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

by Janet Mock

My femininity was heavily policed because it was seen as inferior to masculinity.

Who will ever love you if you tell the truth?

“passing,” a term based on an assumption that trans people are passing as something that we are not. It’s rooted in the idea that we are not really who we say we are, that we are holding a secret, that we are living false lives.

If a trans woman who knows herself and operates in the world as a woman is seen, perceived,

treated, and viewed as a woman, isn’t she just being herself? She isn’t passing ; she is merely being.

When I am asked how I define womanhood, I often quote feminist author Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”