Why Your Unresolved Trauma is Keeping You Stuck & How to Rewire Your Brain to Move Forward with Laverne Cox

How does unresolved trauma impact your life? How can you rewire your brain to overcome trauma? Today, in the On Purpose podcast, Jay sits down with actress and LGBT advocate, Laverne Cox. Laverne’s groundbreaking performance on "Orange Is the New Black" made her the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. In addition to her acting career, Laverne Cox has been involved in various advocacy and awareness campaigns, making her a significant figure in the ongoing struggle for transgender and LGBTQ+ rights. Her work has contributed to greater visibility and acceptance of transgender individuals in the entertainment industry and society at large. In this episode, Laverne and Jay dive deep into transgender rights, media representation challenges, and how empathy can make a big difference in our divided world. They also discuss how fake news and false information on the internet can be a problem and why learning how to spot them is crucial. Laverne also shares personal experiences and insights that shed light on the struggles and triumphs of the transgender community. She also talked about the need for structural change, greater investment in education, and the role of love and empathy in promoting understanding and healing. In this interview, you'll learn: The power of personal stories in changing perceptions and fostering empathy The struggles and rights of transgender individuals in society Ways to challenge and correct misconceptions about transgender individuals The importance of uncomfortable conversations and understanding why having difficult discussions is essential for growth and progress. Remember that understanding and empathy can bridge even the widest divides, and it's through collective efforts that we can work toward a more inclusive and compassionate world. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:10 Childhood Memories That Define Who Laverne Is Today 10:51 Reparenting Her Inner Child 18:27 Why Is Denial Unhealthy? 25:05 Try To Let Go Of All Your Thoughts 27:43 The Fear and Freedom of Growing Older in Hollywood 31:13 Unlearning Transphobia and White Supremacy 46:06 Fight for Trans Rights and Mental Wellness 59:03 Bridging the Divide Through Thoughtful Conversations Episode Resources: Laverne Cox | Instagram | Laverne Cox | X Laverne Cox | Facebook Laverne Cox | TikTok See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:27Jay Shetty?

  and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Awards than any other car brand as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells... Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you.

• 2:12Jay Shetty?

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• 2:42Jay Shetty?

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• 3:24Jay Shetty?

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• 3:39Speaker 01

  Why has God put me here on this planet? And how can I, in the face of all these things, rise up and be there for myself as much as I can? So that I am not a victim of any of this?

• 3:54Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone, I've got some huge news to share with you. In the last ninety days, seventy-nine point four percent of our audience came from viewers and listeners that are not subscribed to this channel. There's research that shows that if you want to create a habit, make it easy to access. By hitting the subscribe button, you're creating a habit of learning how to be happier, healthier, and more healed. This would also mean the absolute world to me and help us make better, bigger, brighter content for you and the world. Subscribe right now.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 4:38Jay Shetty?

  Lemon, welcome to On Purpose. So grateful to have you here. I've looked forward to sitting with you for a long, long time. And so I really appreciate your space and your energy and for you being here. And I want to start off by asking you, what childhood memory do you have that you feel has defined the person that you are today or most defines the person you are today?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  There's a few. There's a traumatic one that I don't like to talk about that happened when I was two years old, that was deeply traumatic, that certainly shaped a lot of the trauma of my childhood, a lot of the shame-based parts of my childhood. My first interactions with children, other children, when I was in preschool, when I was probably five years old, when I was bullied and called the F-word and a sissy and the kids said I acted like a girl. I often say the irony of my life is when I was a child, the kids called me a girl and as an adult, people call me a man. But I've transitioned and accepted my womanhood.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  That's interesting. So it's interesting thinking that like, other people told me I was a girl before I sort of fully was able to accept or reckon with it. And it wasn't a good, positive thing, you know, right? Because I was assigned male at birth, as a trans person, being called a girl was sort of a bad thing in the eyes of the other children. So that's an early memory in terms of interacting with other kids. And then dancing. I am doing, back in the day, I think, I don't know if there's still physical education in schools, but I'm 51 years old. And we had PE, physical education. And during free play, while the other kids were sort of playing sports, I was off to the side, dancing by myself with music in my head.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  And I would sort of have characters that I would kind of portray through movement and I'd be imitating what I saw on television from Solid Gold. For those people who are my age who know Solid Gold, this show in the 80s, it was a countdown show that counted down the top hits of the week and they had Solid Gold. Dancers and there's this beautiful black woman named Darcelle Nguyen, who was the lead thalagul dancer and she had long hair sort of down to her knees. And she was so sexy and so vivacious. And so I was sort of pretending to be Darcelle as I danced in P E and free play and then church and and speaking in church almost every Sunday.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  My mother reminds me that I would summarize the Sunday school lesson every Sunday. And Children's Day was like the fourth Sunday of every month. And I was always sort of getting up and making speeches in church. And that even though I'm not a religious person now, I'm very spiritual. Church was this performance opportunity. The religious part of it wasn't affirming. It was very shaming. But the performance part of it was very affirming. Being told that I was a good speaker and that I was smart was something that dancing and starting to study dance in third grade and doing talent shows.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  And then being considered a smart kid who spoke well became my identity in terms of how I saw myself. In addition to that identity that was sort of placed on me. That was from the other kids and from my teachers, the bullied identity, the freak, the sissy, the F word, the queer, all those identities that were stigmatized were sort of placed on me. But I also won talent shows and was a good speaker. And there was this one moment in seventh grade, I know you asked for one childhood memory.

• 8:29Jay Shetty?

  I love this. This is beautiful, by the way.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  There's this one moment in seventh grade where I ran for Vice President of the Student Council and.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And I remember sort of doing the campaign and I made little flyers and stuff and like not, I was this very by middle school, I was dressing myself with things from the Salvation Army and they were, it was not quite gender non-conforming yet, but it was going more in an androgynous direction. And I was kind of this know it all kid. I was like, you know, raising my hand, you know, to be the first one to answer questions in class. It's very annoying. And I was, you know, chased home from school every day by kids who wanted to beat me up and call, you know, this is the F word bullied because I was very femme, femme. But when the year that I ran for student council president, we all got to make speeches and right after the speeches,

• 9:22Speaker 01

  the kids voted. And I remember the beginning of my speech was, quality is my principle and qualified is my attitude. I don't know what I said after that. And I just remember the kids being like, and they voted for me and I became vice president in the student council. So this kid that like no one liked, who they made fun of, there was something about me speaking in this moment with this confidence and this sense of something, I don't know, maybe speaking in church every Sunday, that they voted for me. And that was a really wonderful moment of, um,

• 10:05Speaker 01

  screw you to the kids. It's like they voted for me, but like, I was also like this kid that everyone made fun of and didn't like. So there was, you know, and looking back, and I've talked to very few people from middle school, but like, I think even though they all sort of made fun of me, there was an acknowledgement that there was talent and there was intelligence there. And how wonderful, as traumatizing as my childhood was to

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Have, create a sense of self, you know, reading drama of The Gifted Child, I understand that, you know, in retrospect, my identity became about accomplishment and not who I was authentically. But how wonderful to be a kid who valued education because of my mother, who was a teacher, and had this identity that was attached to accomplishment and intelligence and talent. That's a lovely thing, particularly as I, you know, as a woman in the world, where so often now, now 51 year old woman, thinking about aging and who's an actress in Hollywood. And so much of being a woman is about how we look. And so much of how I grew up was about my talent and intelligence and not that.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And that's a beautiful thing. That's a really, really beautiful thing to have those things be valued and associated with who you are. And so as I, you know, sort of go into the world and do a lot of different things, knowing that I'm talented, knowing that I'm smart. And that because of all that training in church and, and doing public speaking competitions and, you know, valuing education and still being just a student of so many different things that I can lead with those things. And that, that, those are the reasons why I've, you know, gotten to where I am, I think, you know, on God's time, not my time.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  I thought it should have happened, you know, 25 years ago.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  It didn't happen until I was 40, but it did happen right on time. And when there was a sense of purpose attached to it and that there was something to say. And so that is my, another intention of today is to try to say things in a way that people can hear. I've been grappling a lot with how sort of anti-intellectual our world is. There's so many divides in this culture right now around, you know, liberal and conservative and all that stuff. But it's one of the big ones is people who've gone to college and who haven't. And how they vote, you know, I think most non-collegiate, educated people vote for the Republican Party. And then I'm an actress, but I talk in a way, you know, I'm an intersectional feminist and I, you know, read bell hooks.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And I just did a podcast episode dedicated to her. And I use phrases like imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy to evoke bell hooks's work. So I talk in this way that's like, That's not always accessible. So I want to be able to meet people where they are, but I don't want to dumb myself down either. But I'm just aware of the elitism tied to certain kinds of ways of speaking and certain kinds of education. And but I also am aware that language, sometimes to be exacting with language, we have to use words like patriarchy and white supremacy and heteronormativity, you know, to really sort of talk about what's going on or trauma or resilience. So sometimes to really be precise with language

• 13:34Speaker 01

  and exacting with language, you might come across as a little bit elitist. And so I've sort of been grappling with that too, just as someone now who has been a working class person until I was like in my 40s and then now, you know, have some class privilege. So just grappling with privilege. I'm constantly sort of grappling and questioning myself and my positionality and trying to not be this out of touch Hollywood actress.

• 14:04Jay Shetty?

  Thank you for connecting the dots for us. I could see how the experiences you were having back then, you can kind of draw that line. And I could see you kind of connecting the dots in your own mind to where you are today. And I love that you present your experiences so much more of a paradox and a dichotomy as opposed to clarity, because I think that clarity comes from the questioning and the curiosity that you have about your own experience. Earlier, you used a term. You said you're learning to reparent your inner child.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:35Jay Shetty?

  And you could hear that in the way you were describing the journey so far. What are parts of yourself that you think you've spent the most time reparenting? Or what does that look like?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So much of it is about how I frame my story. I'm a Brene Brown stan slash scholar. And when we disown our stories, we're defined by them. And when we own our stories, we can write a brave new ending. And so much of, and actually, interestingly enough, on the podcast, I was just watching one of your earlier podcasts when you had Oprah on, talking about what happened to me. And so much of the way I Many years I had been in denial about all my childhood trauma. Like, I was in denial about the bullying and the straight-up violence I experienced as a child, a nonconforming child. And so I needed to, for many years, to talk about that. I needed to reckon with that and just acknowledge that it happened and feel the pain of that,

• 15:29Speaker 01

  that there was no tools to experience as a child. And then, so I sort of went from that, you know, the what happened to me. Well, actually, I went, I was, what's wrong with me? And then I went to what happened to me. And then, and now I'm in a space of like, what's right with me? You know? And, and what happened that wasn't just traumatic but was affirming? And that were resources and the things that sort of helped me get through. I've been working with an amazing therapist named Jennifer Burden Flyer, who I interviewed on my podcast twice in the first season. And we do somatic work that is based in the community resiliency model from the, based on the Trauma Research Institute. Do you know this work?

• 16:08Jay Shetty?

  I've heard, I'm familiar with it, but not, not well versed.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  But the Trauma Research Institute came up with this thing called CRIM, or the Community Resiliency Model, that is sort of based in resilience. And it's somatic work, so it's all about sensing into your body. And there's six tools of that. And so we've been, I've been working with my therapist on sort of refiring and rewiring, to sort of the way Dr. Joseph Spence talks about it, and creating new neurotransmitters in my nervous system and deepening my resilient zone. So there were things in my childhood that got me through my childhood, the dancing. And so, yes, to acknowledge that there was abuse and that there was bullying and violence in my childhood, but there were also things that got me through my life.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Art and dancing and reading and performing. And those things continue to get me through. So it's, it becomes, it's a both and. One of the tools of CRIM, or the Community Resiliency Model, is shift and stay. And it's all about sensing into your body. And shift and stay is, is about, like, I would go into a therapy session with Jennifer, and she would say, you know, how are you feeling today? And I was like, oh, I'm a little anxious. And she'll ask me, where do you feel that in your body? And often, my anxiety sort of happens in my, in my stomach. I'm feeling a little bit of that now, I think, just because of being in a podcast. And then she, Jennifer will invite me, you know, is there somewhere in your body where it feels neutral or positive? And right now, it's my ankle. So, and she'll invite me.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  To breathe into that and focus my attention instead of where it's anxious, but to focus my attention on where it's neutral and positive. So I'm focusing it on my ankle right now. And then we just kind of focus the energy there. And invariably, if I can focus my energy in my body where it's neutral or positive, sometimes eventually the anxiety will dissipate. Maybe not completely, but it'll dissipate a little bit. And it's about, that's really about living in the both and in our bodies. And it's a reminder that we become sort of what we focus on too. Literally in a somatic way, literally in our bodies, but I think in a sort of more global sense as well. We become the thing that we focus on.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  So, and the tricky thing for me is in my attempts to do both and, I do the and without the both. Meaning, I focus on the resilience, I focus on the neutral and the positive, and I'm in a little bit of denial of the, of the challenge, of the anxiety, of the difficult thing that's going on in my body. And so I have to be able to acknowledge that part too, and, and not just be in the resilience because there's a bit of denial there. And so, and I'm not in the full truth of what's going on in my body, what's going on with me in a moment. So being able to like, say, the anxiety is here, maybe it's attached to a story, maybe it's not. Sometimes it's just a feeling, sometimes it's not necessarily attached to a story.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Often it is, or thought. And then go to the and, go to that neutral or positive place, the resilient place, the thing that brings me joy, but making sure that I don't skip the difficulty that might be going on too. And be slipping into denial a little bit.

• 19:19Jay Shetty?

  Thank you.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  In an effort to just sort of be positive all the time. Yeah, because that's just not real.

• 19:25Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And thank you so much for sharing that tool and technique. I'm sure everyone who's listening is. Going to try and practice that in their own way.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  What is amazing, last thing I'll say about Crem or the Community Resilience Smile, it's these, there are six tools, there's an app called iChill, which breaks down the six tools and it was devised by the Trauma Research Institute for people who might be, you know, coming from veterans or police officers, people who are coming from very traumatic experiences that you can take into your community and share, tools that are very accessible. Doing it is not easy, but they're accessible tools. Shift and Stay is one of them, Resourcing was another one I mentioned. Gesturing is another, tracking is huge. You have to track what's going on in your body. Help Now, so these are skills that are very accessible and that people can teach to each other.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  The practice of it, for me, the biggest piece is slowing myself down to actually track what's going on in my body. And we all know that book, The Body Keeps the Score. And so no matter what is going on intellectually and all the work, and I've been in therapy for 23 years now, that it has to land in the body. It has to be work, it has to be somatic. It has to be because our bodies, 80% of our information comes from the body to the head and 20% from the head to the body, right? And so no matter how intellectual we are, no matter how much we want to talk it through and understand it, our bodies have to, if there's trauma, if there's stress, our bodies

• 20:57Speaker 01

  have to know it differently. Our bodies have to understand what a healthy connection or healthy attachment is and have to know it in my nervous system. There's this knowing and then there's like this knowing. Because of that thing, I mean, you've talked about it on your podcast, but so much happens in our lives pre-verbal, between the ages of one and three, one and five, before we even have language, so many things will happen to us that we don't have words for, that our nervous systems are tracking in those moments. And so the work of reparenting, the work of resetting the nervous system, of deepening

• 21:41Speaker 01

  our resilience zone, it's about that somatic, that pre-verbal, that, so the pre, not even the prefrontal cortex, but that limbic brain, that piece, that's like, that reprogramming, that fight, flight or freeze, so that we Really deep in our resilient sound. Anyway, I could talk about this all day.

• 22:00Jay Shetty?

  No, no, genuinely, it's so helpful and so insightful and I know our community is gonna love this so far. But I want to go back to your comment and you mentioned a few times on how we like to deny certain experiences and uncomfortable things and difficult things. And I know that for a fact, I've done that so much in my life physically as well. It's so easy to deny a physical pain, thinking it's nothing and emotional pain, sometimes even easier to do it with, but why is denial so unhealthy? And what parts of yourself do you still find you may deny sometimes?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Denial is unhealthy because we're not living in the truth for ourselves. And there's this line, I think, from Magnolia, "You think you may be done with the past, but the past isn't done with you." That like, even when I'm in denial, there's still, the stuff is still operating in my life. Nadine Burke Harris has a beautiful TED Talk where she talks about adverse childhood experiences. And there's this wonderful research about adversity in childhood and how excess doses of adversity, is the way she sort of puts it in childhood, can lead to physical, literal, like, you know, sort of asthma, diabetes, all these health outcomes in children and then later in life. So that when we don't deal with psychologically and emotional things,

• 23:22Speaker 01

  they show up in our bodies in unhealthy ways, all these other different things. And so when we're in denial about a trauma we've experienced or something that is difficult for us, that is happening in our bodies. And if we don't acknowledge it and release it, it has to go, it has to move through and out of the body, it can be deadly. Stress can be deadly. And my therapist likes to talk about, we talk about trauma resilience, but then there's different kinds of trauma and different levels and distressors, right? Stressors can like bump us out of, there's an idea of the resilient zone. She sort of likes to encourage us to imagine like these two lines and that our resilient zone sort of goes in waves between these two lines. And then there's low zone, which is like, she likes to think of it as a house.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And our resilient zone is the ground floor. Low zone would be the basement and high zone would be the attic. And high zone is when we're in that fight, flight or freeze and we're anxious and we're stressed and we're just like. And then low zone would be this kind of like depressed. I don't want to get out of bed. Maybe I'm suicidal or I'm just like listless. And so we want to have, deepening our resilient zone is about being able to go into lows and highs and be in our, and have emotions, but not be bumped into that high space or bumped into that low zone. And so if we are constantly in that high zone, and I've been constantly in that fight, flight or freeze. I learned that really early that I didn't feel safe and nowhere was safe. And so I was constantly releasing adrenaline, cortisol.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  That constant release of adrenaline and cortisol over 40 years. We're not hardwired for that. Biologically, we're supposed to like, you know, we see the bear in the woods. We release adrenaline, cortisol to fight that bear, to flee that bear. And then we go back to homeostasis. If we're constantly, if we, what if Nadine Burkhari says, what if the bear comes home every night? We're constantly releasing that adrenaline and cortisol and then our, we're just depleted after a while. And years of this depletion. And I, and so I've, in my 40s, I was like, why am I so tired? Why am I so depleted? It's just all that constant survival, not ever feeling safe.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  And so trying to find so much of like, deepening my resilient zone is creating safety. And if you are a trauma survivor, so much of the, for trauma survivors, we often take, this is from my therapist, we take an alarm bell and turn it into a dinner bell. Because things have been wired in such a way, in a dysfunctional way, that everything becomes an alarm. Everything. And so, and so that's so much of our work. When we think, we think about folks who are, I'm triggered by this. This is triggering for me. And it could very well be, but our work individually, if the external thing can be triggering,

• 26:13Speaker 01

  but my work individually is like, is this about what's actually going on? Or is this about my history? When it's hysterical, it's historical.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  When it's hysterical, it's historical. When I remind myself of this, when Laverne is hysterical, it's probably not about what's going on in this moment. Like, I had a moment with my boyfriend a few months ago. And we've been, you know, we've been dating for like three years, and it's been lovely and it's been wonderful. And I had this moment when I went into this shame spiral during a conversation we were having. Just went into this cra- and I was like, it was the first time with him. I felt so safe with him. It's the first time with him and I was like, and it just like, I was like, I felt myself just going into this crazy. And I was talking a lot and I was spiraling. And I was just like, babe, let me, I need to go to the bathroom and get myself together. He was like, what's going on? And I sat there and I was like, luckily, because I've done my shame work,

• 27:08Speaker 01

  I was like, okay, you're in a shame spiral. You are in a shame spiral. And we can identify, and we can name shame. I was like, this is not about this incredible man who's so amazing to me. This isn't about anything he said. This is about my own story that I just spun myself out with. So it's historical. It's not about this moment. So this is about some historical stuff.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  You know, so I just had, I think I was in the bathroom like 30 minutes, maybe 40 minutes, just kind of like talking to myself, breathing and just being, and I really take, and in the moment, this is not a dangerous moment. I created something historical, something historical came up for me, but this is safe. And the only way I was able to do that is like, I've had like three years of safety with this man. So I'm like, this man is incredible. So like, you know, maybe early on, I'd be like, this man is not safe. And I, you know, when a man doesn't feel safe to me or when people don't feel safe, I'm like, I'm out. I've learned very, very, very quickly to get out. And so I've become very good at like identifying what safe spaces.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I'm like, so this is not, girl, you're just spinning out with something, some historical stuff, some childhood stuff, some old stuff just came up for you. And so when, once I was able to do that and regulate, then I was able to go out and say, babe, I went into a shame spiral. It's not about you. It is what it is. And he just like held me and I cried and.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  And what's interesting to me, what I've learned on, I'm sure this is an experience that you have interviewing so many brilliant people. I've had so many brilliant people on my podcast. And so I think about that moment through a shame lens, right? There's a, we can talk about a shame spiral. We can talk about it through a trauma resilience piece around regulating my nervous system. There's also an attachment piece, attachment theory piece, where there's healthy attachment with him. So there's just all these different lenses that I was able to kind of filter that moment through that was, that kind of kept, that brought me back to the present and brought me into my, a resilient space

• 29:26Speaker 01

  where I wasn't spinning out. And it was deep. And so like reckoning with the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, it, just a thought can spin us out, right? Just a thought can disrupt my nervous system. That's not, it's a thought, maybe it's a comment I've seen on the internet. It's a thought I could have about myself. That's like, oh, you're a piece of shit. Oh, you're a horrible person. That could just spin me out. And just like becoming aware of those thoughts. And then, you know, is this thought useful? I can let this go. This isn't the truth. Can I reality check this thought? Or maybe just letting go of all thoughts. You know, there's, there's, in some of my meditation,

• 30:05Speaker 01

  I do transcendental meditation too. Sometimes it's about trying, trying imperfectly to let go of all thoughts and just be, just be letting go of stories, letting go of thoughts. In absence of data, we create stories as human beings. We're hardwired for story. But trying to let go of story, trying to let go of thoughts and just be, it's so hard. And I have those moments when it's just like, you know, and I'm like, am I an airhead? You know, I'm being an airhead right now. And just like letting go of thoughts and just like, ah. You know, sometimes I think like people, yeah, I don't want, I don't want to be judgmental, but sometimes people who are not like intense thinkers, they just kind of like chill.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Sometimes I like envy those people because they're not like thinking about like the sociopolitical implications and then the sort of therapeutic and somatic implications and then the attachment theory implications and then the intersectional feminism. Like there's all this stuff going on all the time and then I'm an artist and then like, you know, my humanity is as an artist and like having empathy for the character and analyzing human behavior. Just, just a lot going on in there. And so sometimes it's just, I envy people who just, there's not a lot going on up there and they can just kind of, you know, let go of the thoughts.

• 31:22Jay Shetty?

  Stressing about being healthy is very stressful.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Especially as a 51 year old because it's not just mental and psychological health now. It's like I'm getting older and there's the question of mobility and I have such a problem consistently working out, but I want to stay mobile and I want to stay looking lovely, you know? And the aging piece, being 51 years old and like my mom is 70, just turned 73 this year and then watching her and thinking about getting older and my job, you know, and I feel like my, in so many ways, my career is just getting started and we're on strike and it's just, it's scary aging as a woman in Hollywood. And I think what's beautiful about being trans is that like, you know, the public has

• 32:11Speaker 01

  been very, as transphobic as people are, the transphobia of some people in the public has helped keep me right sized around my appearance. Because sometimes I'm like, oh, Laverne, you look cute. Laverne, you're sexy, you know? Oh, you look pretty good for 51. And then like, you know, I'll read a comment of like some, she looks like a man, you know?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  And luckily, I can laugh about that. Luckily, I think it's, you know, I think it's ridiculous. And I understand people are transphobic, but it keeps things in perspective. But I also would be delusional and not in the truth if I didn't acknowledge that I'm not just, I've not just been on multiple magazine covers because I'm smart and talented. That there is, there is a desirability politic that goes into being an actress on screen in Hollywood and doing a lot of the on-camera work that I do. And aging in that environment is scary as a woman in an ageist business and an ageist

• 33:14Speaker 01

  culture and the connection between misogyny and aging and then being a black woman and a trans woman. And so all of that is like happening too. It's so funny, I was thinking about this, you know, I haven't done like the botox or the fillers or anything to my face, but obviously as a trans woman, I'm not opposed to surgery, but I'm terrified to do anything to my face. And there may be a point when I need to or need to. And I don't, and it's funny, I'm like comfortable talking about not having done it now, but I'm like, once I do it, I probably won't want to talk about it.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  So there's also that in the sort of transparency of that. And I don't talk about, as a trans woman, I don't talk about surgery in terms, in relationship to me, because so often that's a way to dehumanize trans people and reduce us to our bodies. But it's just something, you know, that I'm grappling with around aging and being a woman. And so those are other stories and other, you know, thoughts that I spend way too much time thinking about, maybe because I'm on strike, we're on strike and I have a little more time, I don't know.

• 34:23Jay Shetty?

  I was gonna say that I actually find it remarkably comforting to hear someone open up and tell me the genuine, real, honest thoughts that they're having, because I think all of us are actually having those in our own world, in our own universe, whether you're an actress in Hollywood or whether you're someone who's dropping your kids to school or whether you're me or whoever you are. Like, I think all of us have a kind of interesting tapestry. You've lived so many chapters of your life. If this chapter had a title right now, what would it be called?

• 35:00Jay Shetty?

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• 35:43Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair.

• 36:28Jay Shetty?

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• 37:11Jay Shetty?

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• 37:31Speaker 01

  Fifty-one fabulous and anxious as hell.

• 37:36Jay Shetty?

  That's, that sounds like a great chapter.

• 37:40Jay Shetty?

  It's a fun chapter to read. I don't know. It's fun to live too, I guess.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  It is what it is. And I, it's, it's, you know, I, I interviewed Glennon Doyle for the first, she's so amazing. And what I love about her, what I love about Brene Brown is that like, we so much in, in, in the wellness space, we hear about sort of how people are the sort of the result of the struggle and not the struggle. And

• 38:07Jay Shetty?

  I agree.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I, I need to sort of be with people in the struggle. I need to like, understand what folks are, because that's what I can connect with. People who have it all together, I don't relate to that. And as much as people may think I have it all together, and I, girl, I am, and I'm gender neutral. And this case, girl, like compared to 10 years ago, to 15 years ago, Laverne has grown. I've done so much work on myself to be, just being able to be in an intimate relationship and tolerate it and like tolerate the vulnerability and the uncomfortable things.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Like, there's been so much growth. So, yeah, I'm so much more evolved than I was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, certainly 20 years ago. But it doesn't mean that I'm not still struggling with things, that like, the world, I mean, honestly, just being, just being a trans person in 2023 is,

• 39:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I could, I could cry. And I love being trans, but there's an attack on my community legislatively and rhetorically that is having real world consequences on, on, on people who I know and love. There are families fleeing states right now, which is insane to me because of the laws that criminalize parents who, you know, support their trans kids, could criminalize doctors and healthcare professionals. And that's not unrelated to the, you know, people who need to flee. States because of abortion restrictions. And being a public figure who too who's trans who's, you know, you know, I was in the cover of Time Magazine nine years ago with with the headline, the transgender tipping point.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And there was a sense that there was so much progress being made around trans visibility and trans acceptance. And that certainly, speaking of both, and that certainly is happening and has happened in a lot of ways. But we inevitably, when there is a social justice movement where people sort of come forth and there's more acceptance, there's inevitably backlash. And we are like eyebrows deep in the backlash right now on a legislative level. Twenty states right now have banned gender affirming care for young people. This year alone, over 500 pieces of legislation have been introduced in state legislatures all over the country targeting the LGBTQ community at large, mostly trans people, mostly

• 40:36Speaker 01

  drag artists. It's it's insane. And it's supported by our media that is so sort of siloed, you know, right? Where where people can just like get this confirmation bias that that deeply stigmatizes trans people and LGBTQ plus people in general and don't hear from real trans people and don't get our human stories and our beautiful humanity. And it's scary. A dear friend of mine, Chase Strangio, who works for the ACLU is they they're fighting all these things in the courts right now. They're on Friday, he was arguing two different appeals for two different states where they banned gender affirming care in Tennessee and I think Oklahoma.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  It's just a scary time when the when the government, when the state is targeting your ability. And for years, they were sort of saying that this is about children, it's about protecting children. And, you know, earlier this year, a state, I think it was Oklahoma, passed a law that would prevent gender affirming care up to the age of 26. My home state of Alabama, I'm from Mobile, Alabama, bans gender affirming care up to the age of 19. You know, there's other states that, you know, so it's not, it's never really been about the children, right? It's always been about doing what the Daily Wire's Michael Knowles proclaimed at CPAC, erasing transgenderism from public life. That has always been the project. And

• 41:55Speaker 01

  To hear that stated so emphatically and then seeing it play out on various states is scary. It's really scary. And so there's that piece of like, how do we, as trans folks, just like our mental health, how do we sort of deal with that? And so what has been crucial for me as a public figure, but also just as a person who loves trans people and a person who's been just terrified by all of this, is like, how do, like, understanding that the narrative about who we are has been hijacked. And there's a deep propagandistic misinformation campaign

• 42:36Speaker 01

  that's going on around our identities that is leading to legislation that seeks to erase us from public life. But there is a reality of our lives. There is a reality of our existence. There is a reality of our beauty and our talent and our anointedness that I'm amazed by. I'm so blessed to have a group of trans people in my life who I marvel at. I was in L.A. like in July, and we were doing something with Hardness Foundation about the relationship between reproductive rights and gender affirming care. It's interesting, but not ironic, that as access to gender affirming care, bodily autonomy for trans

• 43:19Speaker 01

  people is being taken away, bodily autonomy for people who get pregnant is also being taken away on a state level, on state levels all over this country. And then a dear friend of mine, Peppermint, we were hanging out afterwards and we were talking and she was telling me about this situation. She was dealing with a man and I was just, I was, she was telling me about this and I was looking, I was, I had watched her at this event that we were at and I was just, I was just marveling at how smart, how charismatic, how resilient, how incredible she is as a human being and all of the bullshit she was dealing with from this man. And I was just like, I was like, do you know how beautiful you are? Do you know how amazing and talented and just what a light you are just because of who

• 44:04Speaker 01

  you are? And that you're, I just am so honored that you're my friend and you happen to be trans and your transness is part of why you're such a light, you know? And I just have trans people in my life who are lights like that, who are just... Epic and beautiful and amazing. And then there's this, like, these narratives about who we are. And I just would love for people to get to know us and get to see what I see when I see trans people. And so that's what I have to hold on to, our humanity, our beautiful humanity, and shout it from the rooftops and then surround myself, continually surround myself with

• 44:45Speaker 01

  the beautiful trans people in my life who I just, who are anointed, you know? I always like to remind people that in indigenous cultures all over the world, trans people were considered spiritual creatures, who were spiritual leaders. In India, the hijra, you know, pre-colonialism, where, you know, folks wouldn't get married or have a christening without the presence of a hijra. And, and they understood that if they got a blessing, if their child got a blessing from the hijra, that their, that their child would be okay and be better. We have two spirit people here in the Native communities here in the United States, the Mahu in Hawaii and in the Philippines.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  They're, they're, indigenous cultures all over the world, they were third and fourth gender tradition. So, trans people aren't new, non-binary people aren't new. We've always existed in pre-colonial communities. And so wellness for me and, and mental health cannot be divorced from structures of domination like, like white supremacy and cisnormativity and patriarchy. And, you know, colonialism is synonymous with a gender binary that necessarily erases the natural occurrence of people who exist outside that binary. And so when we have conversations about health and well-being, we have to understand

• 46:11Speaker 01

  that I personally know, from my own experience, that as, as a black... Trans woman from working class background, raised in Mobile, Alabama, that I internalized deeply transphobic things about myself, that I had to unlearn deeply racist things about myself and my community that I had to unlearn. So, part of my mental health journey has been unlearning transphobia, my internalized transphobia, and learning my internalized white supremacy and anti-blackness, so that I can love myself more, so that I can love the people around me more. And, understanding that we're all raised in a culture that teaches that, for me, creates so much empathy for people who might be struggling with that,

• 46:55Speaker 01

  who might not understand the extent to which they've internalized transphobia or white supremacy. And so I can give them a lot of grace, because I've been there too. I've been transphobic. I still have transphobic ideas and thoughts that I have to unlearn and check myself with. And that is part of my mental health. I've said on my podcast and I say in life that there, you know, it's like 50% of things, I have 50%, I don't know if it's 50%, are the structures, are the things that we internalize. We're on white supremacy. Bell Hook says imperialist white supremacy is capitalist patriarchy. I add to that cis-normative, heteronormative, imperialist, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The structures that we sort of exist under, these intersecting structures of domination is the way Bell Hooks would put it.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  But then there's the 50% of like, what's my part in it? What is the 50% I am responsible for my life, right? And so I'm more responsible, I'm able to take more responsibility when I'm educated, when I have an education for critical consciousness. So in this world that is anti-intellectual, that is where we're defunding schools, that education becomes so critically important, so that we can like, take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives. And that education is around mental health, that education is around health in general, it's around these structures, it's around understanding capitalism, right? That there's so many people who are frustrated, you know? My boyfriend, who's considerably younger than me,

• 48:19Speaker 01

  who makes a wonderful living, can't buy a house right now, because real estate prices are just so insane. And, that's not because he's not working hard. He's working 60, 80 hours a week and he makes a lovely living. But the system is set up in a way, this capitalist system, where home prices are just like... It's out of reach for so many people. So like, and that can cause us mental and emotional stress. But if we understand that there is a system in place that is keeping a generation of people from being able to buy their homes, that can help give us some perspective and hopefully not feel like we're not enough. Because I think a lot of, I see this happening to him, where it's like, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  And I think we, and he, and he happens to be a straight white man. And so we, there's all these conversations now about crisis around men. And there's a, you know, I don't, I don't know if you would agree with that. But I think so much of that crisis, especially when I see, you know, dating a very attractive, you know, dirty blonde, blue eyed, um, straight white man, that this, you know, that the world has told him, this is what, you know, should be available to you as a straight white man who's attractive and who works hard. And then these things are not available because of a system in place that it really is designed to keep, you know, people, a lot of people down, whether you're black, white, whatever.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  And so I think so much of the cognitive dissonance now, and we've displaced that. We say that feminism is the, is the reason, right? I see if you, if you go into the manosphere on the internet, you'll, you'll hear a lot of men saying, oh, feminism is the reason why, or, or, you know, diversity and inclusion programs are the reason why, when maybe, you know, you know, predatory capitalism and corporations who have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and no one else. Maybe that's why you, the promise of what you're supposed to have in this country as a straight white man, maybe it's not the fault of immigrants or feminism or diversity and inclusion programs.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Maybe it's this, this capitalist system that has lied to you and told you. And so I think having that critical awareness, for me, is a part of mental health. For me, having a critical relationship to the world around me on a systemic level is part of me just having a perspective, placing things in perspective. And so that like, I'm not, it reduces the beating myself up. It reduces the like, I...

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Should be working harder. I should be doing more. I'm not enough. And you know, it doesn't absolve me of responsibility for my life saying, because I think there's a mentality of saying, oh, racism is this. I'm never going to get to where I need to go. We can do that, or we can say racism is this, sexism is this, misogynoir, trans, all of these things are true. But I'm here, but I'm here and I have an opportunity. In this corrupt system, how can I navigate? How can I negotiate within this system to let my light shine? To be on purpose, why am I here? Why has God put me here on this planet?

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And how can I, in the face of all these things, rise up and be there for myself as much as I can? So that I am not a victim of any of this. I refuse to be a victim. That I can, I can say to myself, in the face of all of this, I'm going to proceed in the world with dignity, with self-respect, with love for myself, with love for other people, and a deep, deep passion for what I do and a passion for getting better. And.

• 52:14Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  It'll be okay. Well.

• 52:50Jay Shetty?

  I'm genuinely in awe of how someone can internalize what's going on around them. And at the same time, remain independently thoughtful about what that means.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  It's work. It's work to stay separate, to detach from that, to not become hopeless around it. There have been moments this year when I have felt deeply hopeless and deeply sort of unempowered in like, how are we going to sort of fight this? And when, I think it was, when the gender affirming, I think it was Oklahoma, that when they banned gender affirming care up until the age of 26, I was like, okay, no, we have to change this narrative. And it just, something clicked for me. And sometimes I have to go away and think and I have to strategize. And it's not, I can't always just be on TV or be on a, you know, picket line or at a protest. Sometimes I have to go and think and strategize. It's like, we have to change this narrative.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  And I cannot have the conversation about who I am on these terms that have nothing to do with me. All of the terms that they've set forth that have deeply dehumanized trans people. When senators are asking Supreme Court candidates about what is a woman? And they're talking about mutilating children. All of that is deeply dehumanizing of trans people. What those people who do not want trans people to exist in public life have done very successfully propagandistically, that have led to legislation that take away the bodily autonomy and the rights of trans people, that they've dehumanized us to such an extent where people can't have conversations about,

• 54:36Speaker 01

  some people can't have conversations about LGBTQ plus people without equating us with things I don't even like to repeat. I don't want to repeat any of those narratives, but I think you know, some of the disparaging, dehumanizing, very retrograde narratives that we can trace back to the 1970s, right? What about the children and all those, all those sorts of things? So, understanding deeply that I will not have my identity be up for debate. That.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  My access to gender-affirming care is actually no one's business. It is between me and my doctor. And that the access, even for children, is actually not up for debate if you're not a healthcare professional. It blows me away, all of this journalist and all of this people who feel like it is fine. Oh, children getting gender-affirming care and having access to gender-affirming, that is up for debate, right? We can debate that because children, dah dah dah dah dah, when the American Academy for Pediatrics, when the Integrating Society, when the, you know, all of these different, you know, very reputable organizations say that this is the way that we should treat transgender children, and this is the protocols with parental consent, et cetera, et cetera.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  And then all these other people say, well, we have to debate this. No, no. It's actually, if you're not a trans child, the parent of a trans child, or a healthcare professional, it's actually none of your business. And I feel the same way about reproductive rights. I feel the same way if you're not a person who can get pregnant in need of an abortion, it's actually none of your business. And I think that, for me, needs to be the conversation. It's deeply empowering for me to say that to myself and to say it publicly, that it is actually none, and it's dehumanizing. It is deeply dehumanizing for people to sit on televisions and on podcasts debating my

• 56:34Speaker 01

  access and children's access to a care. I mean, if a child had cancer, we wouldn't be having debates about whether this, I mean, there's all sorts of side effects to chemotherapy, but we would defer to the experts on that. Nicole Mainz is a brilliant, beautiful trans woman who's an actress. She played Dreama on Supergirl. She's just so incredible. And she transitioned as a child. I recently interviewed her on my podcast. And it was so lovely to hear from a child, she's in her early twenties now, but she transitioned as a child. And so many of these conversations.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Again, that people are having about trans kids and they're not talking to any of the kids. And then the kids are saying, there was a recent story on the New York Times ran, where all of the, this whistleblower, you know, said that this clinic was doing all of these things. And then the parents, these parents came out and said, well, no, the clinic wasn't doing this. And that my child was treated well, and the children are saying all these things. And the children are saying that we were treated well, and the parents are saying that we were treated well. And then they're just going with this other, whole other narrative. So people aren't even listening to trans people. They're not listening to the parents of trans people. So they've just hijacked the narrative and they're not listening to us. And underneath all that is them not wanting us to exist.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  And if we think about it, the, then if you go back to the beautiful podcast you had with Oprah, what happened to you? If you don't, if you're so deeply invested in stigmatizing trans people and saying that trans people are mentally ill. If you don't know somebody trans, if you don't have a trans, how does it even affect you? How in the world does it affect your life? What happened to you? And so that's the empathetic piece that I have, that this, that people are in, these times that we live in, people are in so much pain. And I think that's why we have so many wellness podcasts and things, and people are so, people are in so much pain for so many reasons.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  And so many of those things are systemic. So many of those things are about unhealed childhood trauma, not having language, words, skills, neighborhoods that have just been completely divested from, poverty, income inequality, so many structural things, so many, you know, interpersonal things, so many, so much unhealed childhood trauma. It is an inside job when it comes to my healing. But it is also a structural job. It is also that we can't just...

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Charity our way out of it, do philanthropy our way out of it. We have to, our governments have to invest in schools and communities and mental health in a serious way. And I don't necessarily have faith in our government. So then what do we then do for ourselves and for each other? And whenever I have a problem, you know, I'm less there these days, but when I used to have problems with other people, it's usually about an insecurity that I had with myself. And so I had to take a moment with myself and to self-reflect. Media literacy becomes so crucially important in this moment. You know, sometimes I get into arguments with my boyfriend specifically about something

• 59:55Speaker 01

  and I'm like, well, let's check that source and then like, let's cross-reference this source with this source and which one is more reputable. So I'm constantly checking different information and seeing the source and looking for the biases, right? So because that's really where we have to be in this moment. And I think it's around wellness too, because there's a lot of people who are grifting around wellness, right? And they're trying to sell some product or sell something. And we have to just always have critical awareness around the things that we receive, that the information we're getting on the internet, the information we're getting from cable news, from the news in general.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Just a critical awareness around information is crucial. And critical thinking skills are so important in teaching people how to triple-check sources and get, you know, try to find reputable sources and thinking about like how a study can be manipulated, right? Just having that critical awareness is just crucially important in this day and age because I think we can spin ourselves out in a psychological and emotional way when we think about the people, you know, I think about those folks who said that they were radicalized around January 6th, right? Through social media propaganda and then... Found themselves, you know, on trial for their lives and admitting that they were sort

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  of propagandized and, you know, didn't, and there had incredible consequences. And I think they were probably struggling in their lives, you know, when you hear about, you know, young men being radicalized into white supremacist groups, so much of that is about a loneliness, about trying to find a sense of community, right? And so there's always something going on psychologically and emotionally with people. And if we can have that frame for people, giving people grace, I mean, I think there's, you know, I think our actions must have consequences, right? So I'm not like forgiving people for terrorist activities or anything like that. But I think we can, you know, I'm responsible for my

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  actions and we all are. So, you know, if you do unfortunate things because you've been radicalized, then you have to sort of deal with the consequences of that. But then, for those people who've come out on the other side of that, I think their stories are very valuable around talking about how they were radicalized and maybe were de-radicalized and like then began to understand what pain they were in and what they were struggling with. And everyone is struggling with something. And it's like if we can, if they can, hopefully we can meet people with love and empathy in their struggles, the people in our lives who might be going down a road, some sort of very radical road, and a lot of people are right now, if we can hold them close, maybe we may not be able to, we may have to let them go, certain people we have to let go of because it's not healthy for us.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  But if we can keep these people in our lives with love and empathy and maybe just love them through these moments, maybe they won't end up in situations that become, you know, where they're going to prison for, you know, behavior they've been engaged in.

• 1:03:03Jay Shetty?

  On that point, I want to ask this question because every time I feel what happens with any difficult, uncomfortable conversation is that

• 1:03:12Jay Shetty?

  Again, you pointed this out earlier, it's happening in silos. So you have a group of people over here talking about it, but they're talking about it with each other. Then you have a group of people here talking about it, talking about it with each other. If you could sit down, not a debate, not an argument, but a genuine discussion, conversation of learning from both sides with someone in the world. Who is that person that you think you'd want to sit with to have that educated, thoughtful, conscious conversation around the subject matters that you care about?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  I mean, that's why we reached out to Joe Rogan, because I, you know, he has had so many-

• 1:03:46Jay Shetty?

  But he's kind of in the middle there, right? Like, he's kind of trying to talk to both-

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  He's interesting, he's interesting because, you know, some people would say he has, he represents a lot of normie, you know, sort of opinions on things. And then like, there's some things that have gotten more sort of radically conservative on his podcast. But he's someone, I was interested, when I was interested in Go My Own A Show, it was just like, I would just love to chat with him. I'm not trying, just to be, go and be a human being. I'm just go and be Laverne, you know, just go and like, not necessarily, if we want to talk about some of these issues, I mean, I'm certainly not an expert in sports. That's a big issue with him, trans people in sports. I'm not, I don't play sports, I've never, you know, I'm not athletic. I know a little bit about the studies that have been done, the very few studies that have been done on actual trans people in sports. But he's someone who comes to mind because I, I think it's really just about how can, can we be human?

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Can we be human together? And I think that's the first piece, that like, so much of what has happened has been deeply dehumanizing, where they've sort of made trans people into an ideology. I mean, when people sort of, sort of like transgender ideology, I'm like, what exactly is that? And, and all this language-

• 1:04:55Jay Shetty?

  What are some of their concerns, you were talking about empathy, what are some of the concerns on the other side, so to speak, that you empathize with, or that you, parts of the narrative where you're like, oh, I understand where that's coming from, but that isn't actually- What I believe our thoughts are, like, what would you say is like, oh, I get where that's coming from, but that's actually a missed narrative? Because I think what ends up happening, and I'm looking at it from a, trying to look at it from an observer point of view and going, is it that people are actually arguing two completely different things? And we're arguing about the wrong thing? Like, we're not even talking about what?

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  I think the part of, I mean, I think honestly, part of the problem is that a lot of the ways in which, for many years since, oh, gosh, since the early, since the early 2000s, there have been, states have been attempting to do bathroom bans. I think Phoenix was one of the first cities, and we were able to sort of not have that, you know, protests happen, and there were not bathroom bans against trans people using the bathroom. Famously, in 2016, HB2 in North Carolina was the big bathroom bill, but there have been other states who have been trying to, you know, ban access to bathrooms for trans people. So for years, conservatives were working to get trans people out of bathrooms. That actually didn't really work anywhere. And so after marriage equality became the law of the land, conservative groups focused,

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  had focus groups, and they were like, they, they talked to them specifically about different trans issues. And what seemed most salient to them were trans women, specifically in sports. And so then that became the focus. And they were like, okay, we can take the play, they need a Bynum playbook from the 70s and then focus on children, trans people in sports and children. And so then there was a proliferation of news stories on Fox News and conservative, in conservative media, all over the internet, Google it, it's just hundreds of stories on Fox News about trans people in sports. None in like, you know, more mainstream media, like, we didn't, like, if you're not watching Fox News or conservative media, you didn't real, you wouldn't realize that there was an issue with trans people in sports, but if you watch Fox News, you would think that,

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  like, trans people are dominating sports, like, that trans women are like, you know, that, so that, I mean, this is really, for, for most people... Trans women in sports becomes the crazy thing that like we can't do for Joe Rogan. It's the issue. And there's not enough real studies on actual trans women in sports. You would need to do double-blind studies of trans women's performance capacity in different sports. There's one study that was done with trans women specifically with running, but it was a small sample size that looked at their performance pre-transition and post-transition. But then there haven't been any studies on like weightlifting, on swimming, and there are different skillsets that are required. People make assumptions because people don't think that trans women are women.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  So they make assumptions that if you've gone through puberty, that releases testosterone, that you're going to have a physical advantage. In 2002, the International Olympic Committee created standards for trans people to compete in 2002. It had to do with testosterone levels, being on hormone replacement therapy for a certain amount of time. And since 2002, so that's been 21 years, we've had one trans Olympian, and she was a weightlifter a few years ago, and she failed to qualify. She made it to the Olympics, but then she was out in the first round. So in the 21 years that trans people have been able to compete in the Olympics, for example, trans women are not dominating. There are a few trans women who win competitions, and we hear all about those trans women.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  And conservatives know those trans women probably better than I would know those trans women. They're like a handful of trans women. And then you look at sports bans on trans children. There was a governor, I forget, I think it was West Virginia, who was on television, MSNBC, and Stephanie Ruhl was like, are there any trans girls dominating in your state that you know of? And he said, no. And he did know of any, and there weren't any. And there was one trans girl who was playing sports that we knew of, and I think it was Utah. And they created a sports ban for one. Person for one trans girl. And so, so much of this is this anxiety. But it's what's interesting to me is at the same time that there are these sports bans

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  that we're going to ban trans girls from sports to keep fairness in sports, that they're also banning gender-affirming care and stigmatizing and creating misinformation around puberty blockers. And the, what I do know about sports and alleged advantages that people might have, or trans people might have, is that that advantage happens after puberty, right? That pre-puberty, that there's not really, because testosterone hasn't been introduced yet, that there's no advantage. And so, the same people who say that they don't want trans girls competing also want to take away the ability for trans girls to be able to go through their puberty that is consistent with their identity and that would actually not give them an advantage.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  And so many of the kids, the trans kids who play sports are not dominating. They just want to play with their friends. They just want to have this communal experience from what I, from the trans people I talk to, that there's something, I never played sports, but allegedly, apparently, people who play sports, there's a sense of teamwork and, and community. And the, the young girl in Utah, who she, there was a field hockey team that she, the team wasn't, didn't even exist. She basically like rallied the girls, you know, to get the field hockey team together. And then like, after she had done all this work to get the team, she couldn't play on it. And that just feels, it just, it's, it's really discriminatory. And I think that like, there is, I think fairness in sports is something that we should, there are standards in place for that.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  But I don't think it's really about that at the end of the day. And so I think that like, even having this long sort of drawn-out conversation about sports, it's actually not about that. It's actually not, I don't think it's about fairness in sports. I think it is about stigmatizing trans people. It's about people being deeply uncomfortable. That's almost always where it goes. That they're talking, they say it's about sports, they say it's about the children, but it's really about a discomfort with trans people existing. That's at the Core of it, if we if we look at empirically at what they're saying, and then the public policies that are put in place. So people make sports an issue.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  They make gender affirming care an issue for children, but it's ultimately about them wanting to erase trans people from public life because we make them uncomfortable for some reason. Do you feel me on that? Do you feel me on that? Because I think we can parse out all of these different issues that they say they have a problem with. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about banning gender affirming care for adults in Florida, effectively, gender affirming care for adults is banned with Medicaid is no longer covering gender affirming care in Florida for trans people. And DeSantis passed a bill that would allow only doctors, not nurse practitioners, to administer gender affirming care,

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  when 80% of trans people in Florida get their gender affirming care from nurse practitioners.

• 1:12:13Jay Shetty?

  Got it.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  So this is very similar to what they're doing with abortion bills, right? So that's why it gets tricky to go into having conversations about sports and like parsing out and getting distracted about that. That is actually having the conversation on their terms.

• 1:12:28Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Having the debate around trans children and gender affirming care is having the debate on their terms. It is actually not your business when it comes in fairness in sports. And and I think too, because we see a coalition now of women who call themselves feminists who are care about women's rights, a coalition between them and right wing conservatives who want to take away the abortion rights of women and people who can get pregnant. So they have like coalesced and are like, you know, in common cause around getting trans people out of women's spaces and protecting women's spaces and protecting women's sports. And so this is just about transphobia. It's about transphobia. And so why is it?

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  And I think there's a larger conversation around gender roles. What, you know, that whole sort of Matt Walsh question, what is a woman, you know? And I think. Ultimately, what is a man? In this moment, in this historical moment right now, women are so beautifully independent. We make our own money. We, in so many ways, we don't need men. And we, a lot of women have evolved. And a lot of men have evolved, but a lot of men haven't. And the structure of patriarchy has not evolved. And their backlash against like, women having autonomy and these roles being challenged. Trans people are a part of that.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  The existence of trans people and like defining gender on your own terms and defining what it means to be a woman on your own terms. Being a woman used to be, in antebellum, United States of America, black women weren't women. Black women weren't even human, right? Womanhood in the United States is a colonial white supremacist construct. It is a patriarchal construct. And that is being dismantled as women are taking control of our lives and our, our abilities to have children or not. And just, a lot of that patriarchy is just being dismantled by the lived experiences of women.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  And so many men don't know how they fit into that because they haven't done the work of interrogating patriarchy and interrogating that model. And you've talked so beautifully on your podcast about being vulnerable as a man and what that looks like. And vulnerability is a piece of it. But, and that is my own, for men, dealing with their, the ways in which they've internalized patriarchy in these systems that are not serving them. Patriarchy isn't serving most men, especially if you're a man of color, especially if you're a working-class man, right? Patriarchy is not actually really serving you. And I think the frustration of a lot of working-class men of all races is that patriarchy isn't

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  serving them and it's supposed to be and it's confusing, right? And then, women are so empowered now and don't necessarily need men, but I still want a man.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  And then trans people are in the middle of all this, right? And so then it's like, we can be, we become a scapegoat. We can become a scapegoat for like, all of the anxieties that people have, that, that, that some women have, who are not transgender, for that some men have. We become a scapegoat for all of this anxiety about gender roles changing. And these trans people aren't helping. And then like, they're usurp, we're usurping women. All these narratives that actually have nothing to do with trans people. It has to do with a certain level of progress, a certain level of like, these systems not working for people anymore. And the uncertainty and the uncomfortability of all of that.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  So much of this is about being able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty and not being able to make any sense of it. And what makes sense to so many people is when someone is having a baby, is it a boy or a girl? If I don't, if I can't even hold on to, it's a boy or a girl and that binary. If I can't hold on to that, what can I hold on to? And so people desperately need to hold on to some sense of certainty. And trans people in our existence does not allow that. And there is a cognitive dissonance and there's an anger because there's not, there's so little that we can hold on to, that, that we can be certain about in these times.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Can I hold on to something? And trans, the existence of trans people is another thing that we can't hold on to. But we've, trans people have always existed. It's just, it's a lie. Intersex people exist biologically. All these people who want to talk about biology. Biological sex, and that term is, is a very tricky term, but let's use it for now, for expedience, is not binary. Intersex people exist. Like, there's, there are more intersex people than redheads, right? So that like, even biologically, gender doesn't exist in a, on a binary. It's, it's just on a spectrum. So it's, so then it's like, Why do we sit with discomfort and uncertainty? And like, sit in that?

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  And let go, again, going back to letting go of the story? Like, the stories that I can tell myself about not being enough? Those stories are so often tied to, "I'm a woman, I'm supposed to be this way." For people who identify as men, "You're a man, and you're supposed to be this way." "I'm white, and it's supposed to be this way." "I'm from this place." Letting go of those stories. And it's sometimes deeply uncomfortable to let go of the story that, like, I've always been attached to, deeply attached to. It's painful. It's painful. And then, and so what conservatives who don't want trans people to exist have done successfully

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  is play it on the fears of people not being able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty, and have used that to attempt to legislate and adjudicate trans people out of existence. That is what's going on. So even having the narrative of talking to people from the other side is a false dichotomy. Because we're all in the same boat.

• 1:18:47Jay Shetty?

  Of course, yeah, no, I was doing it as a framework.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  No, no, I feel you, and I went there a little bit with you, but it's like, I think it's, I think we're all in the same boat around this uncertainty, around all these questions. And if we can sit with that, and hopefully, sit across from someone like we're doing now, and see their humanity.

• 1:19:06Jay Shetty?

  No, that's, I mean, sitting and listening to you and anyone else that I meet, I'm only seeing humanity. And that's how, at least I was trained in my tradition, was to only look at someone for their humanity and the essence that exists within. And my intention, Lev, and honestly with this, is that I feel so educated and enlightened today, and I've learned so much from you. And I genuinely, genuinely do hope, even though I was doing it as a thought exercise, I do hope that, and it may be one of these, you know, idealistic viewpoints, but I think it's needed. Like, I wish we could sit down with people that we think we have opposing views.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  There's been so many moments throughout my life where- I, you know, waited tables, worked in restaurants for nineteen years in New York, and encountered so many people from different backgrounds. I did not talk about being trans or trans politics. I was just myself. Yeah, of course. I was just myself with these people and it's just been so beautiful. The empirical evidence of my life, that I just get to be myself and people are like, "Oh, yeah, she happens to be trans, but she's, she's cool, she's awesome." And it's not, "I'm not the only one who's cool and awesome." Of course. Like, we all are, like, a lot of trans people are cool and awesome. There's some trans people who aren't cool and awesome. There are people across every demographic who aren't cool and awesome, but a lot of us are. And even if we aren't cool and awesome, we're still human, you know?

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  And sitting across from people and just chilling, you know, is like, it's beautiful. I think about all of the sort of parents of different men I've dated over the years. I'm fifty-one, so I've met some parents on my date. And I just remember, like, twenty years ago, I was dating this guy and then I met his parents and they knew I was trans going in, like, "Oh, she's so lovely." And then it was another guy's mom who I met, this is early two thousands, I met her. She loved me, she thought I was great for her son, like, three years into the relationship. I, um, he was on the phone with his mom, he was like, "Oh, Laverne is giving herself an estrogen shot." And she's like, "Oh, my God, what is she, pregnant? What's going on?" And she's freaking out, like, and he just starts laughing.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  She's like, "She's trans," and we thought she knew, but she didn't know. And she had met me and loved me, and then she freaked out. And then she comes to visit, she's from Minneapolis. She comes and visits and then we have dinner together and she's like, "Laverne is lovely, she's great, I'm so happy that she's in your life," you know? And she had whatever story she had around me being trans. And then we had dinner together and hung out and it was like, "She's great." Yeah. And I just have so many of those experiences in my life. And so I, part of me is just like, "Let's just sit down and have dinner, girl, let's just chill, it's all good."

• 1:21:48Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Levon Cox, you have been a joy to be around today, honestly. And I love how smart, intelligent, intellectual, thoughtful you are about the words that you share, the way you present them. And you're a change maker and I'm really honored to have sat down with you for this time, to learn from you, to grow with you. And I really hope that we'll continue to have this conversation offline, too.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:22:12Jay Shetty?

  I really look forward to that.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Do you feel on purpose, darling?

• 1:22:15Jay Shetty?

  Definitely, definitely.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  As do I.

• 1:22:17Jay Shetty?

  That you are very on purpose.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  I try.

• 1:22:22Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much, Levon. Thank you.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:22:24Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, honestly. If you loved this episode, you will enjoy my conversation with Meghan Trainor on breaking generational trauma and how to be confident from the inside out.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  My therapist told me, stand in the mirror naked for five minutes. It was already tough for me to love my body, but after the C-section scar with all the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've been hacked. But day three, when I did it, I was like, you know what? Her thighs are cute.