In honor of DC Pride, Madame Tussauds is showcasing the wax figure of Laverne Cox this weekend. The actor and civil rights activist is featured in the actual dress she wore as the first transgender person on the cover of Time magazine in 2014. Just a year later, she was immortalized in wax as the museum’s first transgender figure. Though she’s usually in San Francisco–and they’re pretty territorial about this LGBTQ icon—the DC location was able to get Cox’s figure on loan from June 8 to June 11, coinciding with Pride and Netflix’s release of “Orange is the New Black” season five on June 9.
In the brightly-lit and colorful basement exhibit, the beloved star is on display in the celebrity section across from a moody Justin Bieber and between a grinning Tom Cruise and an aloof Angelina Jolie. Her plaque, in the same format for every figure, includes her birth name, birth place, fun facts, and a quote: “My third grade teacher called my mother and said, ‘Ms. Cox, your son is going to end up in New Orleans in a dress if we don’t get him into therapy.’ And wouldn’t you know, just last week I spoke at Tulane University, and I wore a lovely green and black dress.”
Rosa is a senior editor at Bitch Magazine. She’s written for Washingtonian and Smithsonian magazine.
