Laverne Cox, a transgender advocate and actress on the hit Netflix show "Orange is the new Black," discussed the intersections of race, class and gender with a 690-student crowd at the University of Florida auditorium, Monday night.

Cox was the keynote speaker for both Pride Awareness Month and Women's History Month. During her address to the packed venue, the award-winning actress encouraged the "UF Gators" to embrace diversity.

"I stand before you as a proud African-American transgender woman, from working-class roots," Cox said. "I'm not just one thing, and neither are you," she told the crowd, according to Gainsville.

While talking about gender policing, Cox said that the LGBT are not the only targeted group but everyone is bullied in some or the other way. For example, some males are harassed for being a 'sissy' as it doesn't go well with the typical male gender expression.

 "What would it be like if each and every one of us decided we're not going to be the gender police today?" Cox said. "And we're going to allow people to be who they are and express themselves however they want to, and we're not going to judge them," Alligator reports.

Cox concluded her speech by encouraging students to converse with love. She urged them to be more empathetic and compassionate towards other people, irrespective of their identity.

"I think that can be a journey for each and every one of us," Cox said. "that all the preconceptions we might have about people who are different can melt away, and we can just get to know people as people."

Cox also advised the students to never address a transgender woman as a man, explaining that it is an act of violence.

Michael Caputo, a 19-year-old UF statistics sophomore, said that he enjoyed when Cox started speaking about intersectionality. "A lot of times we don't think about being multiple identities, but everyone is," Caputo said. "It speaks at a bunch of different levels. Sometimes we don't really think about it."

Cox made headlines when she became the first African-American transgender woman to be chosen as a finalist on VH1's GLAAD media award-winning 'I Want to Work for Diddy.'

She also co-created, co-produced and starred in her own show, 'TRANSform Me.' However, Cox garnered international fame as Sophia Burset, an imprisoned transgender woman on the Netflix original series 'Orange Is the New Black.'