JANET MOCK
The decision to include Janet Mock in DBQ’s annual list of the Loud 100 LGBT People of Color was no decision at all. It was a given. The thirty-year-old Hawaiian native graduated with honors from the University of Hawaii and New York University’s graduate school of journalism. She is the former staff editor of People magazine’s website. In 2011 Marie Claire magazine profiled her and her coming out experience. Although she is not gay—she is transgender—GBM News named her one of the “15 Most Powerful Gay Celebrities of 2012.” A frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, Ms. Mock delivered the Lavender Commencement keynote speech honoring LGBT students at the University of Southern California, was co-chair and presenter at the GLAAD Media Awards, and received the 2012 Sylvia Rivera Activist Award. Her memoir—Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More—the first autobiography by a trans woman of color published by a major publishing house (Simon & Schuster), will be released February 4th. And she has been a proud advocate for transgender rights since realizing she was a girl born in a boy’s body. Janet Mock is a happy and accomplished young woman living in her dream city of New York with her handsome boyfriend, filmmaker and photographer Aaron Tredwell. It was an enlightening experience to have this candid conversation with so distinguished an individual.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
When did you realize you were in the wrong body? What was it like for you?
☚ Janet Mock
It’s so much more nuanced than that; how media tends to make it—the wrong body. Yes, some people may have those real feelings. But the wrong body? I didn’t really feel that. I just thought there were things that weren’t quite right. And some of it had to do with my body. But a lot of it had to do with how society sees gender.
As a very young child, three or four, I wasn’t okay with how my parents told me I needed to act as their “son.” I just rebutted against them telling me I needed to act more masculine. I was very vocal as a very young person. Somehow the process of self-realization was very evident to me, and I was able to share that with the people I felt safest around; the friends you ultimately make, your loved ones, family if they’re accepting. I was lucky enough to have a family that was accepting to a certain extent.
And of course when puberty comes, and all those attended issues, the body becomes more of a vehicle for change. You start noticing things. I started noticing things I didn’t quite like. I learned from older girls what to do, which doctor to go to. Initially I just started using hormones from my best friend who had started before me. I was about fifteen at the time—my freshman year of high school. Before that we had experimented in different other ways; how we dressed, wearing makeup—playing around, being silly, being young, being [experimental] about our gender, about our identities, about what we wore. Baby steps.
Eventually I had access to medical care that enabled me to change the things I didn’t quite like. By the time I graduated from high school I had “reinvented” myself, or, as I like to say, I “realized” myself.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
Do you feel you were afforded supportive guidance during your transitioning process, unlike so many who deal with contention from family and peers?
☚ Janet Mock
I think it can be an incredibly lonely experience for many people. I was lucky. Let’s just take how you were introduced to me. Through community. [Political Correspondent] Keith [Boykin] mentioned my name to you. Then [Ballroom legend] Twiggy [Garcon] mentioned my name. It became something that manifested into a blessing resulting in you and me meeting. That’s what community is.
It was the same for me growing up in Honolulu—it all came through community. There is a strong trans women’s community there, similar to Harlem and the Bronx. These women with very little resources were able to create a system where we could share with each other.
We had one doctor in Waikiki who did hormones for trans girls and who was kind to us, who didn’t treat us unkindly. And because of the culture and community that existed before I was even born, I was able to tap into that system. A lot of it is luck; I got lucky that I came of age in Hawaii. My best friend, with whom I went to high school, was also trans. So I wasn’t alone.
I was also blessed to have a family that loved me unconditionally. They may not have had a lot of money and resources but they were able to love me, and give me all that comes with that love. They didn’t kick me out. They didn’t abandon me.
I also had older trans women that I looked up to. They had beautiful lives they had created for themselves. They determined who they were. They realized their dreams.
They didn’t grow up feeling less than. Of course there were moments of insecurities. But I grew up in the midst of trans women who were surviving and who were thriving. They created this blueprint that I could then follow.
I was also naturally gifted in school. I got scholarships to college. It wasn’t as if my being trans was an obstacle that made it easier for people to target me for bullying and teasing. I had a level of self-assurance that armored me, that enabled me to navigate any hostile places like high school.
When I did end up in NYC to go to graduate school in NYU, I didn’t talk about being trans. It wasn’t something that I felt everyone needed to know. When you walk up to someone you don’t say, “Hi, I was assigned male at birth.” I was there to be a student, to soak in the city, to learn about journalism from some of the best journalist in the world, to learn about writing, to discover who I was as a young woman; to be twenty-one years old living in the city of my dreams. I wasn’t thinking about hiding my trans-ness. I was just thinking about, for the first time, being able to walk into a [place] and not have people whispering about me.
The disclosure idea of trans-ness is interesting. People think that you have to come out as trans. The difference between gender identity and sexuality is that gender identity is visible—people can see my gender, they can see I’m a woman. They don’t need to know I’m a trans woman. That’s for me to choose based on the intimacy of our relationship, whether it’s friendship or romantic.
But I did come to a point in my life where I felt that my “success,” the things that I’ve been blessed with in my life—a great career, a great boyfriend, a great support system—I can credit to the community. That’s what made me step forward publicly as a trans woman.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
How does the transitioning process differ in Hawaii and NYC, or the contiguous US for that matter?
☚ Janet Mock
These laws are different state to state. In Hawaii it’s easier to change your gender marker on your ID. In NYC it’s still an expensive process. A lot of transgender people, if we’re talking about trans women specifically or trans people of color, don’t tend to have jobs and economic stability. So telling someone who is poor to pay $300 to change their name is not doable. Even though the law is there, who’s there to help them pay for that change? Who’s there to help them pay for the filing fees and fill out the forms? When we talk about transgender identities and transgender lives, we have to talk about the barriers we create in our society, state by state, that make it difficult for trans people to live their best lives. Then you start throwing on race, you start throwing on class, and you start throwing on economics, education. The barriers for trans people especially trans people of color are stacked so high against them. This is why we have to continually push forward and push through as activists and advocates.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
Stereotype or harsh reality? Many transgender women resort to prostitute because they can’t get work anywhere else.
☚ Janet Mock
Yes. In our society we create a systemic oppression that pushes trans women into doing the only job that’s available to them. They’re not going to be able to pay for hormones by working at Jamba Juice. It’s great if Jamba Juice or Starbucks wants to hire trans people. But you have to think about the harassment that comes everyday if you’re so visible in a role like retail and you’re a trans woman and people are coming in calling you out of your name.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
Especially if you’re clockable as they say.
☚ Janet Mock
If you don’t conform to our narrow views of what a woman is supposed to look like. There are cisgender women—non-trans women—who “don’t look passable.” We tend to police the gender of women. Men don’t get policed in that same way because there's this whole spectrum of how men can look. But women, there’s a very distinct mold of how we’re supposed to look. So that makes it very difficult for trans women to exist in the daytime in this world, especially in New York City. You have to go back all the way down to the education level. It’s dangerous for trans women to be in school. How then do you expect them to get a college education, which then makes them more qualified to have a “corporate job”? These are constant barriers. And then you throw in race and class and it becomes even more insurmountable. So that’s why it’s mostly trans women of color that tend to be profiled as sex workers. Often times it’s the easiest way to pay for healthcare, hormones, “gender affirming surgeries,” in addition to paying for rent, car, transportation, all these other things. It becomes the easiest road to survival.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
At what point did you go from journalist to a dedicated activist within the community?
☚ Janet Mock
I think it happened when I started working at People magazine. I was there for five years and I would always pay attention to LGBT issues. But I would always notice there was a gap between the resources for gay and lesbian youth and trans youth although it was LGBT. There was no portrait of a young trans person, especially one of color, a “role model” or a “success story.” After a while I was like I’m not reading this story anywhere, and I was like maybe it’s time for me to create this story. Toni Morrison always says that what made her write books is that “I needed to write the books that I wanted to read.” That’s what I had to do. I needed to create the portrait that I wanted to see of young thriving trans women, specifically one of color, one who grew up poor, one that made it out of the “ghetto” and poverty, and created her best life. I made the decision in 2010 and in 2011 was when my big profile in Marie Claire magazine came out.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
Tell me how it feels to be a woman in love.
☚ Janet Mock
[Laughs] It’s so funny because I grew up so much around romantic comedies. I was in a world of books that talked about these things. Their Eyes Were Watching God is my favorite novel. As Zora Neale Hurston writes, a soul crawling love—something that would make me so affirmed and also look at myself. Because that’s what relationships are, whether they’re friendships or romantic relationships or partnerships. They’re supposed to make you look at yourself honestly. That’s what my boyfriend Aaron has been able to help me do. He’s been able to help me love myself more because there’s this amazing person in my life who values me, adores me, and listens to me. It’s one of the greatest gifts in my life—to love. And I think that’s what we’re here for; to love all kinds of people. I value him just as much as I value my friends and my family. I think partnership is what I always craved; partnership and creating a home together.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
How did you attract your “equal”?
☚ Janet Mock
Aaron and I were both in a space where we were looking to grow. We wanted to be in a partnership that would challenge us, makes us see the world differently, and make us see ourselves differently. We had both been in relationships before. We learned through that. We’d both been through heartbreak. We both grew up “biracial” and multicultural. We were both artists. He’s a great listener. I’m a great speaker. We learned those skills from each other. I see it as a balance. There’s a symmetry that helps. What I don’t have and what I’m not good at he’s very good at, and vice versa.
In terms of attracting him, I did nothing to be honest [laughs]. All I know is that I was open to the idea of being in a relationship. I wanted a relationship. I journaled about it. But I was also scared of it. I was scared of having that kind of connection in my life because I knew it would force me to look at myself, and at that time I was not looking to do that work.
But I think the universe put someone in my life who would challenge and really make me do that work. We dated for a year before we were together as a couple. We had this deep friendship at first, even though it started off romantic and I disclosed to him I was trans. And then we navigated that together and discussed it. We had these great conversations, and I never had a friend like that in my life. Then eventually we decided to have a partnership and really be together.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
People always say if you’re not looking, that’s when it shows up for you. Did you ever find yourself looking for love or did it just happen?
☚ Janet Mock
I wanted it. But I wasn’t looking for it. But I made myself available to it. I wrote about it all the time, I journaled about it all the time, I talked about it with girlfriends, about how great it would to have a partnership. But, I knew it wasn’t something I could actively pursue.
And what I also realized was I needed to fill my life up outside of a romantic relationship with love. So my friendships needed to be full of love. I created this censor on myself where I wasn’t craving love. Specifically I wasn’t craving a man. I had love. I had great friends, great girlfriends, great family, and connections. I came fully formed as a person who was loving when Aaron walked into my life in that bar.
I read a book by bell hooks called All About Love. She takes love outside of partnership, outside a sexual romantic relationship. She says love is the process of action in which you help someone spiritually grow. So you have to come already filled up before you even come to that meeting. We have a culture that’s obsessed with romance, not necessarily with love, because love is work. To just love yourself is work. I think we’ve bastardized what love is. And I think it’s hard for people to articulate how they’ve attracted love and how they’ve learned to love themselves, especially if you grow up in families that are lacking in love but have a lot of care.
I think queer LGBT people have done this very well. They go out in the world and find families. That is a revolutionary course; to go out into the world, forget your birth family, move on, and create your own family of people. And that’s love there.
☛ Dave Bridgeforth
What is your message?
☚ Janet Mock
Be authentically you. When you’re authentically you, your path tends to open up and energy comes in and drops what you need into your life. When you recognize it, you realize your life is to use the talents and skills that you’ve developed and those that you’ve been given for a greater purpose beyond self, a promotion, or fame. When you tap into that energy of authenticity and service and good intent, your life develops in service of that purpose. My biggest dreams were to be a writer, to live in New York City, and to be myself, which was a woman. And I got to do those three things. And then I wanted to advocate. I wanted to be of service. Now I want to dream even bigger. I want to dare to ask for even more, because I am deserving of that.
