Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland audio in partnership with IHeartRadio.

Think about the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity, how eroticism gets even constructed or manifested in our bodies, in men's bodies specifically.

Because basically what he's trying to tell you is that even though his mind has advanced beyond what he thinks are appropriate performances of men and women to be doing, his penis has not.

Mm. Mm. penis has not. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Laverne Cox Show.

On today's episode, we're talking about the challenges that college-educated

women of color experience dating in the digital age. Now, many years ago, I was on this website

called Plenty of Fish, and I got a message from a man.

I went to his profile and was shocked.

He said on his profile really disparaging things about why he would never date black and

Latina women, just things that were so horrible and so stereotypical.

I just can't even bring myself to repeat them here today.

And so I was just like, why would this man write me?

So in the spirit of research, I wrote him back and I said,

I read your profile.

I'm obviously a black woman.

Why would you even write me and express interest in dating me?

And what he said was, oh, I can date you because you're light-skinned.

And then he said, and I've always been curious about trans women.

And so I just kind of remember sitting there and just sort of being like, wow, this is, this is really deep.

And then I blocked him, and I never had any communication with him again after that.

But over the years, I've heard from so many black women, both trans and non-trans, who have expressed frustration dating and attempting to date in the face of this kind of stereotyping,

blatant racism, colorism, misogyny, and treating trans women as experiments and curiosities.

...