Laverne Cox On Caitlyn Jenner

HIGHLIGHTS: Broadway Bares 25

Sunday night the 25th anniversary edition of Broadway Bares played to two sellout audiences at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom. This year's show was titled Top Bottoms Of Burlesque and as you'll see, it was spectacular from the moment the curtain arose to reveal the bouncing bottoms of buff chorus boys. All 25 years of Broadway Bares are available on DVD and they are taking pre-orders for this year's show.

Laverne Cox Performs At Broadway Bares

At last night's 25th annual Broadway Bares, Laverne Cox performed in a number titled Casting Couch with Casey Lee Ross playing the director.

Laverne Cox Poses As Statue Of Liberty For Latest Issue Of Entertainment Weekly

(Tipped by JMG reader TJ)

SAN FRANCISCO: Madame Tussauds To Unveil Wax Figure Of Laverne Cox

Via TIME Magazine:

Madame Tussauds San Francisco announced Monday that it will debut a wax figure of Laverne Cox, star of Orange Is the New Black and a transgender rights activist, on June 26 during Pride Weekend festivities in the Bay Area. It is the first-ever transgender figure in the museum’s history. June 2015 is already shaping up to be a banner Pride Month for the transgender community since a Vanity Fair cover introduced Caitlyn Jenner (formerly known as Bruce Jenner) on June 1.

(Tipped by JMG reader Alan)

On The GLAAD Media Awards Red Carpet

The GLAAD Media Awards were held at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan this weekend and Marti Cummings Gould worked the red carpet, interviewing Sam Champion, Ross Matthews, Laverne Cox, and honorees Kelly Ripa and Lynda Carter.

Laverne Cox On Bruce Jenner

Emmy-winning actress Laverne Cox attended the White House Correspondents Dinner last night as the guest of the Washington Blade, where she was interviewed about Bruce Jenner by MSNBC's Janet Mock.

"I spoke to Bruce today, and they were really pleased with the way things went last night," said Cox, referring to Jenner and Diane Sawyer's ABC News exclusive interview. "I think a lot of people tuned in expecting to see a spectacle, and they tuned in and saw a profoundly nuanced, complicated, beautiful human being," said the Orange Is the New Black star. "I thought ABC handled it really beautifully...I had spoken to Bruce several months back, and the same person I had spoken to on the phone, who really just loves their children so much and wants their family to be happy, was the person I saw on television last night."

Trans Star Laverne Cox Named To People's World's Most Beautiful Women List

Breitbart readers are going nuts. See the list.

Laverne Cox Cast For CBS Pilot

Via Entertainment Weekly:

In what could be another milestone role in broadcast TV diversity, CBS has cast transgender actress Laverne Cox in its legal procedural pilot Doubt. The Orange is the New Black actress will play a transgender Ivy League-educated attorney, described as “competitive as she is compassionate. She’s fierce, funny and the fact that she’s experienced injustice first hand makes her fight all the harder for her clients.” The Doubt role was always conceived as a transgender character, and it’s tough to imagine a better catch for the part – Cox made the cover of Time magazine last year in a story about the transgender movement. While there have been plenty of transgender characters on broadcast TV shows in the past, they are often short-term parts or comedic roles.

Cue the wailing OMMites!

NEW YORK CITY: Cyndi Lauper To Host Benefit Concert For Homeless LGBT Youth

Via press release:

Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Fund today announced annual “Cyndi Lauper & Friends: Home for the Holidays” benefit concert on Saturday, December 6th at New York City’s historic Beacon Theatre to help raise awareness about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth homelessness and funds to support the True Colors Fund’s work to address the problem. Cyndi Lauper will be joined on stage this year by 50 Cent, Natalie Maines, Patty Griffin, Salt-N-Pepa, Sufjan Stevens, Emily West, STRFKR, Liv Warfield, Hoda Kotb, and co-hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Laverne Cox. Additional guests will be announced soon. 

“For the fourth year in a row, ‘Home for the Holidays’ will feature an amazing night of performances in support of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth experiencing homelessness," said Lauper, co-founder of the True Colors Fund. "I am astounded by the artists who continue to give of their time and talent each and every year and I am so excited by the line-up who are joining us in December. The concert plays such an important role in supporting the True Colors Fund’s work to ensure that no young person is homeless again because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

50 Cent! That's interesting. Tickets go on sale here tomorrow. The Beacon Theatre is on the Upper West Side and is one of the most gorgeous venues in New York City.

NEW YORK CITY: Empire State Building To Go Purple In Support Of LGBT Youth

Next week Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox will throw the switch that will light the Empire State Building in purple to recognize GLAAD's annual anti-bullying Spirit Day. Via press release:

Spirit Day, which will take place on October 16, inspires millions to wear purple or “go purple” online in a united stand against bullying and to show their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. Each year, Spirit Day draws the participation of celebrities, corporations, media outlets, sports leagues, schools, faith institutions, national landmarks, and individuals. Spirit Day is made possible by the generous support of its national partners PepsiCo and Wells Fargo, as well as official partners Comcast-NBCUniversal and Google, and supporting partner American Eagle Outfitters. “By recognizing National Bullying Prevention Month and lighting in purple for Spirit Day, the world’s most famous office building is supporting countless kids across the world,” said GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “At a time when eight in 10 LGBT youth are harassed at school, it’s critical that we let them know it’s okay to be who you are.”

As you may recall anti-gay activists have long fumed that the Empire State Building lights up every June to honor LGBT pride, but has passed on recognizing some religion-related events such as the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa. So this should be fun.

RELATED: GLAAD also encourages you to remember to wear purple to work on Spirit Day.

John Legend - You And I

Billboard reviews:

“Orange Is the New Black’s” Laverne Cox is among the diverse group of women John Legend tapped for his latest video. The video for "You & I (Nobody in the World)" dropped Thursday, the same day Cox made Emmys history as the first openly transgender acting nominee. She'll compete in the guest actress in a comedy series category for her work as Sophia Burset on Netflix's “Orange.” "You and I" highlights women of diverse ages, races and body types as they inspect themselves in the mirror. The video, which also features Legend's model wife Chrissy Teigen, aims to promote positive body image and raise money for charities focused on women and girls via Legend's #OperationGirl campaign.

Emmy History: Laverne Cox Earns Acting Nomination For Orange Is The New Black

Via GLAAD:

GLAAD today applauded the list of nominees for the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, which was among the most LGBT-inclusive list in Emmy history. Laverne Cox became the first transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in an acting category. Cox received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Sophia Burset in the hit Netflix Original Series Orange is the New Black. This year's list of nominees also included many openly LGB actors. Matt Bomer, Joe Mantello and Jim Parsons are all nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a TV Movie or Mini-Series for their work in The Normal Heart. Parsons was also nominated for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series for Big Bang Theory. Out comedian and actress Kate McKinnon received her first nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Saturday Night Live. Sarah Paulson received a nomination for Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie or Mini-Series for American Horror Story: Coven. Jesse Tyler Ferguson received another nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for playing a gay dad on Modern Family and Nathan Lane received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role on Modern Family.

The 2014 Emmy Awards air on August 25th.

Linda Harvey: Satan Loves Trans Rights

National Review Attacks Trans People

"Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, [Laverne] Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that. Genital amputation and mutilation is the extreme expression of the phenomenon, but it is hardly outside the mainstream of contemporary medical practice. The trans self-conception, if the autobiographical literature is any guide, is partly a feeling that one should be living one’s life as a member of the opposite sex and partly a delusion that one is in fact a member of the opposite sex at some level of reality that transcends the biological facts in question. There are many possible therapeutic responses to that condition, but the offer to amputate healthy organs in the service of a delusional tendency is the moral equivalent of meeting a man who believes he is Jesus and inquiring as to whether his insurance plan covers crucifixion." - Kevin Williamson, writing for the National Review.

This Week's TIME Magazine Cover

The story is behind a paywall.

NYC Pride Reveals 2014 Grand Marshals: Laverne Cox, Rea Carey, Jonathan Groff

Via press release:

Heritage of Pride, organizers of NYC Pride and the annual New York City Pride March, today announced the Grand Marshals for 2014. This year’s marshals are Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Transgender Activist and “Orange is the New Black” actress Laverne Cox; and Broadway, film, and television actor Jonathan Groff, appearing this summer in “The Normal Heart.” “Our 2014 marshals are leaders in brilliant forms of activism through which LGBT people and their allies engage,” said March Director David Studinski. “Individually, they represent the diversity within the LGBT community and the various struggles our community members have and continue to face. Collectively, their stories reinforce that no voice is too small nor weak to make change in our world - and it starts with being yourself.”

At Last Night's GLAAD Event

Google has either done away with embeddable Picasa slideshows or hidden the function well enough that I can no longer find it, so click over here for tons of photos of the bold face (mostly) gay-gay-gay names that crowded the red carpet at last night's GLAAD event in Manhattan. Within you'll find Orange Is The New Black cast member Laverne Cox, MSNBC host Thomas Roberts and his husband, a very slim Perez Hilton, 2012 GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger, Carson Kressley,  nightlife queen Susanne Bartsch and gym mogul hubby David Barton, rapper Big Dipper, rapper Cazwell, Broadway hottie Nick Adams, Carmen Carrrera, model Isis King, Christian Siriano, and Mary Lambert, who performed her new hit, She Keeps Me Warm, to huge applause. Plus you find more and better photos of those West Point cadets. [Photo credits: Dr. Jeff Smith]