Laverne Cox Says She Was Targeted in Transphobic Attack

"This has happened to me before," actress Laverne Cox said. "I've been trans my whole life. I've been harassed and bullied my whole life." The most recent attack was Saturday, Cox said, when she and a friend were walking in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports. A man approached them, asked for the time, and said, "Guy or girl?" He then started hitting Cox's friend, the actress said in a video she posted on Instagram. "All of the sudden, it's over and the guy is gone," she said. The actress, who appeared in Orange is the New Black, said she and her friend, who did not want to be identified, "are fine."

Cox said she was unsure at first about telling her story. She thought about what she "could have done differently," then accepted that she wasn't to blame. "It’s not your fault that there are people who are not cool with you existing in the world," Cox said in the video. "We have a right to walk in the park." The Human Rights Campaign says 39 transgender and gender nonconforming people have been slain this year, per Billboard. "It's not safe in the world. I don't like to think about that a lot, but it is the truth, and it's not safe if you're a trans person," Cox said. In a caption on her post, she wrote, "Be careful out there." (More Laverne Cox stories.)