Actress, activist Laverne Cox to speak at Pitt

Actress and transgender rights activist Laverne Cox will speak at Pitt this spring, according to Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance. 

Cox, best known for her role as hairdresser Sophia Burset in the Netflix series “Orange Is The New Black,” will speak to students on March 30 at 7 p.m.

Cox’s talk will kick off Pride Week, which is from March 30 to April 3, according to Rainbow Alliance’s vice president Michael O’Brien. Other slated events, O’Brien said, will address gender, pride and sexuality.

The title of Cox’s talk is “Ain’t I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood” and will explore “how the intersections of race, class and gender uniquely affect the lives of trans women of color,” according to the Keppler Speakers Bureau website. 

Born in Mobile, Ala., and identified at birth as male, Cox now speaks at universities around the country as a transgender rights activist. She speaks to empower individuals to move beyond gender expectations and live more authentically. She was also recently named one of Out Magazine’s “Out 100,” one of the country’s top 50 transgender icons by The Huffington Post and one of MetroSource Magazine’s “55 People We Love.”

Erin Cullen, business manager of Rainbow Alliance, is helping to organize the event. Cullen worked with students and administrators to bring Cox to Pitt for “about a year and a half,” she said. Trans issues are “important topic[s],” she said, ones that “need to be discussed.”

“Representation of trans students is something that is lacking [at Pitt],” she said.

This idea of transgender empowerment that Cox is a proponent of comes at a key time for Pitt. 

In 2012, The Pitt News reported that Seamus Johnston, a former Pitt student, and Tricia Dougherty, former president of the Rainbow Alliance, filed complaints against Pitt to the Pittsburgh Commission of Human Relations that Johnston had been discriminated against because of his sex. The complaints were filed because Johnston, who was identified at birth as a woman but identifies as a man, was expelled from Pitt Johnstown for his continued use of the men’s locker room.  

To fund the event, Cullen said Rainbow Alliance received grants from both the office of Cross Cultural and Learning Development and the University of Pittsburgh Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program, as well as allocations from Student Government Board.

Cox will speak in the seventh floor auditorium of Alumni Hall. The auditorium seats up to 700 people, and Cox is expected to “fill the place,” according to Rainbow Alliance president Allie McCarthy. 

Cox is the first high-profile speaker Rainbow Alliance has hosted, McCarthy said, and she hopes Cox’s talk will expand the organization’s influence on campus and foster a larger dialogue.

“We’re trying to expand the organization to get bigger events and reach more students,” she said. “The community doesn’t know a lot about trans issues. Laverne Cox is a big name. People will come and learn about [those] issues.”