0:00.0	This program is made possible by people just like you and we need your support right now.
0:03.8	There's a big fundraiser ending at the end of this month. So please visit the fundraising page at bestofleft.com for details.
0:09.8	Now welcome to the award winning Best of the Left podcast with clips today from Laverne Cox.
0:14.2	People rise up radio, dance savage, radio dispatch, the trans advocate, activism from Best of Left, and the current.
0:21.8	And quick note that if you are still fixated on the anatomical specifics of trans people,
0:26.5	maybe hearing some stories about what it's actually like to live as a trans person will help you see that there is way more to it than an enemy.
0:36.8	My name is Laverne Cox and I'm from Mobile, Alabama.
0:41.4	Until recently, I have had a tremendous amount of shame about the bullying I experienced as a child.
0:50.7	Whenever something would happen and my mother would find out she would yell at me and say, why didn't you fight back?
0:58.3	Or why are you fighting back? And then she would also say, what are you doing to make them treat you like that?
1:05.5	So I felt like it was my fault.
1:11.4	We took the bus to school every day, I have a twin brother and the kids couldn't be to step on the bus
1:19.2	because the bus driver was watching in the rearview mirror.
1:21.6	But we knew that as soon as we got off the bus, we had to take off running or we could beat now.
1:27.6	And for years I joked that I was a very fast runner as a child.
1:33.7	It was sort of my way of deflecting from how painful it was to sort of feel like I was always in danger.
1:40.7	I've been to that point, everyone was telling me that I was a boy, I was eight years old.
1:44.7	And I was just, I was convinced that I was a girl that the therapist told my mom and she yelled at me.
1:49.8	Boys are this way and girls are this way and there was just this big thing.
1:53.2	And I, I can't internalize a lot of shame about the way I was thinking about myself and about who I was.
2:03.6	I loved to dance as a kid. I was always dancing around. I would dance in this supermarket.
2:09.4	I would just dance everywhere. We were back when PE was in school.
	...

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