Bruce Jenner Gets Support From Orange Is the New Black's Laverne Cox, Dascha Polanco

Actresses and LGBT supporters praise Keeping Up With the Kardashians star for going public with his transition

By Rebecca Macatee, Jennifer Cooper May 11, 2015 9:21 PMTags
Dascha Polanco, Laverne Cox, Bruce JennerAstrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Go Red; Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Bruce Jenner has quite a support system!

The Keeping Up the Kardashians star has lots of love from his family, of course, and there are plenty of LGBT activists, like Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox, who are happy to consult with the Olympian on his transition.

(At this time, Bruce Jenner is choosing to not live publicly in the media as a woman and will be referred to as Bruce Jenner and with male pronouns until he specifies otherwise.)

At the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards on Saturday, Laverne told E! News exclusively she "will be chatting with Bruce again in the near future." (The actress revealed last month that she and Bruce had spoken privately prior to the airing of his ABC News interview with Diane Sawyer.)

Since then, Laverne has "gone to speak to a few members of the family," she told E! News.

Laverne doesn't "like to speculate" about what Bruce or any other individual's transition will be like, "because every transgender person is different," she explained. "Every experience is different."

Laverne's OITNB co-star Dascha Polanco, who is also a supporter of the LGBT community, praised Bruce for going public with his journey as well. "I am so proud of him," she told E! News. "It's just the fact that he came out and finally said, 'I am able to do this in my life.'"

"It's admirable,'" she added. "Not many people can do that."

Want to hear more from Bruce and the family? Tune in to E!'s upcoming two-part special, Keeping Up With the Kardashians: About Bruce. Part one of the E! special premieres this Sunday, May 17, at 9:00 p.m., with part two following the next day, Monday, May 18, at 9:00 p.m.

Learn more about what it means to be transgender at http://glaad.org/transgender

If you are transgender and need help or advice, contact the Trevor Project http://t.co/guMjyYIfng