Warrior Activists: Janet Mock

Janet Mock
Image Credit: Time Magazine

Women's rights and LGBTQ+ activism often (and rightfully so) overlap in contemporary culture.  LGBT activism as we know it was kickstarted by events such as the Stonewall Riots of the late 1960s - and transgendered women have been instrumental in the fights for equality.  One such contemporary activist and writer is Janet Mock, a transgender woman who is using her power has a writer and TV host to talk about issues of gender identity, transitioning, and the self-autonomy to choose how a woman expresses herself.

Janet Mock was born in Honolulu, Hawai'i, as the second child to her parents Elizabeth and Charles Mock III.  She says she knew she was a girl from an early age and was able to begin transitioning in high school.  She additionally was the first person in her family to go on to college and received her Master's degree in journalism at New York University in 2006.  In an interview for The Guardian, she says that "I wouldn't take anything from my experience because it built my resolve; my core.  I fought for every single thing I have now."

Nowadays, she is vocal in championing for the rights of trans men and women around the world.  She wrote her first book, Redefining Realness, in 2014, where she talks about growing up multiracial and trans.  This book won the Stonewall Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.  Her second book, Surpassing Certainty, was just published this past June.  This memoir focuses on her twenties and how she built her career amidst learning who she wanted to be seen and known as.

As a TV personality she has appeared on a host of various talk shows; according to her personal website, she has appeared on venues such as The Daily Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and on Oprah; she has also been featured on high-profile magazines such as The New York Times, Paper Magasin, Elle, and Riposte.  Mock has been especially vocal on the current political climate and the ways it opposes minority groups.  In 2012, she started the tag #girlslikeus, hoping to encourage and empower trans women after seeing Jenna Talackova be denied participation in a beauty pageant.

This past year, she has been working on the production team for Pose, a drama centered around trans women of color.

Janet Mock is a wonderful example of someone who is using her experiences and talents as a writer to connect and empower women and members of the LGBT community around the world.  To be able to speak candidly and truthfully about your life to the public would be one of the most difficult and painful things any of us could ever do, and I have to admire her positive words and her lack of fear in claiming: This is who I am, and no one can take that away from me.  Similarly, I really respect her emphasis on education and awareness.  Her experience is not universal for all trans women, but for speaking up not only can she change public awareness about transgendered issues, but she can also allow more people to share their stories with gender identity.  Activists like her are helping gender be understood as something fluid that can, and should, be expressed freely.

A video done for the It Gets Better Campaign

“Of the book’s many strengths, the most notable is its political bite. Mock defies the historically apolitical confines of the transgender memoir…[and] take[s] the uninitiated, non-transgender reader with her.”

—A Review of Redefining Realness by Publishers Weekly

Works Cited

Hattenstone, Simon. "Janet Mock: 'I'd Never Seen a Young Trans Woman Who Was Thriving in the World - I Was Looking for That.'" The Guardian, 15 April 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/15/janet-mock-id-never-seen-a-young-trans-woman-who-was-thriving-in-the-world-i-was-looking-for-that. 

Mock, Janet.  "My Journey (So Far) with #GirlsLikeUs: Hoping for Sisterhood, Solidarity & Empowerment."  Janet Mock, 28 May 2012, https://janetmock.com/2012/05/28/twitter-girlslikeus-campaign-for-trans-women/.

---. "'Pose' Writer Janet Mock on Making History with Trans Storytelling (Guest Column)." Variety, 16 May 2018, https://variety.com/2018/tv/columns/pose-writer-janet-mock-ryan-murphy-column-1202803368/. 

---. "About Janet Mock." Janet Mock, 2018, https://janetmock.com/bio/. 

Rowley, Emma.  "My Womanhood is Valid: Transgender Activist Janet Mock Calls for Change." The Telegraph, 20 November 2012,  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/9679052/My-womanhood-is-valid-transgender-activist-Janet-Mock-calls-for-change.html.

Steinmetz, Katy. "Janet Mock on What the Election Means for Transgendered Americans." Time Magazine, 2 December 2016, http://time.com/4581350/janet-mock-trump-election-trans-list/.