Janet Mock
- Birth Name: Charles Mock, born on March 10, 1983
- Transitioned: Began her transition as a freshman in high school, and underwent gender confirming surgery at the age of 18
- Known for:
- Writing the New York Times bestseller memoir Redefining Realness
- Contributing as an editor for Marie Claire
- Being a staff editor of People magazine’s website for more than 5 years
Janet is best known for her work as a director, producer, and author in front of the camera. She is the first trans woman of color to be hired as a writer on a TV show for FX’s Pose. She was named one of Out magazine’s “most compelling people of the year” in 2013. She was named to The Advocate’s annual “40 Under 40” list in 2014 and then to their “50 Most Influential LGBT People in Media” list in 2015.
In her memoir Redefining Realness, she wrote, “Frankly, I’m not responsible for other people’s perceptions and what they consider real or fake. We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people’s identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies.”
Janet Mock
Caroline Cossey
- Birth Name: Barry Kenneth Cossey, born on August 31, 1954
- Transitioned: Began his transition as a teenager. She received her final surgery on December 31, 1974, at the age of 20.
- Known for:
- Modeling as a glomour model for top magazines such as Australian Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar
- Writing two memoirs under the pen name “Tula”, I Am a Woman and My Story
- Participating in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only as an extra
Caroline was born with a variant of Klinefelter’s syndrome, which meant she had the XXXY genotype rather than the XY chromosome. As a result, when she reached puberty, she assumed a female appearance. She did, however, conceal her transgender identity for a long time before finally addressing it in 1982 with her first memoir, I Am a Woman. In 1991, she was the first transgender woman to model for Playboy.
About her youth, she said, “Growing up, I was a little bit of an embarrassment to my family. I was more inclined to do girly things and so I was often bullied and ridiculed at school. Boys games were alien to me. I knew something was definitely wrong when we had sex lessons at school. I realised I was attracted to boys so alarm bells started going off. Not fitting in was frightening. School is an important time—and I spent most of it hiding and feeling isolated.”
Caroline Cossey
