Laverne Cox is a transgender advocate and actress, currently on “Orange Is the New Black.”

Should the trans-rights movement be part of the gay-rights movement? Well, yes and no.

At the heart of the fight for trans justice is a level of stigma so intense and pervasive that trans folks are often told we don’t exist – that we’re really just the gender we were assigned at birth. We’re told that if we embrace our authentic selves, we should risk violence and the loss of our jobs, housing, health care and dignity. Trans identity is so stigmatized that even the people we love and date – at least those who are cisgender, meaning they identify as the sex they were assigned at birth – often don’t want to have anything to do with us in public. Trans identity is so stigmatized that many of our gay, lesbian and bisexual brothers and sisters want nothing to do with us either. This stigma is so intense that many trans people don’t want to claim a trans identity publicly. It is a state of emergency for trans and gender-nonconforming people in this country, but the emergency remains almost invisible since the trans population is relatively small and our identities are constantly disavowed, our voices silenced.

Everyone has a stake in ending the stigma against trans identities, but gay people may have a more personal interest.

Many in the trans community are fed up with L.G.B.T. organizations that continue to erase trans identity or just give lip service to trans issues. We need our cisgender allies – gay and straight – to treat transgender lives as if they matter, and trans people need multiple seats at the tables in the organizations that say they’re interested in L.G.B.T. equality; this absence has been painful since Stonewall. There are some prominent trans voices speaking to the issues that affect us, and they inspire me to do the work of making the world more just for trans people. Jen Richards and Toni D’orsay, founders of The Trans 100, to name some of those trans folks more of us should know.

Everyone has a stake in ending the stigma against trans identities, but gay people may have a more personal interest. When kids are bullied and called anti-gay slurs, it’s rarely because the victim seemed to be attracted to members of the same sex. It’s because the child did not conform to gender expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. The bullies might yell “gay,” but it’s about gender expression.

Of course, it’s also about race and class. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who are most at risk are working-class people of color. I am a fan of unity across differences, because to tackle a long list of disparities – the ones that currently benefit the straight, white, cisgender, middle- and ruling-class patriarchy – requires broad coalitions to think, live, love and make policy differently.