Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBTQ+ advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in any acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first openly transgender woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBSs Doubt.
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![Alfre Woodard, Laverne Cox - Essence Magazine Pictorial [United States] (October 2014)](http://img3.bdbphotos.com/images/80x80/c/i/ciqies0p27h87e80.jpg?skj2io4l)
