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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland

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Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hello, my name is Laverne Cox,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Laverne Cox Show. Okay, this is I

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Speaker 1: This is going to be weird and hard to talk

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Speaker 1: about today, but I think it's important. And I've been

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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about how I want to approach these

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Speaker 1: diary entries, and I want it to be vulnerable, and

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Speaker 1: vulnerability is still really hard for me. Rene Brown defines

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Speaker 1: vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. And I want

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Speaker 1: to challenge myself to talk about things that I don't

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Speaker 1: talk about publicly a lot. As much as I've shared,

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Speaker 1: I think there's some things that should be private, particularly

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Speaker 1: as a trans woman, because my humanity as a trans

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Speaker 1: woman and the humanity of my trans siblings is always

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Speaker 1: sort of called into question, and so I feel like

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Speaker 1: I have to be really careful as a public figure

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Speaker 1: who's trans to not overshare and to not put things

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Speaker 1: into public discourse that I don't want a public discourse

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Speaker 1: and that I think will undermine my humanity and the

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Speaker 1: humanity of my community. With all of that in mind,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to attempt to talk about my body. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's so many reasons why I want to do this,

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Speaker 1: But earlier I was working out.

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Speaker 2: Working out is like so fraught for me. I hate

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Speaker 2: working out.

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Speaker 1: There's a fitness room in my building here in New York,

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Speaker 1: and during the pandemic, the fitness room was closed because

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Speaker 1: you know, pandemic, and so I started working out in

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Speaker 1: my apartment. I got some free weights, and I started

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Speaker 1: working out at home and I have continued that and

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Speaker 1: at this point, working out for me, as a fifty

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Speaker 1: one year old woman, is really about mobility, mental health.

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Speaker 1: I found to have more energy when I work out,

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Speaker 1: So working out is like about overall health, wellbeing and

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Speaker 1: endorphin release, all that good stuff. So I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: work out more consistently, but it's you know, I'm doing

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Speaker 1: it imperfectly. And I've had personal trainers before, mostly a disaster.

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Speaker 1: I will say, it's kind of better for me to

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Speaker 1: just do it on my own. So anyway, after my workout,

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Speaker 1: after my workout, I was standing in my underwear in

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Speaker 1: the bathroom moisturizing, and I looked at my body and

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, nice.

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Speaker 2: I was like nice. I was like I like my body.

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Speaker 1: It was interesting because I've gone through phases in my life.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are different milestones in my medical transition.

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Speaker 1: And when I say medical transition, I started taking hormone

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Speaker 1: replacement therapy in nineteen ninety eight, so that would be

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Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. And so over the years there

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Speaker 1: have been different sort of milestones in my medical transition

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Speaker 1: where I've been living for myself and I've you know,

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Speaker 1: gone out and been half naked and just frolicking around

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Speaker 1: on the streets of New York, and like right now,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I really genuinely like my body. I was

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Speaker 1: looking at it and I was like, I really like this.

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Speaker 1: But it's not like I'm not like in this place

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Speaker 1: of like I'm living and I want to like get

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Speaker 1: on the gram and like show off. It's more of

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Speaker 1: a relief. It's more of like there's so many different

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Speaker 1: lenses that it is a relief to look at my

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Speaker 1: body and be happy. There is a lens of being

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Speaker 1: a woman, and the gender journey that I've been on

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Speaker 1: integrated in terms of my gender, like my body matching

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Speaker 1: my gender identity, So that's one piece part of It's like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: when I was younger, I just picked myself apart and

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Speaker 1: I couldn't see the beauty and things. But there were

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Speaker 1: places I wanted to get in terms of like my

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Speaker 1: feminizing journey that I feel like I'm there now in

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Speaker 1: terms of my own standards. Right, Like I was on

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Speaker 1: Instagram and I was scrolling and like I did post

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Speaker 1: a Pekuini video on the Gram and the comments on

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Speaker 1: my page were overwhelmingly positive. And I've cultivated a community

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Speaker 1: on my own social media channels that's so affirming and

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Speaker 1: so positive and so beautiful, where people were telling me

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Speaker 1: how beautiful I was, how beautiful my body looked, and

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Speaker 1: that was that's lovely.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I've learned to like try to take that in, but

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Speaker 1: not like allow my sense of self worth or self

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Speaker 1: esteem to be overdetermined by how other people see my body,

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Speaker 1: because for years people were telling me I was beautiful

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Speaker 1: and I couldn't see it or feel it. So it's

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Speaker 1: really about how I feel about myself. So the video

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Speaker 1: was posted on this blog, this very urban blog, a

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Speaker 1: black blog, and the comment section was transphobic af I

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Speaker 1: read a few of the comments and people were sort

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Speaker 1: of saying how masculine I looked looking more masculine as

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Speaker 1: I get older. And then I stopped reading the comments,

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Speaker 1: and I mean, this is not new. This is not

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Speaker 1: new as a trans woman, this is not new for me.

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Speaker 1: But I thought I've obviously thought about it. This was

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Speaker 1: probably five days ago or so, and I'm still thinking

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Speaker 1: about it. So it's like, Okay, when I read things

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Speaker 1: like that, I have to remind myself that trans is beautiful.

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Speaker 1: When I say trans is beautiful. I started the hashtag

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Speaker 1: trans beautiful in twenty fifteen. Oh my god, it's been

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Speaker 1: eight years since we started trans is beautiful. And I

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Speaker 1: started that hashtag as a way to remind me and

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Speaker 1: other trans people that were not beautiful despite the things

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Speaker 1: that make us noticeably trans, but that were beautiful because

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Speaker 1: of those things. I could look at other trans people

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Speaker 1: who were visibly trans and see their beauty, and I

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Speaker 1: can see it in myself. And so in these moments

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Speaker 1: when people are saying how masculine I look online, I'm like, well,

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Speaker 1: trans it's beautiful, Like I think, what does happen for

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Speaker 1: me when I see comments like that. It doesn't affect

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Speaker 1: how I think about myself, but it affects how I

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Speaker 1: think about myself in the marketplace, the beauty marketplace, because

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Speaker 1: we live in a culture, you know, where beauty is capital.

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Speaker 1: We talked about that on the first season at The

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Speaker 1: Liver and Cock Show with the brilliant Kimberly Foster. So

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Speaker 1: even though I'm like kind of living for myself right

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Speaker 1: now in a very sort of relieved way, it's not

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Speaker 1: like a boasting way. It's just like a relief that

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Speaker 1: I like my body right now. But then I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: in the marketplace, like there are people who think I

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Speaker 1: look masculine, So maybe like I'm not getting a job

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Speaker 1: or an opportunity because I look too masculine. And there's

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Speaker 1: like so many younger trans women out there who maybe

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Speaker 1: were able to like not go through a puberty that

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Speaker 1: would masculinize them like I did. So those thoughts come

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Speaker 1: into my brain. Then I have to check myself and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that's scarcity thinking, and there's room for everyone.

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Speaker 1: And you're doing just fine, Laverne. You're very busy, you're working,

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Speaker 1: and so the different lenses. As I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: liking my body, right I was thinking about it through

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Speaker 1: the lens of gender identity. I'm like, I like my

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Speaker 1: body and relationship to my transition and the feminizing that

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Speaker 1: has happened to my body over the past twenty five years.

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Speaker 1: I like my body in relationship to my weight. When

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Speaker 1: you're a public figure and you talk about your weight

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Speaker 1: or losing weight or gaining weight, that gets clicks right.

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Speaker 1: People are like obsessed. And the last season of my

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Speaker 1: podcast that had a great conversation with Burguetbar about fat

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Speaker 1: phobia and the thing that's stuck with me in that

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Speaker 1: book and that she wrote, you have the right to

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Speaker 1: remain fat. It is that we live in a culture

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Speaker 1: where we exist in one of two categories. Either we

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Speaker 1: live with the bigotry of a fat phobic culture because

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Speaker 1: we're fat, or we live in a fear of the

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Speaker 1: bigotry that comes with a fat phobic culture. And for me,

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Speaker 1: what I will say about my weight is that as

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Speaker 1: I got older it became an issue. When I was

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Speaker 1: before I turned thirty nine forty, I was basically skinny

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Speaker 1: and could eat whatever I wanted and didn't have to

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Speaker 1: think about my weight. And then as I got older,

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Speaker 1: I gained weight. And this is not unusual. So like

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Speaker 1: weight gain for me is like tied to like getting older,

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Speaker 1: and so like there's my internalized fat phobia. There's my

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Speaker 1: internalized agism that collide when it comes to my weight.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting, like, you know, when I lost weight,

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Speaker 1: like a few years ago, I wasn't actually the healthiest,

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Speaker 1: some things going on with my health that caused me

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Speaker 1: to lose weight, And it was really interesting watching the

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Speaker 1: world kind of validate this smaller body that was actually

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Speaker 1: not healthy and that was deep to me, and it

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Speaker 1: continues to be deep to me. But you know, I

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Speaker 1: didn't have my breakout moment until I was over forty.

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Speaker 1: So I've like had this weight fluctuation thing since I've

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Speaker 1: been in the public eye. And I think about the

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Speaker 1: eleven Honorary Fashion show that I walked in, what was

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Speaker 1: it twenty twenty nineteen and it was Fall twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: for New York Fashion Week. Eleven Honorey is a company

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Speaker 1: that caters to the plus size market, right, and I

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Speaker 1: closed the show and at the time, I would think

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Speaker 1: of it as a size ten. I've been anywhere from

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Speaker 1: like I fluctuated probably from a size eight to like

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Speaker 1: twelve fourteen. I think there was a period when I

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Speaker 1: was like opposed to a fourteen. And so as my

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Speaker 1: weight is fluctuated. I've had to really work to look

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Speaker 1: in the mirror and embrace and be happy. But it's

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Speaker 1: so much harder for me to look in the mirror

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Speaker 1: when I'm heavier and love what I see than it

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Speaker 1: is when I'm a little lighter, and to love what

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Speaker 1: I see like I am. Now, that's my internalized fat phobia.

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Speaker 1: That's my scarcity thinking around aging. It's this fear around desirability,

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Speaker 1: being marketable. That's also linked internalized misogyny, internalized sexism, all

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Speaker 1: this stuff, right, and then there's the lens of white

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Speaker 1: supremacy and anti blackness.

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Speaker 2: Right. So I'm a trans.

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Speaker 1: Woman, I'm a woman over fifty, and I'm a black woman,

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Speaker 1: and we live in a culture that is that I

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Speaker 1: contend is anti black, that a lot of folks would

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Speaker 1: agree as anti black and as white supremacist, and that

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Speaker 1: colorism is real, and the closer to whiteness one appears,

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Speaker 1: the more cultural currency they have, the more beautiful one

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Speaker 1: is often considered.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's something I'm.

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Speaker 1: Critical of, but it's so tricky for me with my

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Speaker 1: I'm like sitting here in my blonde wig right now,

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Speaker 1: and Bill Hooks was so critical of me and my

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Speaker 1: blonde hair and very critical of like black women with

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Speaker 1: blonde hair. Anyway, when I went blonde for the first

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Speaker 1: time in the nineties, me being blonde was tied to

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Speaker 1: like what I thought was a softening of my features

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Speaker 1: in terms of femininity. I'm I'm a trans woman who

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Speaker 1: has not had facial surgery, because there is a connection between, Like, historically,

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Speaker 1: the femininity of black women is something that's been disavowed

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Speaker 1: and detegrated. So I'm like, is that, you know, internalized misogyny, noir,

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Speaker 1: white supremacy, or is it just like I think blonde

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Speaker 1: hair softens my features as a trans woman because and

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Speaker 1: I still think that lighter hair kind of raids better

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Speaker 1: on camera in terms of how it picks up the light.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know, but I do think that, like,

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Speaker 1: I just like being blonde, And is that I mean?

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Speaker 1: And I can unpack that, and I could be like,

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Speaker 1: is there an anti blackness thing there that I've internalized

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Speaker 1: or is it just aesthetically I think I look better

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Speaker 1: even though I'm a black woman. So that's an interesting question.

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Speaker 1: And I'm sure people listening to this have lots of

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Speaker 1: thoughts when we think about colorism and anti blackness. And

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Speaker 1: white supremacy. Folks have a lot of opinions online about

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Speaker 1: all of that. This is a good time to take

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Speaker 1: a little break. We'll be right back though, Okay, we're back.

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Speaker 1: So it's more of a relief to be this age

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Speaker 1: and to look at my body half naked and like

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Speaker 1: it through the lens of my transness, through the lens

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Speaker 1: of my blackness, through the lens of my internalized like

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Speaker 1: fat phobia and agism, to look at my body and

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Speaker 1: just be like cool, awesome, great, And some of it

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Speaker 1: is about how my transition has gone. Healthcare has been

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Speaker 1: life saving for me, so that there is a relationship

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Speaker 1: between access to gender firming care that like has me

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Speaker 1: at this stage of my life loving my body. And

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Speaker 1: then in terms of like my blackness, that's just been

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Speaker 1: about acceptance. All of these too, honestly have also been

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Speaker 1: about acceptance. It's interesting, estrogen is really wonderful, estrogen is cool,

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Speaker 1: and testosterone is evil.

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Speaker 2: For me anyway, evil in my body.

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Speaker 1: So I'm like, you know, I love what estrogen has

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Speaker 1: done to my body, and like, even though I have

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Speaker 1: the same features looking at my face over the years,

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Speaker 1: I was looking at old pictures of me with my

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Speaker 1: makeup artist Asia, and it was just like, it's the

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Speaker 1: same face, but things are just kind of softer now.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting and it's fascinating. And there was a point

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Speaker 1: in my life when I wanted to have a full

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Speaker 1: facial feminization situation. So and again, like even talking about

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Speaker 1: surgery in this way, I'm skeptical of and I've been

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Speaker 1: very consistent since I've had a public platform that talking

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Speaker 1: about surgery and transition for trans people publicly, our stories

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Speaker 1: are often reduced to that, and that is dehumanizing because

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Speaker 1: it objectifies us. A lot of times people just assume

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Speaker 1: that being trans is all about surgery. I tend to

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Speaker 1: talk about surgeries I haven't had. You know, in the

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Speaker 1: trans community knows all the different surgeries that like encompass

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Speaker 1: a full facial feminization.

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Speaker 2: I wanted all of them.

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Speaker 1: Because I was, you know, walking down the street and

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Speaker 1: still being read as trans, and that was frustrating for me.

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Speaker 1: And I thought like, if I got facial feminization, I'd

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Speaker 1: be able to like move through the world with less harassment.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's really what that was about for me.

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Speaker 1: Part of it may have been chasing some sort of

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Speaker 1: sense of perfectionism or being accepted more in my womanhood.

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Speaker 1: Luckily I didn't have the money at the time for

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Speaker 1: facial feminization. And then something shifted in terms of my

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Speaker 1: transition process and the feminizing process of estrogen. Over the years,

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Speaker 1: something shifted around me feeling good about myself and honestly

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Speaker 1: being affirmed. When Rat's New Black happened, there was a

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Speaker 1: level of affirmation that I was getting from the public

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Speaker 1: that shifted things for me because of my job and

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Speaker 1: the platform I have that there is a level of

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Speaker 1: affirmation that I get as a black trans woman that

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Speaker 1: most black trans women do not get, and that has

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Speaker 1: been transformative for me. So it's beautiful to be affirmed,

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Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, it's not. It's

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Speaker 1: still not enough to lie feel good about yourself to

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Speaker 1: have other people tell you that you're beautiful, because I've

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Speaker 1: always found things about myself that I don't like. I

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Speaker 1: could pick myself apart like nobody's business. So everything I've

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Speaker 1: done in terms of affirming my gender medically, I felt

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Speaker 1: has been necessary. Nothing has been cosmetic for me. It's

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Speaker 1: all been necessary. But I am more than my body,

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Speaker 1: and trans people are more than our bodies. Another thing

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Speaker 1: I wanted to say, and I was talking to my friend,

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Speaker 1: our lady J about this. Oh you know, I used

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Speaker 1: to have this belief and still part of me still.

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Speaker 2: Does, you know.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm old school that like early transition, trans

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Speaker 1: people should not be on TV or in the public eye,

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Speaker 1: and the Internet has just changed all that, you know.

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Speaker 1: I just think about me and early transition, I just

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Speaker 1: was a mess and that's okay. We have a right

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Speaker 1: to be messy in our lives, to figure ourselves out.

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Speaker 1: But like so often, likes people are sort of made

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Speaker 1: to speak for the entire community, or like we are

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Speaker 1: held up. It's like when we're public figures to sort

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Speaker 1: of represent the whole community, and that's not fair. But

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Speaker 1: we should have a space to be able to be

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Speaker 1: messy and to be imperfect.

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Speaker 2: But the stakes just get really.

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Speaker 1: High in a really anti trans world, and it's like

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Speaker 1: deeply anti trans right now. So that's part of why

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, have thought that, but then that

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Speaker 1: ship is sailed. There are lots of trans folks who

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Speaker 1: document their transitions online, and I think that's a wonderful

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Speaker 1: resource for other trans people. If you're not trans, it's

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Speaker 1: like kind of weird, you know. I think it is

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Speaker 1: what it is, though some trans people just want to

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Speaker 1: publicly document that and that should be okay. We just

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Speaker 1: have like we just live in a really transphobic world

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Speaker 1: that like wants to dehumanize us. So it's like the

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Speaker 1: piece around having a conversation about my body today is

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Speaker 1: like how do I do it in a way? And

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Speaker 1: I hope that I've been able to have a conversation

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Speaker 1: about my body that doesn't dehueize me and other trans people.

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Speaker 1: Our bodies matter paraphrasing JUDEH. Butler and that iconic book

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Speaker 1: from the nineties, And like when I say my body,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about my nervous system, I'm talking.

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Speaker 2: About my skin, my nails, my.

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Speaker 1: Secondary sexual characteristics, my energy levels, my cortisoli release, my adrenaline.

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Speaker 2: My thoughts are part of my body.

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Speaker 1: All those things matter, and access to healthcare to take

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Speaker 1: care of these bodies.

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Speaker 2: As you get older. It's I've gotten older.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, it's so important to like

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Speaker 1: take care of this body, you know, if I want

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Speaker 1: to be around for a while.

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Speaker 2: So this body matters.

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Speaker 1: But it's not the sum total of everything that I am. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm grateful that I'm digging my body today, I just

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Speaker 1: wonder about if I were white with my relationship to

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Speaker 1: my body, and like my whiteness would be would I'd

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Speaker 1: be able to look at like the privileges that at

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Speaker 1: being white in culture would afford me, would be able

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Speaker 1: to look at that? And then I also think about

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Speaker 1: aging and like being black and how wonderful, how wonderful

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Speaker 1: it is aging as an African American, Like I think

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Speaker 1: that's it's been really dope for me.

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Speaker 2: I love being black and fifty.

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Speaker 1: And like, you know, thank you Melanin, And I like

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Speaker 1: to end every podcast with the question what else is true?

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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh?

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Speaker 1: And for me today, what else is true? The thing

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Speaker 1: that gets me through the resource that I have? I

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Speaker 1: have idan Terry Muglaire arriving today that I'm excited about.

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Speaker 1: I have a weekend planned with my boyfriend that I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited about. I'm excited about life outside of work,

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Speaker 1: outside of you know, accomplishments, and define myself a lot

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Speaker 1: historically about like outside markers of success. And what else

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Speaker 1: is true for me today is that, like I'm just

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Speaker 1: really excited to like play dress up for myself and

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Speaker 1: to see my boyfriend.

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Speaker 2: And spend quality time with him, and to.

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Speaker 1: Have a life outside of work and.

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Speaker 2: Not be overly defined by like my job.

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Speaker 1: I hope I've been able to have this conversation about

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Speaker 1: my body, the various lenses that I see my body

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Speaker 1: through that the world sees my body through in a

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Speaker 1: way that is humanizing. And so yeah, LaVerne's diary entry,

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Speaker 1: Laverne just thoughts.

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Speaker 2: Thoughts about my body.

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Speaker 1: And I hope that this conversation inspires everyone out there

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Speaker 1: to think about their relationship to their bodies and relationship

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Speaker 1: to fat phobia, racism, anti blackness, colorism. You know, are

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Speaker 1: there ways for us to talk about our bodies, particularly

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Speaker 1: as trans people. And I think it's really about the lens, right,

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Speaker 1: I can do this on this podcast and frame it

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Speaker 1: in a certain way, because you know, I'm not being

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Speaker 1: filtered through some other cystender gaze or patriarchal gaze or

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Speaker 1: white supremacist gaze. I'm hopefully decentering those ways of looking.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's really what it's about, disentering those

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Speaker 1: ways of seeing ourselves and each other, and then we

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Speaker 1: can have conversations that think about our bodies. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: something to think about seeing ourselves through non colonized eyes,

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Speaker 1: or you know, as much as we can, right, as

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Speaker 1: much as I can, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: That's what it's about, I think. And then hopefully we

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Speaker 1: can look in the mirror and all see the beauty

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Speaker 1: that we possess in all of our bodies, because our

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Speaker 1: bodies are not an apology in our bodies manner, and

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Speaker 1: they are beautiful.

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Speaker 2: They're beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please like,

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Speaker 1: subscribe and tell everybody you know about this podcast. You

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Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter at Laverne

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Speaker 1: Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until

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Speaker 1: next time, stay in the loud. The Laverne Cox Show

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Speaker 1: is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.