“…I guess I’d like to believe that we can transform ourselves and the world around us with a whole lotta love, to quote Led Zeppelin” – Laverne Cox
Appearing in their first-ever public speaking engagement together, Laverne Cox and her twin brother M. Lamar opened Baruch College’s GenderFluid weeklong festival with a candid discussion on intersectional feminism and their own life experiences.
Original “gender outlaw” Kate Borstein took to the stage with an impassioned introduction that promised Sept. 9 would be a night no one in attendance would forget. If the standing ovation at the end was any indication, ze was very much correct.
“I’ve known Laverne for a few years and we had been talking about wanting to do something on stage with her and she had the idea of involving her brother,” said Chip Duckett, the curator of GenderFluid Week and programming and marketing manager at Baruch College. “She thought it would be great to do something a little unstructured with the two of them.”
The nearly two-hour discussion allowed insight into their varied paths, philosophy, and strong personalities. Much of the conversation centered around Cox herself as she provided an uninhibited portrayal of what it’s like navigating industry tokenism and negotiation as a pioneering trans woman of color through the gentle—and not-so-gentle—coaxing of her brother.
“We all sort of have to figure out in these systems how do we resist, do we resist, how we perform,” she said. “So much of my evolution as a woman and as a human being is to try to see myself more clearly trying to be more myself and also exist in a world where I am not invisible.”
If Cox allowed a peek into her life through their discussion, Lamar flung open his diary. Primarily known to most through his cameo playing Cox’s Orange is the New Black character pre-transition, he is also an established artist in his own right. A photographer and musician, he spoke of his radically-charged philosophy and work as well as his personal life.
Perhaps the most honest moment of the night came as the two talked about their contrasting feelings on their mother (with whom Lamar hasn’t spoken to in a over a decade).
“They talked about such deeply personal aspects of their family life that I was surprised,” said Duckett. “I think it was refreshing because it really helps to hear what other people have gone through and come out so successfully.”
Lamar, a male-identifying gay feminist and punk, came clad entirely in black adorned with silver spikes and heavy black eyeshadow. Juxtaposed against the high femme aesthetic of Cox, who wore a white form-fitting dress, stilettos and her blonde hair delicately curled, the pair were reminiscent of a yin-yang.
While expressing his love and pride for his sister, praising her for making her continual rise to fame as much about supporting other trans people of color, Lamar also questioned Cox’s operating within a mainstream framework.
“We’ve had some difficulty because of my positions…it’s been very interesting, me recognizing the value of what you do,” he said shortly after calling out GLAAD, an organization Cox has partnered with, for their excluding race in their LGBTQ-centered mission.
“I’m not interested in her roles written by white people,” he also said.
In a less-adversarial point of disagreement, Lamar teased Cox regarding her love of Beyonce, to which she responded: “It’s very important for me to allow him to have space to not be into Beyonce, and it’s very important to me to assert that I very much am.”
“And as much as I’d like to say I woke up like this, I didn’t quite,” she added, to resounding audience laughter and applause; one of many several shining moments in which her quick wit broke tension.
“It was intense, it’s always intense,” she said in an interview after the discussion. “My brother’s really intense and we have an intense relationship and I think that the truth of that was very present.”
“For me, being very interested in truth, I thought it went really well,” Lamar said. “I had fun; we have a playful relationship, too…we have fun together in our disagreements.”
“I think maybe it was more fun for you than it was for me,” Cox laughed.
While their methods varied, both were equally passionate when it came to exploring issues of marginalization and social injustice. Calling attention to the mainstream pornography industry’s objectification of the black male and trans women, systematic violence against black and trans people, and white supremacy, Lamar tackled controversial matters with unflinching, uncensored intensity.
He also showed several slides from his most recent photo series, “NEGROGOTHIC a manifesto: The Aesthetic of M Lamar,” including an image of a white man holding a whip meant to symbolize the black male phallus.
Meanwhile, Cox centered her comments around the importance of building safe spaces for healing from trauma and pain in both the personal and larger social contexts.
“A lot of these conversations that we have in this culture around racism, sexism, transphobia, around all kinds of intersecting oppression are really deeply painful and we often find ourselves feeling accused of something and that shuts down conversation,” she said. “If we don’t know how to talk to each other, how are we going to heal from this stuff? And it’s hard. It’s really, really hard.”
Wrapping up the night, Cox began her attempt to leave the crowd on a more positive note.
“When we work from the ethic of love, how can that transform public policy and the ways in which we think of invading other countries or policing our citizenry? …I guess I’d like to believe that we can transform ourselves and the world around us with a whole lotta love, to quote Led Zeppelin—”
“Which is actually a Willie Dixon song,” Lamar interrupted for the final time of the night. “What I love about that Led Zeppelin song is that Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for stealing his music and they were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll pay you even though we stole your song’…I like Led Zeppelin…when they were stealing from black people, those white people made some awesome stuff.”
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