Laverne Cox

I had internalized transphobia.

And, like, for me, there was... Because by this time, by the time I made it to New York, I'd also read Bell Hooks.

And so I had... And I'd read other feminist writers who were very skeptical of drag and this performance of womanhood that was sort of seen as mockery by some feminists.

And so I was sort of contending with that and trying to, like, navigate my newfound feminist politics with, like, my gender and not wanting to sort of, like...

feed into some sort of retrograde idea of womanhood.

So that was introduced in college, but underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia that I'd internalized.

It was a lot of... It was like I was terrified of ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress.

Because I think in my mind, too, if I...

embraced the womanhood, the girlhood that I knew I was.

And in my mind, I thought that like, on top of like, you know, all the stigma that you are a degenerate or something that I think I internalized about trans people.

It's also that I didn't think I could be smart, even though I loved smart women.

There was some, I think there was just something about, I was never presented with images of drag performers or trans women or,

on television, if I ever even saw trans women on television at the time, that were articulate and intellectual.

And even as I entered the club scene, there were so many really, really smart drag performers who were just brilliant artists.

But I needed time to let all that stuff go.

And I just needed time.

Everything about this thing screams special.

Look at us, picking up right where we left off after all these years.

Well, it will be a process.

What's going to be a process?