Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

I heard about this book when I was at a conference recently - it is written by Janet Mock, an openly trans woman.  It is one of the first books of its kind in that it is the first memoir written by a trans woman. This offers a public glimpse of Janet's private life and how she seemed to surpass all odds to become the person that she is today and how she is a happy and fullfilled and successful woman.

What makes Ms. Mock's memoir that much better is that I felt compelled to question what constituted freedom.  I had always respected a person's path to self realization. We get to where we need to get through a variety of different ways and the journey to self realization has always utterly fascinated me. In applying this to her own life as a trans woman of color in America, however, Ms. Mock challenges us to see how marginalized a person that walks in her shoes is. Becoming a woman ensured that Ms. Mock had the freedom to be who she was in spite of whee and how she was born. She showed grit and determination and honesty in moving her life forward. This is not an easy story but I still enjoyed reading it.  Ms. Mock intersperses her personal stories with statistics and mini essays in an attempt to show the broader picture of what it is to mean to be trans in America today.

There were things that might not resonate with everyone.  She occasionally uses phrases like "born as a boy" and "born in a boys' body" and part of her journey is finding heterosexual love.  This is not, by far the majority of the book though and it is a very important telling of a journey that is not readily available currently.