Janet Mock on Growing Up Trans and How to Be an Ally

Janet Mock has lengthy held a profession in media — maybe most famously for her work as a director, author, and producer on FX’s “Pose,” for which she made historical past as the primary overtly trans girl of coloration employed as a author on any tv present.

She’s additionally an outspoken advocate for queer people of coloration. This previous May, in honor of APIA Heritage Month, she partnered with Diageo to host Blend Out by Diageo, a celebration that raised a glass to multihyphenate creators who refuse to mix in by displaying up as their genuine selves.

In a yr that has seen unprecedented anti-trans laws and violence, POPSUGAR is highlighting the views of trans and nonbinary people all through Pride Month. These leaders are sharing methods they defend their pleasure, reminiscing on moments of gender euphoria, and suggesting how allies can assist the LGBTQ+ group proper now. Explore all of our protection right here, and learn Mock’s story, in her personal phrases, beneath.

I’ve written two memoirs — “Redefining Realness” and “Surpassing Certainty” — about many moments of gender euphoria, however one of many firsts was connecting in girlfriendship and sisterhood with my greatest good friend Wendi, with whom I grew up and transitioned collectively by way of the halls of our highschool in Hawaii. We are each combined Kanaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) trans ladies and have been in a position to discover, share, distinction, and broaden our concepts about our our bodies and gender in sisterhood — collectively.

We would sit and flip by way of magazines like Vibe and Teen People, we might watch MTV collectively and mimic Destiny’s Child and all of the video vixens, we might get glammed up in our CoverGirl and Wet n Wild cosmetics and do little photograph shoots, we might carry out to Spice Girls at college dances — we did all the pieces! Having that group with one other trans sister was pivotal for me — not solely was I in a position to have a mirrored image in her, however I additionally knew that I used to be not the one. I used to be not alone, and that has been a constructing block for my very own confidence and self-love journey. I want that kind of communal expertise for each single younger individual, no matter their gender or sexual id.

I really feel a way of deep love and appreciation for my self and my expertise each single day. Some days are harder than others — I, too, battle with my picture and my physique and with what individuals have to say and their expectations and limiting beliefs. The journey of self-love by no means ends, and I would like any trans individual studying this to know that after you “transition,” we should all nonetheless do the work of totally embodying and dwelling our most genuine and actual self. But I really feel such pleasure in my journey and am so grateful to the ancestors and elders who’ve paved the best way — from Marsha P. Johnson to Miss Major Griffin-Gracy — and I really feel so grateful for all of the experiences I’ve had — the euphoric and the irritating — as a result of they’ve introduced me right here, to a spot the place I get to dwell my best possible life, grateful to have breath, a heartbeat, and a physique to home the abundance that I’m.

When it comes to our present political local weather, it is necessary to do not forget that it has by no means been protected for trans people to exist in our tradition. We want that context — these assaults usually are not new. Look on the Compton Cafeteria protest and the Stonewall Rebellion: trans people have at all times been below the glare and gaze of cis people who’re too afraid to look deep inside themselves and even begin to query all that they’ve assumed about gender and sexuality. When you see mistaken and really feel mistaken, use your voice, your affect, your property, and your privilege to proper these wrongs. Don’t let any of it stand on your watch — your complacency is complicity.

For me, and for my ancestors who’ve come earlier than and my siblings resisting and dwelling their greatest lives at present, simply waking up, trying within the mirror, and loving my reflection is an act of on a regular basis rise up, and sure, resistance in a world and tradition that places a goal on my again merely for present and being f*cking stunning and highly effective.

And all I’ve to say to those that don’t want us to exist: we do, honey. And guess what: I do know who I’m; now do you?

— As informed to Lena Felton