Laverne Cox Was The Target Of A Hate Crime This Weekend
I know it’s redundant to say that Mondays are the clogged shower drain hair clump of the week, but here is something that Monday’s reputation for being the worst really didn’t need. Laverne Cox was reportedly the victim of a transphobic hate crime in Los Angeles over the weekend. But don’t worry, she didn’t get physically hurt and she’s relatively ok after all of it.
Laverne broke the news herself on Instagram, with an 11-minute long video explaining the alleged situation that was posted on Saturday. She says that earlier on Saturday, she and a male friend were walking in Griffith Park when a random, aggressive man asked her and her friend for the time. After Laverne’s friend gave up the time, the man then asked, “Guy or girl,” likely in regards to Laverne’s identity. Laverne says her friend replied with a succinct and very much deserving response of: “Fuck off.” That’s when the random park asshole allegedly started getting violent with Laverne’s friend.
Laverne says she took out her phone to report the incident, but by the time she dialed 911, it was all over and the violent man had left the scene. So, the police didn’t get involved. She believes it had everything to do with her being a transwoman, and she acknowledged the depressing truth that being a famous person doesn’t offer her any protection against such violence:
“This dude was looking for trouble…because I happened to be a trans person in public. That’s all it felt like. This isn’t shocking to me – obviously, this is my life. I’ve dealt with this a lot, but it never fails to be shocking, I guess…I’ve been trans my whole life, I’ve been harassed and bullied my whole life. None of this is new, but it’s still just kind of like…why do you need to be aggressive? It doesn’t matter who you are. You can be, like, Laverne Cox, whatever that means. If you’re trans, you’re going to experience stuff like this.”
She says that she’s ok, except for feeling shocked and triggered at the incident. She ends by reminding everyone who has experienced something similar that it’s not your fault, and there’s nothing you could have been doing to deserve the hate being targeted towards you.
It sucks that Laverne didn’t get to call in a report on that park asshole, to whichever police division takes care of such matters (I assume Park Asshole Control is a department, and if it’s not, it should be). And there’s nothing funny about this situation. But…there is one thing that’s kind of funny, and it’s at the 2:33 mark in her video, when Laverne takes a long sip from a glass of clear liquid and stresses that it’s just water. I don’t think anyone would have blamed her if she poured herself an 8-oz glass of vodka after all that.
Pic: Wenn.com/FayesVision