Hillary Clinton has launched an ad featuring Orange is the New Black’s Laverne Cox.

The actress, one of the first transgender stars to break through to the mainstream, appears in a clip released by the Democratic Presidential candidate to mark National Coming Out Day.

In it, she warns about Republican-backed state anti-transgender laws, which enjoy the support of Donald Trump.

Cox recalls: “The discriminatory HB2 that was passed in North Carolina earlier this year has been very upsetting. What I’ve seen basically criminalises trans people for going to the bathroom. Laws like that have been popping up all over the country.

“What we see, unfortunately, in the Republican Party, what we see on a policy level is a party that has consistently tried to disenfranchise people of colour, disenfranchise working people, LGBT people, take away women’s control over their bodies, and that is just something I can’t support.

“There are so many things working to divide us and pull us apart, but we always have to fight.”

“It might seem like a very small thing, but these small policies matter.” —@LaverneCox on Hillary improving passport gender identity policy pic.twitter.com/zk0G3ZyjxJ — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 12, 2016



Referencing a famous speech that Clinton gave to the UN in 2011, Cox said: “LGBT rights are human rights, gay rights are human rights, trans right are human rights, and that is something I know Hillary Clinton has been saying for years.

“We’ve made so many incredible advances particularly in the LGBT community under the Obama Administration. When transgender health care is covered by the Affordable Care Act, that affects people’s lives in a tangible way.

“It was impossible to get a passport if you had not had gender reassignment surgery, and in 2010, Hillary Clinton’s State Department changed those rules.

“These kinds of policies have real life effect on people’s lives. I would tell any of my friends who want to sit on the sidelines that your voice matters. Your vote matters.”

She concludes: “Hillary Clinton is the only candidate running for President who is going to really fight for us.”

The star’s comments may put her at odds with the trans community’s other icon, Caitlyn Jenner, a registered Republican.

Clinton has a broad manifesto of detailed LGBT rights policies.

Despite multiple requests, Donald Trump’s campaign has been unable to name any specific pro-LGBT policies it would pursue.