Redefining realness: My path to womanhood, identity, love, & so much more

Mock remembers dress shopping at a vintage store when she was first emailed the Marie Claire profile, written by journalist Kierna Mayo, amounting to her coming out as a trans woman. She remembers reading the story multiple times: “After each reading, I was moved but strikingly detached. It was a stranger’s story to me” (xiii). She remembers feeling that it was neither her story nor her voice.

Her closest friend knew she was trans, and Mock agreed to interview with Mayo because she felt she could trust her, although she withheld many details that made her feel vulnerable. Mock associates this vulnerability with the shame she felt growing up in a society that viewed trans as Other. Many popular depictions dehumanize trans women: “Instead of proclaiming that I was not a plot device to be laughed at, I spent my younger years internalizing and fighting these stereotypes” (xv). She remembers not wanting to publicly out herself as trans because she did not want to be reduced to a stereotype, believing silence would protect her.

But she knew that other girls had not been afforded the same opportunities she had, and she wanted to serve as a spokesperson for these voiceless women, deciding unapologetic, public honesty was the best way she could combat pervasive social stigmatization.