DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 

Mimi

I am an aspiring profiler. I hope to someday work for the United States government as a special agent.

 

I emigrated from the West Indies when I was five years old. My life since then has been about adjusting to the American culture. When I first came to America as young as I was, I automatically knew I was an outsider.  But thirteen years later, now I am constantly finding myself at a crossroad where I cannot identify myself as fully American or fully West Indian.

 

While taking Intro to Gender Studies, I came to learn about oppression many people face and continue to face being a third world individual or being part of a subordinate group. It has made me want to be an activist at some point in my life. We live in the modern Civil Rights Movement era, the Black Lives Matter movement. Each day I am more and more inclined to be a part of the cause. The shootings of black men in the United States and the social media platform we now have shows us the injustices blacks have faced for centuries.


 

Janet Mock is a movement all on her own. Janet Mock is a transgender woman but most importantly she is a writer, an activist, a TV host, and she’s a fighter.

 

Janet Mock is a Hawaiian native and eventually left Hawaii to pursue her career in New York City. “I am the child and he is the father and his job is to love me anyway” is a quote from Janet Mock explaining her father’s words when she opened up about being trans. Janet explains that as a child she was very femme but her father was a Southern man from Dallas, Texas and a Baptist with southern beliefs engrained in him. She explains that her father was completely against her femme ways as a young boy when she would dress up in colorful clothing; rather than play outside she would play with Barbies. She thus had to learn to hide aspects of her person/personality. Without her father's support, she learned to be her own inspiration and takes authority on her own life.  

 

The people that are against trans people like Janet are people who need to be left behind. They are left behind in the sense that they are living in their generation. While it is easy to imagine that someone like Janet was taunted and bullied ruthlessly by fellow students, it is horrific to imagine that teachers did so as well. She explains that teachers would look at her with disdain and loathe because of the way she carried herself. 

 

Janet Mock is privileged in a sense that despite her ealry gender policing from her father, she opened up to him about being trans and he has made attempts to understand. When she was younger, she had to endure constantly being called a sissy by her father, but it made her numb to all the harsher words thrown at her later in life. Janet’s mother was very accepting of her decision to change herself and as a single mother did all she could really do is support her daughter.

 

Janet Mock is a movement because she took her passion and oppression and turned it into something real. It sounds very cliché but we do need to live in a world where there is human sensitivity. We need more people like Janet Mock to educate our youth! 

 

 

Reference:

 

Doetsch-Kidder, S. (2011). "My Story Is Really Not Mine": An Interview with Latina Trans Activist Ruby Bracamonte. Feminist Studies. No. 2.

Retrieved from

https://johnjay.digication.com/course_readings/Doetsch-Kidder_Sharon

 

Janet Mock as told to Kierna Mayo. (2011, May 18). I Was Born a Boy. Retrieved December 07, 2016, from http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advice/a6075/born-male/ 

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.