Laverne Cox on violence against trans people

Brut America

"No one deserves to lose their lives simply for being who they are."   Actress Laverne Cox has a message about the epidemic of violence and discrimination against transgender people.

Transcript

00:00The violence that exists against trans people globally is an epidemic that is killing way too many of us.

00:07Over 50% of trans people make less than $10,000 a year, so poverty in my community is a huge,

00:31huge issue.

00:32Doing the work to end poverty is interconnected with issues of HIV, interconnected with issues

00:38of transphobia and sexism.

00:40They are all interconnected and they're all related.

00:42We have to change our hearts and minds.

00:45Policies are important, but each individual in their hearts has to say that no one should

00:50deserve to lose their life simply for being who they are.

00:53So, yeah, we have to do all this work together.

01:02Actually, the past five years, we've seen record numbers of trans people murdered in

01:11the United States and globally, more than we've ever since we've been taking, collecting

01:16data on that.

01:17I also think that that's partly a backlash to the unprecedented visibility that trans

01:21people are having in the United States and globally, that we're more visible than we've

01:25ever been, and so there's inevitably backlash to that, so I think that's part of it.

01:29And I think there's just a lot of fear.

01:32You don't need to be afraid of trans people.

01:35We just want the same rights as everybody else.

01:38So, yeah, you have nothing to be afraid of.

01:40We just want to live our lives and live our dreams like everybody else does.

01:51I think globally, for trans folk, so much of it is still about stigma, it's about education,

01:57and then it's about access.

01:58We cannot continue to stigmatize the existence and the identities of trans people because

02:02that leads to our deaths, that leads to us living in poverty, not being able to get jobs,

02:07policies like here in my country, that they're created to limit the possibilities of us being

02:13able to have protections under the law, so we have to end the stigma.

02:17Trans people are human beings who deserve to live.

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