Last week, award winning transgender activist Janet Mock appeared on CNN’s primetime talk show Piers Morgan Live (PML) for the release of her new memoir, Redefining Realness. Though the interview itself seemed to go smoothly, Mock criticized Morgan and CNN in the aftermath, claiming they had sensationally framed her story, as evidenced by the use of an on-screen description that read, “was a boy until the age of 18” and the tweeting of Mock’s story by PML with the tagline,
How would you feel if you found out the woman you are dating was formerly a man? @JanetMock shares her experience now. #RedefiningRealness
— Piers Morgan Live (@PiersMorganLive) February 5, 2014
She makes an interesting point, when claiming the importance of nuance in our stories,
Nuance in media is nearly impossible but I do hope we continue to write the records of our own lives & relay that nuance #redefiningrealness
— Janet Mock (@janetmock) February 5, 2014
How does nuance, in the telling of a trans narrative, affect transgender women? And why are subtle discrepancies, such as Morgan’s poor framing amidst his intentionally positive and accepting perspective, worthy of calling out?
Though acceptance is a goal, the terms by which trans women are understood and acknowledged ought to be provided by trans women themselves, lest they be dismissed casually by the ego of an open mind, such as Piers Morgan’s. It doesn’t help that nuance is, by definition, subtle, and thus easily disregarded and trivialized.
The subtle nature of nuance can be used advantageously by people and institutions that have chosen to ignore it, as a way to disregard critique concerning it’s importance. Piers Morgan is supportive, right? So why should Janet Mock attack him after he tried to help her? It is easy to suggest that she is mincing words or being overly sensitive.
The misinterpretation of trans women as formerly men, contributes to the belief that trans women actually still are men, because something inherent to them has once been and thus is capable of being, male. This belief is productive of cultural transphobic violence.
That these conversations are being had, at all, is a consequence of this particular moment in history. Transgender awareness is at an all time high, as the transgender movement pushes forward into relevancy, onto the television screens, and into the minds of the American public. Piers Morgan, much like Katie Couric, who recently showed the same disregard to fellow trans activist Laverne Cox's nuanced integrity, embodies the overwhelmingly popular, and socially accepted attitude toward transgender women. Janet Mock spoke to Buzzfeed about the interview, and they wrote,
“[Piers Morgan] appeared to dwell on her experience as a child and particularly the challenge of revealing that background to her boyfriend. It was not until the last two minutes of the interview that Morgan brought up Mock’s work as an advocate for the trans community.”
This, Mock would claim, is a misselling of the trans narrative. Media, and Piers Morgan, rather than acknowledge the pulp of Janet Mock’s work in activism, intentionally frame these stories around the phenomenon of transition.
After a heated Twitter war between Morgan and enraged transgender community members, the talk show host asked Mock to come back for a second interview, to discuss her “vilifying” allegations. She agreed, and this second episode aired last night at 9pm.
At the start of the show, we see Morgan is aghast at Mock’s disgruntlement with being framed as having once been male. He calls to evidence a well known Marie Claire feature entitled, “I Was Born a Boy”, to debunk Mock’s claim that PML’s framework was inappropriate.
“I Was Born a Boy” launched Mock, a then Marie Claire editor, into the public eye as a transgender woman. Morgan wants to know, if Janet Mock had a problem with being referred to as having once been male, why did she sign off on this feature that “launched her to fame” three years ago?
Janet Mock explained that she has already critiqued this article, and has done so in her new book.
Morgan collected this evidence because he felt that there was essentially nothing wrong with saying that Janet Mock used to be a man, even though her book, that he promotes, includes a critique explaining the harm incited by that perspective.
Transgender women might mind the framing because it oversimplifies their experience; it ignores nuance and essentially isn’t accurate.
Was Janet Mock once a man?
Well, we can assert that her genitalia used to look differently. Which, honestly, is disturbing to say because, to me, this conversation has nothing to do with the status of Mock’s genitalia. Unfortunately, because Morgan’s argument assumes that genitalia is indicative of gender, Mock’s entire narrative, claim to fame, book, and activism must ultimately ride between her legs.
So she used to be a man, right? Well Mock makes it clear that she “never lived as a man”, and that may be so. It doesn’t much matter to me if she did, however. How many transgender women have lived as men? And exactly how many years does it take to fabricate manhood?
Piers Morgan asked her plainly,
“Do you dispute that you were born a boy?”
To which Mock responded,
“I was born a baby who was assigned male at birth, I did not identify or live my life as a boy, as soon as I had enough agency in my life to grow up, I became who I am, and this did not start at 18 when I went to Thailand and had surgery.”
The basis of transition is a discordance between one’s body, and internal sense of gender. Though the transgender woman is often framed as being a “boy” who wants to be a girl, many trans women’s experience is quite the opposite.
I spent most of my young life wanting to be a boy, grasping for some relic of the man that people wanted me to be. I couldn’t find him; he wasn’t there.
Invert the trope. Imagine a trans woman as a girl who wanted to be a boy. You might start to understand Janet Mock’s frustration a little bit better. Transition is about acceptance, not deception. From this perspective, there is no sensational story to sell about a “sex change”.
Piers Morgan still wants to know,
“Why is it so offensive to actually just say that you grew up as a boy and then, because you always felt you were female, you had surgery to become a woman?”
To understand his perspective, one must first agree that within one’s genitalia resides the locus of gender itself.
To this I pose a question to Piers Morgan - If you were unwillingly subjected to Gender Reassignment Surgery (to use a slightly less sensational version of your favourite term, ‘sex change’) would this procedure essentially transform you into a woman?
Or, would you be a man with a body that a) fails to meet the expectations of society’s gender paradigm and b) is discordant to your identity, as a man?
If Morgan truly believed that transgender women are what they claim to be, he might have spent less time dissecting Janet Mock’s medical history, and the titillating exposure of her past. Because if his best acceptance equates to embracing men who choose to live as women, he simply has failed to understand the issue at hand.
I am inclined to be gentle with novice advocates, like Piers Morgan, who appear to have good intention, but fall short of grasping the whole picture. And though Morgan himself feels “abused” and “vilified”, I would suggest that trans women do not bear a responsibility to comfort those who are, even mistakenly, perpetuating trans women’s, actual abuse.
Is Piers Morgan a transphobic villain to the transgender community? No, his interest in forming an alliance with trans people is meaningful, and we are surely grateful. Yet if we gloss over the nuance, we surrender the very heart of our struggle, and ultimately - we allow transphobia to persist incessantly through our alliances, and in our rise to “acceptance”.
Morgan wanted to know,
“How does it help you, Janet, that someone like me, who has been such an open supporter of the community that you represent...that you target me?”
The role of an ally is not to dominate discourse. Piers Morgan is under the illusion that he determines whether or not he is a supportive ally to the transgender community, but that determination is made through actions, and through the community itself.
This sort of discrete transphobia is arguably more damaging to us than it’s manifestation in overt discrimination and bigotry as, with discretion, it now operates beneath the guise of equality. Our concerns are less credible, as our movement has already been acknowledged, assimilated, and morphed into the hegemonic population’s perception of it.
Ultimately, Mock is concerned with addressing the needs of her community; the purpose of her book, and her presence on Piers Morgan’s show, is to serve that community. It was her responsibility to rebuke Morgan, because an alliance that isn’t based in mutual respect, humility, and action is reductive, and inversely damaging. That Morgan chose to respond defensively, articulates why Mock’s demand for betterrepresentation is necessary.
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