Laverne Cox Makes Emmy History

The “Orange is the New Black” star, Laverne Cox made Emmy history yesterday as the first transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy.

Cox received a nomination for “Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series” for her role as Sophia Burset in the Netflix series, “Orange is the New Black.”

“For me personally, I am an individual who consumes mainstream culture,” she told Time Magazine. “I watch a lot of television. I go to mainstream films. And I want to see myself. I want to turn on the television and see people who look like me who have similar experiences that I have. And I think that trans people want and deserve that; everybody wants and deserves that. We should have representations that humanize our experiences and tell the diversity and the complexity of our experiences. I have mainstream sensibilities. Just because I’m black and trans does not mean I’m somehow not mainstream and not consuming the same culture everyone else is consuming. For so long we haven’t had that kind of validation of our experiences in mainstream culture, particularly as black trans women — but as trans people in general…”