Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

by Janet Mock

Words have the power to encourage and inspire but also to demean and dehumanize. I know now that epithets are meant to shame us into not being ourselves, to encourage us to perform lies and to be silent about our truths.

Feminist theorist and cultural critic bell hooks wrote, “Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power—not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”