and makeup done.
You kind of got saved because did you get it?
Did you avail yourself of the hair and makeup?
No, I was like, no, I don't need that.
That's crazy.
So I walk up and like.
And when I saw like the super high fidelity photos that were taken of me on that red carpet and I look positively terrified, I was like, oh shit, that's why people like, you know, work on this stuff a lot and have teams.
But it was the most daunting experience.
It was the most terrifying experience for me.
I've been shot at by cops, like, you know, stun grenaded at rallies and spoken in front of tens of thousands of people in meetings.
That was truly the most terrifying.
Was it once you got into the party?
No, no, the red carpet.
Okay.
Did you talk to anybody?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
As soon as I, as soon as I got in, yes, it was also terrifying because like every single person in that room is immensely fancy.
That was the nausea.
Correct.
I didn't have any of the food.
You didn't have any of the nausea?
I did not have any of the nosh.
That would be my first thing at a party.
Always have like really good food as you do.
Yeah, they had like they had like pizza.
I didn't go this year, but they had pizza.
They had loose cigarettes.
Losing Representation Due to Politics00:05:37
What?
Yeah, they had cigarettes or back in.
Were they like camel crushes or I don't know what kind of smoky becoming more popular these days?
But they had Lucy's that were on plates.
Like they had everything.
They had everything ready.
What?
I don't know.
I don't think they had drugs.
Well, at least in Out and Play.
But the thing I was going to say is like, I beelined to Phineas because I was like, oh, thank God.
Like, there's someone.
Friendly face.
Yes, is someone I know.
I know Phineas that I knew that were attending.
So that would be good.
I could use them as an island.
But you started all this saying you feel like Hollywood folks are afraid.
Did you feel this at the party or just at the party?
Some of the conversations that I had were also reflective of that as well because the Oscars had just happened and there was only like a couple instances where people that were on stage said anything remotely political.
And it was Javier Bardem saying, you know, no war, Free Palestine.
And, and I believe they actually deleted the Free Palestine function from the German state broadcaster, which is crazy, right?
But, but it was, it was really unique.
And I think it's because after the Jimmy Kimmel stuff with Brendan Carr at the FCC, like openly coming after big corporate sponsored media moments and, you know, people in television.
A lot of Hollywood celebrities are scared of saying anything, even if they have these opinions, even if they have these feelings.
I've seen it.
I think when you lose, when you lose like your representation because you haven't made a certain kind of state political statement, when like you, you will lose opportunities for like for someone like me, for a lot of us who aren't in new media, we work for big corporations.
We work for, I got famous because of a Netflix show.
I have several projects on the Netflix platform.
I have a show that I co-created on Amazon now.
I have a movie coming out called Outcome, April 10th with Keanu Reeves, directed by Jonah Hill.
That's called Outcome on Apple TV.
So we are, many of us work for multinational corporations that are beholden to their shareholders and that this administration is really punitive towards.
And so our livelihood and my livelihood has been affected just by being trans and black and a woman under this regime.
Last year, I think my income went down like 90%.
Oh my gosh.
Like I've always had since I saw my, for people who don't know, I had a breakout my, when I got kind of slightly famous, so many people don't know who I am, especially younger people.
It was because of a Netflix show called Orange is a New Black, which was like the second, like technically the third original series they did, but the second like, you know, popular one.
And was like a nuclear bomb on culture.
Everybody was talking about Orange is the new guy.
Yes.
And so it was awesome for me.
And it was, you know, 2013.
And I started that year.
I literally started a college tour.
And so I was going around to college, like I've spoken in hundreds of colleges and universities talking about intersectionality, relationships of my own identity, telling my story.
And so I, you know, I was nominated for an inmate for that first season.
And a lot of my colleagues who have similar resumes act way more than I have, always have.
But my, I had a three-pound approach.
I would act and I would do speaking engagements and occasionally branding stuff.
And like branding didn't really kick off for me until like 2018, 2019, and then lasted for like, you know, until like 2022 when Beergate happened and then the Target stuff.
I think it was 20, was that 2023?
Yeah, it was.
And then like crickets for branding and no college universities are terrified because they're losing government funding, right?
Even when I let, I used to be red carpet host for E and that ended in 2024 and my contract was over.
And I was like, what do I want to do next?
And I was really excited when they, when I was like, we're not renewing the contract, I was like, cool.
I was relieved when you're relieved because I just, it was so much work to prepare.
I watched everything and it was a lot of work, but it was also fun once I got to do it, but it's tons of work.
I was like, I want to teach again.
I've taught acting before and like, I'll do a workshop and I have a friend who is a tenured professor at, I won't say which university had lunch with this person and we're like, oh my God, because most university programs that focus on acting don't focus on filming TV.
And so the person was like, oh my God, my students would like, you know, they need on camera help.
And so it was like, you know, I'm four-time nominated actors.
I have a couple stack awards that, you know, I'm, you know, I've trained.
I take my craft as an actor very seriously.
And I was really excited about teaching.
But because I'm black and trans, it's like GEI.
Yeah.
Teaching an acting class with my resume, which is insane.
But that's like how, and I'm very, very blessed that I have like savings.
And, but I've dipped into like retirement funds and I've dipped into like mutual funds to like survive, which is not ideal, but so many people don't even have that.
So I'm grateful for that and for like business managers who've helped me, but I'm making way less money than I used to.
And I need to kind of start making more money.
Yeah, it's the consequences for someone privileged like me.
But like when you think about even more working class, like trans folks and trans people of color, they're really fucked.
Working Class Faces Criminalization00:02:54
Yeah.
If you're really fucked, especially in a state, in these states that like criminalize gender-affirming care like across the board, so many places.
You can't even go anywhere and get gender-affirming care.
So many families have fled states.
It's really, really bad right now.
And it's a, it's the culture very quickly snapped back because like there was a brief moment where everybody was like, wait a minute, I guess Trump won.
So like we're all anti-woke now.
But I think corporations are still very much terrified and they're still following along with the administration's agenda, even when the administration's agenda is deeply, deeply unpopular.
And I think it's going to, I mean, it might get a little bit worse before it gets better.
It's, it's very obviously going to get better.
And this regime does not care about public opinion.
This regime does not care about public opinion.
They're doing what they're going to do.
No, they're behaving like there's no elections happening.
They're behaving like there's no midterms.
Well, I think that is part of their thing so as well.
And this is something that I've been warning against quite frequently.
And I don't think people are aware of what comes next year.
But that's why it's very important to organize.
That's why it's very important to have a sense of identity, to have a sense of community, have a sense of purpose, and also demonstrate class verse politics and make sure that we are punishing both the Republicans, but also even the Democrats that don't abide by the interests of their constituents.
We must vote.
We must vote them out.
I won't name them now.
Oh, girl.
I live in New York.
So anyway.
Also, what would you like to promote?
We are out of time.
We're going to go into the, we are going to go into the paywall portion of the podcast at patreon.com/slash fear.
And we'll continue this conversation with you.
But what would you like to promote before we move into that segment?
I have a film with Keanu Reeves directed by Jonah Hill called Outcome.
It's going to start streaming on Apple TV April 10th.
So Marketing Your Calendars, April 10th, Outcome.
It's a really cool movie.
The trailer just dropped yesterday.
And check out the trailer and check out the show April 10th on Apple TV.
My memoir, Transcendent, is available for pre-order.
There's special signed copies.
You can also order pre-order as well.
If you go to my Instagram, you can find the link.
It comes out June 9th.
And I'm, wow, I'm like, I talk about a lot of stuff that, yeah, all my business is out there.
That's intense.
And I'm also doing the new Animal Farm as a voice.
I voice Snowball and the new Animal Farm that comes out May 1st in theaters, directed by Andy Serkis, also starring Glenn Close, Steve Bushimi, Seth Rogan.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
May 1st, Animal Farm in Theaters.
LaBern Cox, everybody, you're an icon.
Voicing Snowball in Animal Farm00:01:12
It was an absolute privilege.
By the way, if you're watching, all of those links will be below.
Marshall, put them in.
We'll see you behind the paywall.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited.
He doesn't.
Karaoke is so much fun.
I don't know if I want to do it on a podcast.
So for me, karaoke is about, the only reason I say that is like, for me, karaoke is about singing badly and the kind of teeth that you have that is about like sucking and it doesn't matter.
They give me shit because every time I want to sing, I want to sing a little Frank Sinatra or my favorite, Engelbert Humperdink.
How old are you with Engelbert Humperdink?
Do you know Engelbert?
Of course I do.
I know.
Kwando, Kwando, Kwando.
I'm old.
That's why I know, but I'm like way old.
How old are you?
32.
I'm literally over 20 years older than you.
I'm 53.
And you know Ingelberg.
That's unbelievable, by the way.
I don't believe that.
Yeah, I was going to say, you look.
You see that in the non-paywalker?
You know what I'm saying?
And we just like combined.
This is a combination of clean living, melanin, being black.