Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBTQ advocate born May 29, 1972. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. In 2014, she became the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category. She has since established herself as a prominent figure in media, activism, and television representation.

Cox was born in Mobile, Alabama, where she was raised by a single mother and grandmother within the AME Zion church. She has an identical twin brother, M Lamar, who later played her character's pre-transition persona on Orange Is the New Black. Cox attempted suicide at age 11 after facing years of bullying for not acting as expected for someone assigned male at birth. She graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts, where she studied creative writing and dance, before attending Indiana University Bloomington and Marymount Manhattan College, switching her focus to acting. She also studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology and worked as a drag queen in New York City.

Cox began her television career as a contestant on VH1's I Want to Work for Diddy and subsequently co-produced and co-hosted the makeover series TRANSform Me, becoming the first African-American transgender person to produce and star in her own television show. Her early acting credits included appearances in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Bored to Death, and Musical Chairs.

In 2013, Cox gained wide recognition for playing incarcerated trans woman Sophia Burset in Orange Is the New Black, a role that provided her a platform to advocate for transgender rights. She received Primetime Emmy nominations for the role in 2014 and 2017. In 2017, she played attorney Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt, becoming the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast television. Her subsequent screen work includes executive producing the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, appearing in the film The Uglies, hosting E!'s Live from the Red Carpet, and competing on The Masked Singer.

Throughout her career, Cox achieved numerous media and industry milestones. In 2015, she became the first transgender woman to win a Daytime Emmy Award as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word. She was the first transgender person featured on the cover of Time magazine in June 2014, as well as the first transgender woman on the covers of South African Cosmopolitan and British Vogue. GLAAD honored her with the Stephen F. Kolzak Award in 2014, and she became the first openly transgender person to receive a wax figure at Madame Tussauds. She was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School in 2016.

Alongside acting, Cox works extensively as an advocate addressing trans issues, including violence, employment discrimination, and legal rights. She hosted Billboard's Women in Music in April 2025, served as a grand marshal for WorldPride DC in June 2025, and published her memoir, Transcendent, in June 2026. In a 2026 interview, Cox noted her reliance on speaking engagements and brand ambassadorships alongside acting, while pointing to significant income losses stemming from policy actions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.