Actress Laverne Cox took to Instagram, where she opened up about being the victim of a transphobic attack over the weekend that left her “shocked” and “triggered.”
The Los Angeles Times reports The Orange Is the New Black alum was walking with a friend in Griffith Park when a man “aggressively asked for the time” and asked her friend, “guy or girl?” The man suddenly attacked her friend, unprovoked.
“I look back, and I’m like, what is happening?” Cox said Saturday. “The guy is hitting my friend. My friend is going towards him. And I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t,’ and I pull out my phone and call 911… All of a sudden, it’s over, and the guy is gone.”
The actress, still visibly shaken, says that she has “a long history of street harassment,” so sadly, this type of harassment is not new for her.
“It’s not safe in the world. I don’t like to think about it a lot, but it is the truth — it’s the truth, and it’s not safe if you’re a trans person. Obviously, I know this well,” Cox said in the almost 11-minute video.
Cox said she initially questioned herself and her actions, thinking maybe what happened was her fault, but that ultimately, she knows it wasn’t her fault or her friend’s fault.
“It’s important for me to remind myself and remind you that when these things happen, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that there are people who are not cool with you existing in the world,” she said.
