“I am not just one thing,” she said, “And neither are you.”

Laverne Cox, an artist, actress, activist, daughter and proud African-American transgender woman from a working-class background, visited the aptly named Cox Auditorium on Wednesday.

Her lecture, named after Sojourner Truth’s momentous “Ain’t I A Woman” speech, traced her journey from being a gender non-conforming teen in Mobile, Alabama, to an Emmy-nominated, transgender woman thriving in New York.

Cox, whose powerful oratory resonated with the crowd, bears many similarities to Sojourner Truth. Both faced critics denying their claims to womanhood. Both rejected the narrow confines set upon them by society. Both realized the importance of recognizing the intersection of race and gender.

And, coincidentally, Sojourner Truth delivered her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech on the day Cox was born.

Quite a few years earlier, of course.

“I’m not quite that old,” Cox said, laughing. “Although that would be a fierce moisturizer, wouldn’t it?”

Assigned male at birth, Cox experienced severe bullying “practically every single day” growing up for appearing “too feminine.” She was called names, taunted and chased home by groups of kids threatening to beat her up.

“They said I acted ‘like a girl,’ whatever that means, because we know girls act all sorts of ways, right?” Cox joked.

Facing oppression at school and at home for being her “authentic self,” Cox said she found solace in her imagination. She learned to dance and rejoiced in the freedom it brought her to express herself fully.

“I think that if we can find something in this world that we are truly passionate about, it can be life-saving,” Cox said.

The judgement and harassment she faced growing up were incredibly damaging, Cox said, and largely due to the “flawed logic” of the gender binary, referring to the system that delineates gender solely by reproductive organs. Her internal struggle with her identity led her to a suicide attempt.

“It is my belief that one of the biggest obstacles facing the transgender community are points of view which disavow our identities, points of view that suggest that no matter what we do, we are always and only the gender we were assigned at birth,” Cox said.

“Points of view that suggest that no matter what I do I will never be a woman.”

Cox flipped her long blonde hair, smoothed out her dress and asked, “Yet, ain’t I a woman?”

Cox told the story of a 21-year-old transgender woman named Islan Nettles who was beaten to death on the street in Harlem when a group of men discovered she was transgender. Her killers have not yet been punished for their crime.

Transgender people face incarceration, unemployment and homicide at much higher rates than the general population. Seventy-eight percent of those in grades K-12 who have a transgender or gender non-conforming identity experience harassment or bullying. Forty-one percent of transgender people have attempted suicide at some point in their lives, about nine times the national average, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

“It is a state of emergency for far too many trans people across this nation,” Cox said.

Alexandra Chiasson, Issues Committee member and senior in English, said she knew she wanted to bring Cox to campus after seeing her speak at Vanderbilt University in 2013.

“Her brave message helps those who have struggled with gender identity or sexuality or bullying understand that they are not alone and that it’s not their fault,” said Chiasson, also social media editor for The Daily Beacon. “When it’s unsafe or too difficult to share our own stories, we can find solace in hearing someone else’s.”

Cox admitted she is “lucky” to have had a mother that eventually accepted her identity. Her advice to those wanting to be accepting and supportive of their transgender friends was to listen and sincerely seek to understand their struggle.

“Have those difficult conversations,” Cox said. “Create safe spaces where you can take risks and make mistakes. Have those conversations with a tremendous amount of love and empathy towards getting to a better understanding of who the other person is and ultimately, who you are.”

It was announced Wednesday that the “Orange Is The New Black” actress has been cast in a new CBS drama called “Doubt.”

“I feel like I’m just getting started,” she said.