Despite the fact that she's one of the most famous transgendered personalities on the planet, and an incredible LGBT trailblazer, Laverne Cox is notoriously shy about her life before her transformation. All we know are a few scraps of information: that she was born in or around 1972 in Mobile, Alabama, and that her last name was also Cox (although nobody knows her first name).
She was bullied relentlessly in middle school, and even attempted suicide at age 11 after realizing she had feelings for her male classmates. Later, she studied dance at the Alabama School of Fine Arts before becoming a drag queen. Even this photo isn't actually of Laverne, but it's close enough. It's her identical twin brother, a man known only as M Lamar.