Actress Laverne Cox was left “in shock” following an unsettling transphobic attack she and her friend experienced on Saturday.
The Orange Is the New Black star took to Instagram to recall the incident. She says that it all began when a man came up to them and “aggressively asked for the time” while they were out in Los Angeles.
“The friend that I’m with looks at his watch and tells him the time, and then the guy who asked for the time says to my friend: ‘Guy or girl?'” Cox said. “My friend says, ‘F*ck off’… then all of a sudden, the guy was attacking my friend.”
She continued, “I look back and I’m like, ‘What is happening?’ The guy is like hitting my friend … I pull out my phone and I call to dial 911, and all of a sudden it’s over and the guy is gone.”
An obviously distraught Cox says the man’s intentions were dishonest from the very start.
“I don’t know why it matters. At the end of the day, it’s like who cares?” she said in the video. “I’m in a hoodie and yoga pants, I’m completely covered up, I’ve got my mask on — who cares if I’m trans? … How does this affect your life?”
Unfortunately, Cox said it’s nothing new for trans people to face discrimination and violence for existing in public.
“It’s not safe in the world. And I don’t like to think about that a lot, but it is the truth,” she said. “It’s the truth and it’s not safe if you’re a trans person. Obviously, I know this well. It’s just really sad.”
Sadly, she says this is not her first encounter like this, and says that when you’re a part of the trans community, this is part of the journey.
“Obviously, this is my life. I’ve dealt with this a lot, but it never fails to be shocking,” she said. “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.”
