Transgender icons and television stars Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera sat down with Katie Couric on "Katie" yesterday to discuss issues specifically affecting the transgender community, as well as their own personal journeys as trailblazing LGBT pioneers.

Carmen Carrera of "RuPaul's Drag Race" fame, who is also an Elite model, and Laverne Cox of "Orange Is The New Black" are two of the most prominent transgender figures in the entertainment industry today. When Couric tried to hit the two with a sensitive, and oftentimes invasive, question about transitioning and the cultural fixation on trans individuals' genetalia, Cox eloquently broke down the issues surrounding this mentality.

"I do feel like there's preoccupation with [transitioning]," Cox told Couric in the above clip. "I think the preoccupation with transition and with surgery objectifies trans people and then we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people's lives is that so often we're targets of violence. We experience violence disproportionately to the rest of the community... when we focus on transition we don't get to talk about those things."

Cox also used her platform on the Couric show to highlight the tragic case of Islan Nettles, a trans women who was assaulted in Harlem earlier this year and subsequently died of her injuries.