The iconic gay actress, Lea DeLaria, told Page Six about the bashing and bullying she has faced throughout her life for being a trans woman. She is greatly known for her part in Orange Is the New Black and praises the show for opening the hearts of people towards the LGBTQ community.
She told the platform about an incident that happened in San Francisco when she was only 24- years old. She was targeted in a hate crime and was beaten so much that her nose got broken, her eye socket was chipped off and the beating also resulted in many cracks on her ribs.
DeLaria also mentioned that she has even been verbally abused so many times that she can’t even count. The actress also stated that this sort of abuse still has not stopped, though she is 63 now. She said, “There is always someone who’s going to call me a fat guy.”
She's 63.
It happened in San Francisco in 1982. The year I was born.Orange Is the New Black star Lea DeLaria hospitalised after ‘major gay-bashing’, aged 24 https://t.co/0wrLGYafdj
— Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱 (@chadfelixg) June 8, 2021
Due to her role as Carrie “Big Boo” Black on the show Orange Is the New Black, the harassment and bullying has thankfully curbed down. But she says, it is still not like that it has all ended, noting that gay-bashing has always been difficult to deal with. Especially in the case of butch lesbians like herself.
She praised OITNB for the sanguine representation of lesbians and butch lesbians, which has changed the way people viewed them. DeLaria stated,
That’s a fact. We get attacked more than any other women in our community, It’s always been rough on trans women, very rough especially for trans women of color, and it’s always been incredibly rough on butch lesbians. What ‘Orange’ has done for me, as a butch lesbian, is, it’s opened up people’s hearts and minds to women who look like me. Because ‘Orange’ was the first positive representation of a butch lesbian that I’ve ever seen in mainstream media.
Back in 1993, DeLaria was an acclaimed jazz singer and was the first openly gay entertainer to come on a late-night talk. The show was called the “The Arsenio Hall Show” where she opened up about her sexuality and said that she was a “Big Dyke.”
Being accustomed to and loving lesbian bars, she wants to make sure that the remaining of the only 21 lesbian bars left in the United States are not shut down. Therefore, she intends to make the documentary available for free and then people can donate if they wish to.
DeLaria said,
When I walk into a dyke bar, I’m walking into my sense of community, my sense of safety, my sense of camaraderie. I’ve been a professional lesbian since 1982. I always had a presence in the lesbian bars, and I was always the famous lesbian that would go to the lesbian bars. Most famous lesbians do not. The Cubbyhole is my home. It’s the place I go to nonstop; everybody there knows me.
She also self-proclaims as “Lord of the Lesbians” and loves Cubbyhole in New York calling it her favorite place to socialize ever!
Despite everything, it seems like DeLaria is one person with immense confidence in herself and would go through anything but not be scared or hide her true self.
Nowadays, she is working on a documentary called “The Lesbian Bar Project” in affiliation with Jägermeister’s #SAVETHENIGHT. The initiative provides a strong foundation for the nightlife community as people recover from the depressing effects of lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
