The first ever transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy.

“This is such amazing validation after years of rejection, years of being told no, years of being told I could not have a career as an actress. Here I am, nominated for an Emmy. It’s been a journey, honey, I can’t even tell you.”

History was made this morning as Laverne Cox became the first ever transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy award.

Cox received the ‘Outstanding Guest Actress in A Comedy Series’ nod for her work on Orange Is The New Black, in which she plays Sophia, a woman who is serving prison time for committing fraud in order to pay for a sex change procedure.

Cox’s role on the show has been hailed as a huge deal for the LGBTQ community, and as her popularity has skyrocketed, Cox has become known as an incredible advocate for LGBTQ rights.

She famously explained to Katie Couric why asking trans people about their genitals was was not okay, telling her: “By focusing on bodies we don’t focus on the lived realities of [our] oppression and [our] discrimination.” (You can check her out here speaking her brilliant mind.)

She has also appeared on the cover of Time:

Yeah, Laverne Cox has pretty much got this, so we won’t won’t try to tell you why her nomination matters so much. We’ll leave it to her to explain just how much this Emmy nod means to her, and the LGBTQ community:

Laverne told Time today:

For me personally, I am an individual who consumes mainstream culture. I watch a lot of television. I go to mainstream films. And I want to see myself. I want to turn on the television and see people who look like me who have similar experiences that I have. And I think that trans people want and deserve that; everybody wants and deserves that. We should all have representations that humanize our experiences and tell the diversity and the complexity of our experiences.

Nailed it.

LAVERNE COX FOR THE WIN!