The writer, activist, and TV host was working as an editor at People when she published a moving essay about growing up trans in Marie Claire, inspired, she said, by the tragic suicides of LGBTQ youth all over the country. “The recent stories about kids who have killed themselves because of the secrets they were forced to keep has shifted something in me,” she wrote.
Her story garnered national attention and three years later Mock became a Marie Claire contributing editor.
“To have a magazine say ‘No, we know that girls and women come from various walks of life, and you’re just on one path, but that doesn’t negate from the experience of what a woman is or who a woman is, I find that to be revolutionary,” she told Poynter.
With stints at Entertainment Tonight and her own pop culture web series on MSNBC, Mock is a media powerhouse. Her first book, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, was a New York Times bestseller and earned praised from A-listers including Oprah Winfrey, who hailed her as a “fearless new voice.” In 2016, she produced HBO’s The Trans List, a gripping documentary chronicling the lives of 11 trans Americans.
In addition to her successful media career, the accomplished 33-year-old continues to use her platform to be an advocate for the trans community. She started #GirlsLikeUs, a social media campaign that empowers trans women. Last month, Mock took her message to the Women’s March on Washington where she called the support of trans women of color.
Mock’s next book, “Surpassing Certainty,” will be published this year.
