Who Is Janet Mock?

May 1, 2012

On Sunday, I delivered a keynote speech at the Univesity of Southern California’s Lavender Celebration, a graduation ceremony for LGBT students and allies.

Vincent Vigil, director of the LGBT resource center at USC, invited me to share a message of empowerment with the graduates, making me the first trans person to serve as speaker in its 18-year history. I was humbled and honored to share my story with the graduates.

But I wanted this moment to go beyond me. I wanted the truth, the heart of the matter to resonate with the graduates and their families and friends long after the ceremony’s end. I wanted this moment to be more than my personal history.

I wanted it to be about the women who have touched me, the ones who gave me courage, who instilled a fight within me to step forward, to shed my anonymity, to embrace my truth and to be my most authentic self.

My purpose at USC was to elevate the conversation, to urge a new generation of young LGBT leaders and allies to question what they truly mean when they say they’re fighting for equality.

This speech was about Paige Clay and CeCe McDonald, two trans women, both 23, both creative, both beautifully black, who helped me hone my voice as an advocate and who have both faced injustices that have shaken me to my core.

March 28, 2012

Please assist me in spreading the word by using the Twitter hashtag #girlslikeus when Tweeting about Jenna and girls like us.

“Who do you think you are?”

That’s the question image activist Michaela Angela Davis asked me during our MADFree conversation on Sunday. I struggled to answer as we neared the end of an intimate, soul-searching discussion about identity and image, beauty and power, how we view ourselves as women and see ourselves reflected in society.

“Me,” I said. “Just me.”

Beyond admiring Michaela’s work, I fell in love with her on Sunday because she pushed hard for me to be her guest in March. She said it was essential to her that I spoke during Women’s History Month. It stunned me (partly because I’ve been conditioned as a trans woman to believe the lies told to me that I didn’t belong) that she, like Marie Claire, recognized that women from all walks of life matter and deserve to be seen and heard.

And because transgender women are women too, Michaela saw no distinction, no hierarchy – just women from different paths, intersecting to give to one another, to exchange ideas. Yet I was soon reminded that this inclusive experience is not prevalent in our society. Equality is rare. To many, trans women are still deemed unnatural, men who are confused, fooling themselves into womanhood, or using medicine to fool straight men into bed. Hysteria, at its most heightened form.

As I was basking in sisterhood, Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old transgender woman from Vancouver, B.C., was disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada competition because she was deemed unnaturally female. The pageant’s organizers, who’ve stated that “there is no discrimination here at all,” claimed that Jenna “falsified her application,” failing to indicate she had undergone sex reassignment surgery. According to the organization (a joint venture between Donald Trump and NBC Universal), Jenna didn’t meet “the necessary requirements” for competition.

February 14, 2012

I can’t think of Valentine’s Day without thinking of this day two years ago.

I was single, lovesick and beyond weary. Weary of Aaron’s inability to commit to me, to be with me, to choose to make a life with me.

At this time two years ago, there wasn’t an us. I didn’t know the Aaron who’d bake oatmeal cookies for me. I didn’t know the Aaron who’d spend hours editing videos and photos for my website. I didn’t know the Aaron who’d randomly leave love notes around our apartment just because.

The Aaron I knew two years ago was an Aaron who was pretty certain that he wasn’t able to give me what I needed. This disappointment was something he communicated to me time and time again, in big and small ways: Not returning my calls or texts; flaking out on my passive-aggressive invitations to hangout; and outright telling me that he was afraid he couldn’t give me what I wanted.

On Valentine’s 2010, we’d been dating for nearly a year, and in that time I had told him about my journey, about my childhood, about my transition. He knew everything about me, yet was still reluctant to commit to me. And like most women with father issues, I blamed myself, my past, internalizing his rejection, his ability to communicate that he didn’t want to be in a relationship, as a reflection of my self-worth, or lack thereof.

After nearly a year of in-between, no-title, no-commitment dating, I could no longer live in limbo. Aaron had a hold of my heart, but had no desire to take on the responsibility to handle it with care. So with no Valentine and no date, I got a knock on my door.

January 30, 2012

Janet’s sick and Aaron takes care of her in episode 23 of The Missing Piece Podcast.

Get Episode 23 on iTunes

Janet’s physical breakdown enables Aaron to pick up the slack and help her through a vulnerable time in her life – something Janet is reluctant to allow anyone to do. It opens up an opportunity to talk about what it means to truly trust someone and to really let someone provide for you.

Listen now as Janet and Aaron discuss vulnerability and letting someone truly take care of you.

Subscribe to the Missing Piece Podcast on iTunes

January 16, 2012

Janet and Aaron discuss their rules of transparency and self-evaluation in the 22nd episode of The Missing Piece Podcast.

Get Episode 22 on iTunes

After such a heartbreaking previous episode, Aaron and Janet wonder when revealing too much becomes too much. They also discuss their established boundaries of transparency, what it means to self-assess and Janet’s enlivened process of writing her forthcoming memoir.

Listen now as Janet and Aaron continue to naval-gaze their way through another saccharine-sweet podcast.

Subscribe to the Missing Piece Podcast on iTunes