As part of WorldPride being celebrated in Toronto this month, Toronto International Film Festival and Inside Out LGBT Film Festival teamed up to host the event series Bent Lens: Pride on Screen. Part of this programming initiative was Wednesday's live question and answer session "In Conversation With" Orange is the New Black actress Laverne Cox, hosted by GLAAD National Spokesperson Wilson Cruz. Indiewire's LGBT blog /bent has put together a list of eleven highlights from the talk:
"On that TIME cover story you may have heard about:
Cox said she's excited that trans folk will see the magazine and think that their 'stories and lives and voices matter,' but she stressed: 'Just because a black trans person is on the cover of TIME magazine does not mean that trans people are not still fighting for their lives all across the world.'
On accepting herself as a trans woman:
After a stint at Indiana University, where she was involved in the LGTB organization on campus and where she broadened her aesthetic choices, Cox transferred to Marymount Manhattan College to do her fine arts degree in dance. 'When I moved to New York, I was very much in a gender non-conforming space. I had my shaved head and my lashes and my Salvation Army Couture and then it just sort of evolved and got more feminine. Really, getting to know trans people in the club scene in New York was pivotal for me because I had all these misconceptions about who trans people were—based on the media, based on Ms. Ridgeway's predictions. It wasn't until I actually got to know trans people as people that I was able to accept them and then accept myself.'