Laverne Cox is seeing hearts!
During a remote appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Orange Is the New Black actress confirmed she is dating—and the L word has been used. "Laverne is in love again. It feels amazing," she shared with Ellen DeGeneres. "Love is an incredible thing. It's literally this chemical thing that's awesome."
As for the new man in her life, Cox did not reveal his name, but did disclose some details about their coronavirus pandemic-era romance. "He's a really great guy. I didn't expect it," she said. "I thought he was just gonna be this hot dude I was gonna be hanging out with and then it just kind of happened."
According to the Daytime Emmy winner, "We've been hanging out for six months and we went really slowly...The word 'love' just sort of happened around November/December."
During the interview, the Laverne Cox Show podcast host also spoke about why men often don't want to tell anyone about their relationship with a trans woman.
"The issue over the years for me as a trans woman and other trans women is that the womanhood of trans women is often disavowed," she said. "That a lot of people don't see trans women as women, so the men who are attracted to women—people think they're gay."
As Cox explained, that can cause men to want to keep the relationship a secret. "If you're a straight man, you don't want people to think you're gay," she shared. "A lot of times they don't want to disclose or want to let anyone know."
As a result, little progress is made. "People don't get it. People just don't understand it and it's really sad and I wish we were in a different place, but we're just not there yet," Cox said before issuing a call. "We need a guy who is probably famous and articulate to be able to talk about this, to be able to come out and maybe publicly talk about it."
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