Best Of: Laverne Cox /Comic Ali Siddiq

June 26, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Laverne Cox was eight years old, playing at a park in Mobile, Alabama, when the Caraway boys cornered her. They shoved her, then punched her in the face and chest, sneering "look at this sissy, like a girl." She curled into a ball. When she finally made it home, her mother didn't ask what happened. She said, "You let them beat you up like this? What did you do to make them do this to you?" That moment, Cox says, "sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected, not feeling safe." It is the opening scene of her new memoir, Transcendent, and it arrives at a moment when the right of trans people to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country. But the book makes clear that for Cox, none of this is new.

The violence of being seen

Cox grew up in Mobile as an effeminate child who could not conform to what was expected of her. The bullying was persistent. She describes the Caraway boys as "interchangeably menacing figures" whose eyes would "switch" when they saw her—she was no longer a peer but "an easy target." The words they hurled were ones she had heard for years: words that meant she was "a girl when I should have acted like a boy."

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What you'll learn

1 (00:28) **Introduction: Laverne Cox and Her New Memoir** - Tanya Moseley introduces Laverne Cox, one of the most visible trans women in America, and her new memoir *Transcendent*, which details her childhood in Mobile, Alabama.
2 (02:42) **The "Orange is the New Black" Phenomenon** - Cox reflects on her iconic role as Sophia Burset and the emotional impact of hearing a clip from the show.
3 (06:36) **Origin Story: The Childhood Beating** - Cox reads a passage about being violently bullied by the "Caraway boys" at age eight.
4 (10:44) **The Anger and the Permission Structure** - Cox explains her anger revisiting the story, linking it to current anti-trans laws.
5 (15:17) **Childhood in Mobile, Alabama** - Describing the trauma embedded in her hometown and her desperate need to escape to New York.
6 (19:04) **The Fan Incident and Conversion Therapy** - Cox recounts being humiliated by a teacher for using a hand fan in a "Scarlett O'Hara" manner.
7 (21:34) **Navigating New York and Internalized Transphobia** - Cox discusses her early days in New York, identifying with the East Village androgynous scene but not the drag world.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Laverne Cox Ali Siddiq

Show Notes

For over a decade, Laverne Cox has been one of the most visible trans women in America. In her new memoir, ‘Transcendent,’ she writes about growing up in Mobile, Ala., and the bullying and harassment she faced. She says she survived it by going somewhere else in her mind, often through music and dance.

Also, we hear from comic Ali Siddiq. He served six years in a Texas prison and turned his life into some of the most-watched storytelling in comedy.

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