Laverne Cox urged people to attend a rally in Washington, DC, Tuesday ahead of the Supreme Court taking on the matter of whether it’s illegal under federal law for employers to discriminate against LGBTQ employees.



"People are going to be coming from all over the country and letting the Supreme Court know and letting this nation know that we do not believe it should be legal to fire you simply for being who you are," the Orange Is the New Black star said Monday morning on BuzzFeed News' AM to DM.

It was announced in April that the nation's highest court would be taking a look at Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.

The case is especially important because the court will determine if "sex" includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

"This will be the first time the Supreme Court is hearing any case about transgender civil rights, the first time, ever," Cox said, before going into how this could specifically impact not only transgender people but other queer people too. "If the Supreme Court says it's okay to discriminate against us in employment, then they'll be like, 'Oh, well, we can discriminate against you in health care, and then at HUD" — the US Department of Housing and Urban Development — "they want to ban us from homeless shelters."

"They're really trying to say that we're not who we say were are," Cox said of opponents, "that we were always and only the gender we were assigned at birth and if the Supreme Court decides that, it has ramifications in all kinds of law."