Janet Mock: I will unapologetically embrace my identity

May 05 2015
Written by Naith Payton

Trans advocate Janet Mock spoke to Oprah Winfrey about living as her “authentic self”.

Best selling author of Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, Ms Mock came out as trans in 2011 in an article in Marie Claire – for whom she is now a contributing editor.

She spoke to Oprah on Super Soul Sunday last weekend, about her identity and what it means to be “othered” in society.

She said: “There’s so much that people are telling you about who you are, and I think that’s where the othering comes in.

“I was constantly, as a person going through this society, trying to figure out who I was in relation to what people were telling me I should be.

“I will stand here in this complicated mist of existing as a person, as a trans person, a trans woman.

“I think that there is a power in that, but there is still an othering attached.

“I will proudly and unapologetically embrace that part of my identity for once, the one part of my identity that I was taught growing up to be silent and shamed about.”

Last year, Mock gained attention when she turned the tables on a TV host, asking her some of the invasive questions about her body that trans people regularly face.

She also gained attention when she accused CNN presenter Piers Morgan of attempting to “sensationalise” her life after she was featured as a guest on Piers Morgan Live, where she was repeatedly referred to as a “former man.”