It came from a simple link I received on my Twitter feed.
I watched this beautiful woman explain that she was in fact born a he.
I was floored because I wouldn’t have guessed it.
Being the curious person I am, I decided to look up this Janet Mock “woman”.
I googled her and found that she is a transgendered woman living in New York City with a gorgeous boyfriend, Aaron Tredwell.
They began a podcast that I have, in the span of 24 hours since my introduction to her, become addicted to.
The podcast, The Missing Piece [named after a Shel Silverman book], is delightful sometimes intense dialogue between this couple. You can’t help but root for them because there seems to be a lot of compassion and love for one another.
As I listen, I sometimes remind myself that I am listening to two men biologically. It goes against everything my childhood religious rearing stands for.
Although I have considered myself spiritual for a while instead of Christian, I am still unflinchingly obsessed with understanding homosexuality and now transgender.
I have so many questions.
I even tried to google it but I still do not have a clear understanding.
A part of me feels that it isn’t meant for me to understand because I am not of that culture.
However, my inner journalist/social culturalist/noisiness whatever one would call it leaves me with questions. But none are of judgment and ridicule.
I respect her so much for her courage to come out not only to those around her, but to the whole world.
It gives me courage as well—to live my life fully and openly as I am—as a beautiful black woman despite what a certain half brain British psychologist stated recently on a blog on Psychology Today*.
*They removed it after a media firestorm with their website at the center.
