Trigger Warning: Suicide, Depression
Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBTQ+ advocate known for her role in Netflix’s Orange is the New Black and becoming the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the acting category. She is known as a trailblazer throughout the transgender community and has won numerous awards for her activism and LGBTQ+ awareness. She is the first openly transgender person to be on the cover of Time, be nominated for an Emmy in the acting category, win and Emmy for executive producing, and have a wax statue in Madame Tussauds.
This past week, Laverne Cox opened up about her mental health issues in a lengthy post on Twitter. Highlights from her post included:
“Many years ago when I was contemplating suicide, I was planning to have a note in my pocket at the time of my death and several other notes in my home which would state my name, my preferred gender pronouns, and that I should be referred to as a woman in my death.”
She also wrote:
“Being misgendered and deadnamed in my death felt like it would be the ultimate insult to the psychological and emotional injuries I was experiencing daily as a black trans woman in New York City, the injuries that made me want to take my own life.”
In the same post she explained that she had stopped tweeting about trans murders because she wanted to stop living in a space of “death, murder, and the injustices that lead to those deaths.”
The full tweet can be found below:
h/t: The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7 free and confidential support. To reach them, call 1-800-273-8255.