Laverne Cox is sharing some of the most painful and personal chapters of her life in her upcoming memoir Transcendent, offering a deeply emotional reflection on childhood trauma, survival, and the long road toward healing.
The Orange Is the New Black star revisits experiences that shaped her early years, including surviving sexual assault as a teenager and attempting to take her own life at just 11 years old. The memoir, set for release on June 9, traces how those moments impacted her sense of self and how she eventually found ways to move forward.
In the book, Laverne Cox details a suicide attempt at age 11, when she swallowed a bottle of her mother’s medication during a period of overwhelming emotional distress. She recalls waking up the next morning feeling sick and says she never told anyone at the time. Looking back, she now recognizes that moment as part of a much larger struggle with isolation and pain during her childhood.
Two years later, at age 13, Cox writes about being sexually assaulted by two older boys inside a church bathroom. The experience, she explains, left her carrying deep emotional wounds and a lasting sense of shame that followed her for years.
“Shame is the intensely painful feeling that you’re unworthy of connection or belonging,” she shared in reflecting on how the experience affected her. “If someone finds this out about me, I’ll never be worthy of love.”
Cox also describes how those experiences were compounded by bullying and rejection, creating a sense of being “abandoned, unlovable, and discarded” during her formative years. The memoir explores how those emotions stayed with her well into adulthood, shaping how she viewed herself and her place in the world.
Despite the weight of those memories, Cox says there were two key anchors that helped her survive her childhood: education and dance. She credits both with giving her structure, purpose, and an outlet during a time when everything else felt unstable.
“Dancing and school kept me alive,” she said, adding that her mother’s support of those passions ultimately played a critical role in changing the direction of her life.
Writing Transcendent, Cox admits, was not easy. She has described the process as emotionally draining and at times re-traumatizing, as it forced her to revisit experiences she had spent years trying to process.
“Writing this book brought back all the traumatic, awful shaming from my childhood,” she shared. “But there was also a very resilient child.”
Today, Cox says she no longer defines herself by those early experiences. Instead, she sees them as part of a longer journey that led her toward self-acceptance, healing, and a deeper understanding of her own strength.
