Laverne Cox has predicted she has lost around 90 per cent of her income over the past two years, amid the Trump administration’s attacks on transgender rights in the United States.
The Emmy award-nominated actor rose to fame with her role in Netflix’s comedy-drama Orange is the New Black, which became a major hit when it first began airing in 2013.
While Cox was cast in further projects such as Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and the 2022 Netflix series Inventing Anna, she supplemented her income from the limited parts she found as a trans actor with public speaking and brand ambassador roles.
Yet much of that work has since dried up, Cox told The Guardian. “This regime has threatened to defund any colleges and universities that promote gender ideology, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion],” she said. Even teaching work has fallen through, as “even though I’d be teaching a graduate acting class, it could be perceived as promoting trans ideology”.
Cox said this was the reality, and while she was not complaining as she was “very blessed”, she wanted to note that “if Laverne Cox’s income has gone down significantly, what about all the other trans people who are not as privileged and blessed as I am?”.
She added: “There are material consequences for this kind of discrimination and scapegoating.”
Within a few weeks of his second term as president, Donald Trump began a series of executive orders targeting transgender and nonbinary people, including removing references to transgender individuals from government websites and attempting to reinstate a ban on their military service.
Last week, his military ban on trans troops faced a significant setback after a federal appeals court ruled that it was illegal.
In the same week, a new poll revealed that public opinion on LGBTQ+ issues appears to be shifting, finding that around four in 10 Americans consider changing one’s gender to be morally acceptable – a decrease from nearly half of the population in 2021.
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Speaking to model and trans activist Munroe Bergdorf for Attitude magazine last week, Cox reflected on how she was 40 years old when she landed her Orange is the New Black role: “I was working really hard to get out of a financial hole. But then I was also working hard to try to lift up my community,” she said.
“When Orange came out in 2013, I didn’t know how long that moment would last. I didn’t know how successful it would or wouldn’t be.”
Cox then appeared on a memorable Time magazine cover in 2014, which included the line “The Transgender Tipping Point”.
“I was doing whatever I could to humanise us by telling my story, trying to elevate the stories of other trans people as much as possible,” Cox said.
Cox’s new book, Transcendent: A Memoir, is published by Merky Books in the UK on 25 June.
