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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

What I'm Reading: Janet Mock's Redefining Realness

To open this blog post up with some honesty...I'm exhausted.

Usually the winter at work is a little slower than other times and I get a moment to breathe. Not so this go around. For a litany of reasons (which as I've mentioned before include more than just work...like my accidental over commitment to volunteering) I'm running on empty. So there's less time for me to read and stay caught up on the world and less time to write and less time to even think.

Thankfully, I have found time to fit in Janet Mock's amazing book, Redefining Realness, in which she chronicles her personal life experiences as a trans woman of color.

[Image text: Janet Mock pictured on her book cover]
Here's a brief synopsis from the book's Amazon page:
This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself. 
In a word, it's incredible. Mock is a wonderfully relatable person with a true knack for connecting to others through the written word. I found myself, so different from her in so many ways, nodding my head vigorously in agreement at the lessons she imparts and the dissection of how her personal stories reflect wider societal trends that so many marginalized people face. She delves fearlessly and truthfully into very private facts of her life from sex work to abuse, all while educating and imparting messages of hope and possibility.

I wish that I had time to give this book the review/analysis that it deserves...but that's why this is a "what I'm reading" and not a full review. Let me just end with a strong recommendation: READ IT. You will be better for it.


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