Laverne Cox finds love

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Laverne Cox

Actress Laverne Cox has found happiness with a man she met on dating app Tinder.

The transgender Orange is the New Black star reveals she and her new boyfriend, who she has yet to name, have been quietly dating for the past eight months.

"It's incredible," the 45-year-old gushed to news show Access Hollywood. "Love is so incredibly healing. I'm just so happy. When you're happy... love is life-saving."

Their relationship has been going so well, Laverne has introduced her man to her mother, while she has also met his parents.

"Everybody gets along," she smiled. "His family's amazing. My mom likes him. It's good."

Laverne even made sure he was truly interested in her as a person by showing up to their first date make-up free.

"I'm not putting effort into a guy I don't know yet," she explained. "You might not look like your pictures. You might smell. I showed up with my current boyfriend... like, with no make-up. I had some jean shorts. And it worked out."

The romance news emerges weeks after the actress opened up about the dating challenges she had faced in the past.

"As a black transgender woman, I've often been kept a secret by the men that I've dated," she told Cosmopolitan South Africa earlier this year, when she became the first transgender person to grace the cover of the magazine.

However, she insists her relationship history hasn't been all bad: "So when my ex-boyfriend introduced me to his dad and invited me to spend Hanukkah with him and his family, it was the most special thing ever," she recalled. "Trans women deserve to be loved out and in the open and in the light."