Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

BOOKS Janet Mock paves way for LGBTQ storytellers
Extended for the online edition of Windy City Times
by Angelique Smith
2017-06-07

This article shared 874 times since Wed Jun 7, 2017
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


As a writer, advocate and in-demand public speaker, Janet Mock is a media powerhouse.

She is the founder of #GirlsLikeUs, which celebrates trans womanhood, and was recently named a contributing editor for Allure magazine where she also started a biweekly column around the idea of beauty culture being inclusive and affirming.

In her first book—the groundbreaking New York Times best-seller Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More—she provided a vivid look at her early life with a forthrightness that can only come with introspection, tenacity and power of self.

Mock spoke with Windy City Times about her new book, Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me.

Windy City Times: I'm excited to hear you speak at Printer's Row Lit Fest! Tell us about your new book.

Janet Mock: Surpassing Certainty is a continuation of Redefining Realness, which was centered around my childhood and girlhood. It was about my story of transition, with the unique lens of being a young person of color who grew up in low income communities. Surpassing Certainty picks up with me in college. With the whole medical and social transition behind me, I felt very embodied in my identity and my body. It's about grappling with living in this body as a young woman while doing all of the things that a lot of young people do: going to college, leaving home for the first time, grappling with super problematic and irritating roommates, moving to a new big city, getting jobs and bringing your identity to those spaces.

One of the unique things I think the book lends instead of other twentysomething narratives, is that it really centers a young trans woman of color's experience who is not necessarily open about being trans. I think there's an interesting, never-told-before perspective there and that's what led me to tell this deeply personal story.

WCT: Do you feel like the intent has changed from one book to the next in terms of why you're sharing your story or that your audience might be different now that you've had more exposure?

JM: I think the biggest difference for me was what I felt the culture needed. With Redefining Realness, our culture was not at the place of trans visibility it is now. I think that people now understand what trans, at least on a basic level, means. We have figures like Caitlyn Jenner, of course, and Laverne Cox. When I was working on Redefining Realness, you couldn't point to people out in media in that same way. This time I don't have to do a lot of the 101 work. There was a lot of explanatory commas in Redefining Realness, literally it was like, "Transgender, an umbrella term that…" I didn't do as many statistics or contextualizing this time. Surpassing Certainty really framed me as a writer to be able to center my personal narrative. It was about a young woman's journey to figuring herself out, so that was freeing in a sense.

WCT: In Redefining Realness, I found your explanation of using the term "passing," versus "being," profound.

JM: I don't really like the term "passing." It creates this relationship in which trans people are actively engaging in a process of trying to blend in or being seen as cisgender people, which creates this hierarchy in which cis people become the standard of what we say is "acceptable" or "authentic."

The way in which other people view our bodies or our identities based on their own shortcomings, mythologies or misconceptions … that's on them, it's not on us. And it's already a lot to just be ourselves and then to also be labeled as, "You're trying to pass yourself off as being real and you're not real." In actuality, we know we are real and we also know that we don't have to authenticate that for anyone. I've always tried to shift and challenge the senses around passing.

WCT: When you talked about your political awakening in your first book, I was struck by the sentence: "I was grateful for the invitation but unfulfilled by the company," when you were talking about the lack of representation and access for marginalized groups within the mainstream LGBT movement. Do you think the community is making progress in terms of being more intersectional?

JM: I'm not really too much concerned about larger, mainstream organizations. I think they do what they do and they do that well in terms of speaking to the masses about certain segments of "respectable" LGBT people. I am energized by grassroots organizations that are doing on the ground, day-to-day acts of work.

I think about the Trans Justice Funding Project, which gives out small grants to grassroots organizations; SNaP Coalition in Atlanta is doing so much on anti-violence, criminalization and intervention; Miss Major Griffin-Gracy's organization [the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project], run by Janetta Johnson; the Silvia Rivera Law Project and Marsha's House; the TransLatin@ Coalition—all of these wonderful organizations which are underfunded and underutilized, yet so necessary in these particular times.

As someone who is often seen and heard on levels in which most people are not, I try to always speak the names and the work of people who are doing vital everyday work with trans communities around the country. There are great revolutionaries everywhere who need our support, dollars, voices and volunteering. I hope to continue to point people toward those who are centering folk who are often forgotten: LGBT people of color, LGBT youth, sex workers, the undocumented. ... For me, it's about concentrating my energies rather than trying to check and challenge the establishment of larger LGBT mainstream orgs.

WCT: So far in 2017, there have been more than 50 bills targeting the trans community and at least 11 trans people have been killed by violent means. Is there anything that brings you hope and light in the wake of these tragedies?

JM: I think the number-one thing is that trans folks—specifically trans and queer folk of color—have always resisted and organized; we've always done things that were never, ever funded.

We've created new possibilities and blueprints that were never there before we were there. I see trans folk on the frontline across so many different coalitions of resistance. I think of Elle Hearns; the folks who are uprising in North Carolina; the queer Black women who created the Black Lives Matter movement—Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza. Being able to talk to people in the community to support their work and vice versa. Going from a model of self-care to communal care is something that encourages me. In these trying times, where we have an administration that's constricting and shrinking who we say we will help and protect, I am encouraged by the revolutionary work of so many leaders in the movement. I concentrate there, I follow their lead and I try my best to link arms. That helps me to survive.

WCT: What's next for you?

JM: I'm working on a couple of television projects right now, one of which is a documentary series on gender around the world. I also launched a conversation series podcast called "Never Before," with Pineapple Street Media. My first episode just premiered with one of my heroes, Beyonce, with her mother, Mrs. Tina Knowles Lawson.

For me, it's continuing to tell stories to help shape, shift and challenge the conversations that we're having. I think what's important in this movement toward greater visibility and inclusion is not just seeing our bodies and seeing us as interviewees but us being the interviewers, having the microphone, writing the articles, producing the projects. It's continuing to do that storytelling and hopefully widen the space so that other folks feel confident enough to come in and blow the space up.

Janet Mock will be appearing at Printer's Row Lit Fest in Chicago on Saturday, June 10. Her book, Surpassing Certainty, will be available Tuesday, June 13.


This article shared 874 times since Wed Jun 7, 2017
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event 2024-03-25
- Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir 2024-03-18
- RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...


Gay News

Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap 2024-03-04
- Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...


Gay News

There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey 2024-02-27
- By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Women's college, banned books, military initiative, Oregon 2023-12-29
- After backlash regarding a decision to update its anti-discrimination policy and open enrollment to some transgender applicants, a Catholic women's college in Indiana will return to its previous admission policy, per The National Catholic Reporter. In ...


Gay News

NATIONAL School items, Miami attack, Elliot Page, Fire Island 2023-12-22
- In Virginia, new and returning members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board were inaugurated—with some school board members opting to use banned books on the topics of slavery and LGBTQ+ ...


Gay News

Chicago author's new guide leads lesbian fiction authors toward inspiration and publication 2023-12-07
- From a press release: Award-winning and bestselling lesbian fiction author Elizabeth Andre—the pen name for a Chicago-based interracial lesbian couple—has published her latest book, titled Self-Publishing Lesbian Fiction, Write Your ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Tenn. law, banned books, rainbow complex, journalists quit 2023-12-01
- Under pressure from a lawsuit over an anti-LGBTQ+ city ordinance, officials in Murfreesboro, Tennessee removed language that banned homosexuality in public, MSNBC noted. Passed in June, Murfreesboro's "public decency" ordinance ...


Gay News

BOOKS Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on gay history in 'The Bars Are Ours' 2023-11-29
- In The Bars Are Ours (via Duke University Press), Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California-Irvine, takes readers on a historical journey of gay bars, showing how the venues ...


Gay News

BOOKS Owen Keehnen takes readers to an 'oasis of pleasure' in 'Man's Country' 2023-11-27
- In the book Man's Country: More Than a Bathhouse, Chicago historian Owen Keehnen takes a literary microscope to the venue that the late local icon Chuck Renslow opened in 1973. Over decades, until it was demolished ...


Gay News

Photographer Irene Young launches book with stellar concerts 2023-11-20
- "Something About the Women" was appropriately the closing song for two sold-out, stellar concerts at Berkeley's Freight & Salvage November 19, in celebration of the new book of the same name by Irene Young, the legendary ...


Gay News

Rustin film puts a gay pioneer into the spotlight 2023-11-16
- The story of activist Bayard Rustin is one that should be told in classrooms everywhere. Instead, because Rustin was an openly same-gender-loving man, his legacy has gone relatively unnoticed outside of LGBTQ+-focused history books. Netflix hopes ...


Gay News

Billy Masters: The times Streisand failed to make a splash 2023-11-13
- "Fame is a hollow trophy. No matter who you are, you can only eat one pastrami sandwich at a time."—Wise words from Barbra Streisand. You all know that Barbra Streisand's book is out. And I ...


Gay News

Charles Busch dishes on life as a storyteller 2023-11-09
- Performer/writer Charles Busch, who recently penned his autobiography, Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy, said that collecting his most precious and salient memories in a book felt "inevitable." "Storytelling is such an essential ...


Gay News

LGBT HISTORY PROJECT: Exploring 70 years of lesbian publications, from 1940s zines to modern glossy magazines 2023-11-02
- Since the '40s, lesbians have created a vibrant history of publications. From the exploration of daily lesbian life to literary and feminist pursuits, to the modern age of glossy magazines, for over 70 years, lesbians have ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.