I just wanted to once again post a link to this great conversation between bell hooks and Laverne Cox, a conversation that touched on so many of the things that are important to me–the journey and experience of being a transgender person and the challenge of loving yourself as a transgender person in a hateful world, thinking critically about media, the risks and the importance of loving others, what it means to be a feminist. Here are some of my favorite quotes and exchanges:

Cox:

“I was able to draw links between the bullying I experienced in my own life and the violence I experienced as a gender-nonconforming person and how that was an attack on femininity, and it made me really begin to understand as a college student that we cannot talk about ending homophobia without talking about ending patriarchy, that we cannot talk about ending transphobia without talking about ending patriarchy.”

hooks: 

“One thing that’s really clear to us is things are not either/or. Orange is the New Black is not all bad or all good, and neither is media. More often than not, images in media are mixed. And it’s hard for us then because what’s the language to talk about them? What’s the language to talk about her progressive image and her character of Sophia and all those other tired-ass black women that are just reproducing so many stereotypes in the things that they say and do?”

hooks:

“How do we live our lives, living and loving justice? Because—part of what’s happened to Laverne, in her journey, to Janet Mock, to many trans folks, is going deep into commitment and a love of justice, not just for trans folks but for all the groups of people that are oppressed and suffering…part of why (Laverne) is doing so much is having that power of voice, where you can speak out for justice, where you can speak out against different wrongs…she’s told us she started out in a place of uncertainty, in a place of not being self-loving, and then she moved and moved and moved and then here you are, a little goddess for justice!”

Cox:

“I think it’s courageous for transgender folks to just step out of their houses as themselves and live their truth.”

hooks: 

“When Laverne said that she didn’t want to be pushing her own show, why not? Why not glory in the things that we have accomplished? These journeys that we have taken to self-actualization have not been easy journeys…no matter how popular (Laverne Cox) becomes…she still has to go out into this mean world of hatred, that we as people of color, as people of varied sexual identities and practices, will always, until we change the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, have to confront. And so the question becomes, what gives us the strength and the power to confront and to change?”

hooks:

“We are works in progress. Very few of us are static in the way we grow. Who knows what life will take Laverne to?… When I think about my search for love, I might have an ideal in my mind of who it is I could partner with, and life might bring me completely someone that does not meet that ideal but that is loving. And then that’s a challenge, will I choose to love or will I stay attached to my ideal in some way that keeps that love from me? And that, to me, is so much harder to think about… Identity politics has its place, but the more important place in our lives is who we connect with, who we find we can love, and we don’t always connect with the people that are just like us.“

hooks:

“What I want is for people to feel comfortable in the circumstance of risk…I’m very interested in what does it mean for us to cultivate together community that allows for risk, the risk of knowing someone outside your own boundaries, the risk that is love. There is no love that does not involve risk… What allows us to then be in that space is loving kindness, it is what love is that allows us to be in that space where we don’t agree, where we may see things totally different… to cultivate in one another the courage, the courage to be self-actualized, the realization that you have to choose to be who you are… What trans person who has moved forward in this society has not had to persevere?” 

LC: “…and not say that one person is more feminist than the other so that we can find ways to come together cross-difference.” 

bh: “I think it’s difficult because some people are more feminist than others!”

LC: “This is why we love bell hooks!”

bh: “This is something that’s been on my mind lately and it’s been disturbing me, is that if feminism is all things to all people, then what is it? How do we locate it as a radical political movement in our lives if everybody just makes of it—which doesn’t mean that we should demonize but we do have to be clear about, what are the boundaries?”