Janet Mock, Essay Example

Janet Mock discussed her thoughts on her popular memoir, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More  regarding the concepts of liberty and freedom as they apply to her own life as a transgender, non-white female in a United States that renders the trans community subaltern. Indeed, she stressed how being transgender in America as a colored woman has resulted in her stigmatization, and she discussed how the queer female subjectivities of people like her were never meant to be able to survive in the current America. Mock thus wrote this memoir as a narrative of freedom that describes more than her own journey to find love, happiness, and herself despite the stigma she faced as a colored, transgender female. She identified herself as a feminist, which is why she used various feminist literary traditions o sketch a narrative about black womanhood and how her self-actualization, growth, and political awareness were inspired by other transgender female activists as well as ordinary women. Mock stated that she wanted to disclose the story of her life in her memoir as a way to deliberately exercise her agency to claim authority over the story of her life, or as she put it, her “herstory.” Her memoir, she stated, was her attempt to trace the possibilities and hope and the reality of her lived experiences as a colored transgender woman, thereby enabling readers to be inspired to dream and hope. As such, Mock declared that she penned the memoir as a means of self-definition, as she became a woman rather than being born as one, which gave her the freedom she sought rather than succumbing to the stigmas that sought to metaphorically eat at her alive. She did not express any shame over the criticism she received and felt liberated when she was able to share her story to a broader public. Her ability to discuss her memoir despite any backlash as a result of the stigma associated with being transgender in America, is laudable.