00:00Wait, so you have a gift for me?
00:02Yes!
00:03Well, you may...
00:04I thought...
00:05I was like, you were at my birthday party, so you probably already have it.
00:07It's okay.
00:08This is going to be the easiest.
00:09Unwrap it.
00:10Wait.
00:11Maybe not.
00:12There is a Laverne Cox Barbie.
00:14She's sitting here.
00:15That's it.
00:16Now, I was...
00:17Round of applause.
00:18Now, I can tell you, as a...
00:21Am I a hetero gay guy?
00:23What is my term?
00:24I don't even know.
00:25Hetero gay.
00:26What?
00:27What is it?
00:28A straight gay.
00:29A straight gay.
00:30I don't know my pronoun.
00:31I don't know my pronoun.
00:32As a gay...
00:33I ain't never had no doll.
00:34But I'm not only going to say thank you for the doll.
00:37We're actually going to...
00:38Go ahead and bring that in.
00:40We're actually going to...
00:41No, just come right over here.
00:43We're going to put her right here.
00:45Hi.
00:46So we have...
00:47Yes!
00:48Her hair should be styled.
00:49Yes.
00:50Let's have her...
00:51This is a first that I'm really proud of.
00:57I'm the first trans person, openly trans person to have a...
01:00See?
01:01Here we go.
01:02The first trans...
01:03See?
01:04Again.
01:05To have a doll made in their image by Mattel.
01:06I love that.
01:07I love that.
01:08And there's not an agenda.
01:09This isn't an agenda.
01:10There are trans folks, LGBTQ folks of all ages who are inspired by this and who need
01:18to see this, you know?
01:20And people who aren't.
01:21And what has also been so beautiful about my life and career is that there are people
01:24who aren't LGBTQ+, or Black, or whatever, who were inspired because I...
01:31Nothing that has happened in my career is supposed, was supposed to happen.
01:36There are all these Black trans women being nominated for Emmys or on magazine covers.
01:41No.
01:42Not before me.
01:43So none of this was meant to be or was supposed to happen.
01:47And so...
01:48And the evolution of it and you being groundbreaking doesn't make it your fault, as they will say.
01:53You're on the cover of Time or you have the doll.
01:55It's your agenda.
01:56It's an agenda you're the face of.
01:58People I think are connecting with your advocacy and your visibility and you're being blessed
02:03because of the work that you put in.
02:04I have a right.
02:05And I have a right to live my dreams.
02:08We all have a...
02:09This is America.
02:10And I...
02:11As many problems as this country has, I believe that everybody should be able to live their
02:15dreams here and be able to do with our bodies and with our lives what we should be able
02:21to do and what we want to do.
02:23And so the fact that I'm a Black trans woman living my best life, genuinely happy, you
02:30know, making a lovely living, being visible.
02:34People are inspired by it because it's like, this is not something that most of us grew
02:38up with.
02:39You know, there are other kids growing up with it, which is wonderful.
02:42And it's just, I think my story is a testament to like, you know, a lot of hard work, perseverance
02:47and passion.
02:48There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into everything I do.
02:51And even if people think I suck at acting or whatever, I do have four Emmy nominations
02:56for acting.
02:57Somebody doesn't think I suck.
03:02And honestly, but to be real, I've seen performances of mine that suck.
03:06I think some of my favorite actors have done terrible performances and that like inspires
03:11me.
03:12I'm like, and I'm not going to name any of them.
03:13I'm like, some of my favorite actors, like, I'm like, that was not good.
03:16And so I, you know, hopefully I'll have a chance to do better the next time.
03:21And I think that like, as an artist, you have to take the risk to suck.
03:25You have to take the risk to, you know, maybe not do well at something because I think we
03:31often learn more from quote unquote failure or when things don't happen the way that we'd
03:35like them to, then we learn from our successes.
03:37But you watch your work back and criticize your own work?
03:39Absolutely.
03:40Because some people don't even watch themselves.
03:41I mean, sometimes it's hard.
03:43I mean, it depends on if it's really close to me, it's harder to watch and I may need
03:46to take a couple of years to watch.
03:48I remember one of the second to last Emmy nomination I got, I couldn't even, like, I
03:53remember watching, I watched the season right when it came out, this is for Orange is the
03:57New Black, and I thought it was too much and I hated it and I was like, oh, this sucks.
04:02And I just was like, and I talked to my acting teacher about it and she didn't agree.
04:07And then like a year later, I get nominated for an Emmy for that work that I thought sucked.
04:11And I was like, why?
04:14I watched it back and I was like, okay, this is actually good, but I needed a year to be
04:18able to kind of like be objective about it.
04:21And I think I was like, oh, actually, this is pretty good.
04:24But sometimes I think I suck, you know, and that's okay.
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