Laverne Cox, an Emmy-nominated actress and advocate for trans rights, is working on a new documentary called Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, which will document the lives of seven transgender youths and air on MTV and Logo TV on October 17.
The title, The T Word, is a play on The L Word, which was a show that aired from 2004 to 2009 about the lives of lesbians. But according to Cox, The T Word is about more than being transgender. She told the Wrap: "For many of us, the ‘T’ in LGBT means more than transgender. It also means truth. The cast members in this documentary are fearlessly living their truths and in sharing their stories will send the message to other trans youth that it’s okay to be who you are.”
This documentary, which is about an hour long, is going to be a landmark, revolutionary documentation of trans youth, not only because it's one of the first pieces of media to go mainstream on the issue, but because it is created by a trans woman herself. Too often, trans characters are played and created by cisgender people who don't have much license to speak on the issue; in fact, one of the first television shows to break that problematic trend was Orange Is the New Black in which Cox herself plays a trans woman. It's about time that we have content produced on people who are the makers of the content themselves.
Check out the first trailer here:
