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

Redefining Realness is the 2014 memoir of Janet Mock, the editor of People.com who came out in 2011 as a trans woman via a Marie Claire profile. The book is a work of creative nonfiction, chronicling Mock’s trajectory from a lonely and unhappy child who does not feel understood to a fiercely independent and self-motivated young adult. Since her disclosure in 2011, Mock has become a prominent trans advocate who people respect for her honesty and candor, which sheds light on her marginalized community.

In the 1990s, Mock grew up as the firstborn son of an economically-disadvantaged, multicultural family. She begins transitioning during high school, eventually flying by herself to Thailand for sex reassignment surgery when she is eighteen years old. She moves to New York and finds academic and professional success, although she keeps her past a secret. She falls in love with a man and finds the strength to disclose previously guarded secrets.

The memoir itself only chronicles the first part of her life, as she begins to understand and grapple with her burgeoning identity. More than anything, Redefining Realness is a story of survival, as Mock must overcome a variety of external and internal hardships. Mock’s parents divorce when she is young as a result of her father’s infidelity and her mother’s suicide attempt. However, both struggle with similar problems throughout Mock’s childhood and adolescence, including relationships, drug abuse, and financial hardships. These external familial struggles compound Mock’s internal struggle to understand her own identity; although they make her vulnerable to violence and sexual abuse, they also make her a stronger, more independent, and more determined person. However, the instability she faces as a result of her familial problems also leads Mock to isolate herself from her family, reinforcing the rifts in her relationships between herself and her parents as well as alienating Mock from her four siblings: two older sisters and her two younger brothers. Even though Mock’s family life is unstable, she repeatedly references how supportive they are in terms of her identity as transgendered, even if she knows they might not understand her decision. At the end of the narrative, Mock realizes the price she has had to pay for her fierce independence and regrets isolating herself from her family, who support and love her in any way they can no matter what.

The memoir is bookended by two narrative vignettes that take place in 2009. These vignettes detail the beginnings of Mock’s relationship with her husband, including her decision to gain emotional intimacy by disclosing her identity as transgendered. These vignettes serve to contextualize the author’s past with an understanding of her present, serving to demonstrate the growth that Mock has achieved in terms of her relationships with other people.

The memoir itself is divided into three sections, most of which deal exclusively with Mock herself, although other characters come and go from the narrative. The first section outlines her childhood, during which Mock realizes that she thinks of herself as a girl. However, to combat negative and openly hostile external forces around her, she decides to repress this identity. In the second section, Mock fully transitions in terms of her identity: she no longer tries to repress this aspect of herself, but rather constructs her self-image as a girl in an internal blossoming and understanding of identity. The third section comprises the external expression of this internal identity, as Mock pursues physical changes to outwardly express her identity.

Much of the narrative deals with the social vulnerability Mock experiences growing up as a poor trans woman of color. With this vulnerability in terms of social positionality, Mock creates a hard exterior shell that isolates her from other people as a means to protect herself. However, this isolation is incredibly lonely, and what Mock wants more than anything is to be seen for who she truly is. As such, much of the language Mock uses to describe her girl/womanhood is in terms of visibility and appearance.