Piers Morgan Transgender Controversy

Trans woman activist/writer Janet Mock had her first interview on Tuesday with Piers Morgan this week to promote her new memoir Redefining Realness: My Path To Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. After being asked about her genitalia in the interview and seeing herself identified as someone who “used to be a man,” Mock took offense to the conversation that aired and tweeted her concerns, mentioning Piers Morgan show’s Twitter account, which Piers said set off a  “firestorm of verbal abuse” on social media from Mock’s followers, supporters and trans individuals.

Mocks’s Twitter followers responded in and Piers snapped back, noting his “disappointment” that this was blowing out of proportion since he was on “their side.”

Morgan had Mock back on the show a second time Wednesday night for a follow-up conversation about the tweets. The conversation ultimately ended with Morgan giving Mock advice about handling national mainstream television appearances.

“You’ve just given me advice that I perhaps also feel like I don’t need, but I took it with good grace, so let me tell you some advice. Next time you’re doing a big, high-end profile with a television interviewer, you feel that the interviewer is miscategorizing your identity or your gender, my advice and, I say this is a nice, respectful way is, ‘say something.’ Don’t pretend it all gone very well and shake that to his hand and thank him and then go off 5 days later and ignite a social media firestorm of abuse in his direction because that isn’t fair either, so I don’t try to equate my story with yours  I’ve had it pretty easy by comparison, your book remains a great, inspiring book, I remain a great supporter of the transgender community. I hope we can both move on from this and I appreciate you coming back on the show tonight.”

Many outside of the trans community don’t understand why Mock took offense to the conversation or why she didn’t say anything during the interview. There are reasons why Mock didn’t take the interview well, but in order to understand why, you have to temporarily disregard your definition of gender as either “male” or “female.” You have to think of genders not as separate, not as either/or, but as fluid and complex. This way of thinking can be used to move our social conversation to issues that trans individuals go through that matter, issues of violence and discrimination and lack of healthcare; topics relatable to any minority, including Black. This way of thinking isn’t resolved with saying that “it is what it is.” Truly, it’s not. “It” was defined by someone else and learned by us.

Looking at the tweets, Mock wasn’t pleased that Morgan referred to her as someone who used to be a “boy” or that CNN mentioned she “used to be a man.” But, she had male genitalia and was born a “boy,” right? No. Technically, she was born a human with blood, bones, and flesh. She was labeled as male. It may be hard to remember right now, but all of us were told by doctors — who study terms in historical medical texts and articles written and defined by others on how to operate on humans —  that we were of the “male” or “female” sex and would, one way or another, grow as a “boy” or “girl.” They weren’t labels we asked for. They certainly weren’t labels we negotiated with our mothers about before we took in our first breath. They were terms given that we, referring to men and woman, ultimately identified with.

I can’t remember not feeling like a girl, but I can remember how excited I was when I could wear a dress and how my parents’ affirmation for my clothing choices — “Baby, you look pretty!” — made me feel good.  The confusion for many comes in when an individual is born, told they are “male” or “female” who would grow as a “boy” or “girl,” but don’t ever personally identify with their given label. The ones who don’t ever identify with just being a “male” or just being a “female” choose to grow or transition into their own identity. According to Webster’s Dictionary, someone who identifies as transgender relates “to people who have a sexual identity that is not clearly male or clearly female.” If a person identified as someone who was never “clearly” a male or female, their identity (and the way they express it) is fluid. Referring to a trans woman as a “boy” only implies that they once “clearly” identified as one. Mock was never a “boy” (under 18) who could eventually grow into a “man” (over 18) in the first place, since she never identified as “clearly” being one.

Gender identity is a term that needs to be addressed since there are technically two definitions: The Webster’s Dictionary version and the version created within the LGBTQ community. Webster reads that gender identity is “the totality of physical and behavioral traits that are designated by a culture as masculine or feminine.” GLAAD, also known as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, an organization that reportedly includes trans individuals (take a look at the group’s history), defines gender identity as “one’s internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or a boy or a girl).” While GLAAD defines gender identity within a personal space, Webster’s definition interestingly points out that identity is a group of traits that are “designated by a culture,” which means that people within that culture — people outside of the LGBTQ space, in this case — have defined or constructed what is masculine and feminine or what is just “male” or just “female.”

I’m not implying that it’s wrong to see a person with breasts and conclude that that person’s a woman, but I do encourage you to ask about the foundation of the conclusions you have. How do you know that she’s a woman because she has breasts? Who told you she was a woman because she has breasts? Where did you learn it? Who did you learn it from? This way of thinking can be used to understand the issues concerning a group of people who aren’t granted the privilege of seeing themselves on any mainstream level. A way of thinking that isn’t resolved with saying that “it is what it is.” Truly, it’s not. “It” was defined by someone else and learned by us.

We’re fortunate, though, to at least have trans women, like Mock, who can make us think about our social constructions in a different way and open our eyes to the trans community. Mock has spoken candidly about her reassignment sex surgery at the age of 18 and is also candid about the issues of violence, discrimination and lack of healthcare for trans individuals. Redefining Realness explains her journey transitioning in high school to becoming the trans woman she ultimately identifies as. She takes that experience to explain the issues of violence, discrimination and others that impact the community. To read her memoir and speak with anyone of the trans community is to briefly take away that way of thinking I mentioned that would make you conclude “it is what it is.” A person who’s talking to her and interviewing her must think about the identity a trans person has at his or her present state since, as I said earlier, their identity has always been fluid (never just “male” or just “female”). Morgan didn’t keep that in mind when he started off his interview.

Piers Morgan: “Take me back to when you first thought, ‘this is not right, I’m not Charles,’ which was the name you were given when you were born in Hawaii, ‘I’m a woman, I’m a girl.'”

Being a trans person doesn’t imply that you once felt something was “not right.” Being a male isn’t wrong to a trans person, especially since they never identified **insert GLAAD definition once again** as male, and it doesn’t mean that being a “woman” is right, since they never identified as one either. Being a trans woman is a journey, not an ultimate decision stemming from one experience. It’s about the multitude of experiences she’s had that lead to her present personal truth.

On Wednesday night, Mock explained why she was upset during the conversation and raised questions about media covering trans individuals.

“My life today and the lives of trans people continue to have been more and more miseducated and misinformed within these tweets. I think it’s bigger than this book. I think my country is going through a lot on trans issues. How do you report on these issues without sensationalizing, without warping and throwing definitions and labels on people who have the capacity and the know-how and the experience to claim their lives?”

If you display a ticker below a trans woman that reads “used to be a man,” you are sensationalizing the issue. To sensationalize means “to describe or show something in a way that makes it seem more shocking than it really is,” according to Webster. Being neither “male” nor “female” is a concept that could be difficult to grasp for yourself, but it’s not hard to literally understand it. If you aren’t “male” and you aren’t “female,” you are moving fluidly in the middle. The concept isn’t shocking, it’s literal.

Even though Mock’s identity isn’t shocking, it makes a person wonder why, then, that someone who identifies as an advocate, would not just stop the conversation to point out the wrong label. Mock explained how bringing it up could distract from the issue at hand.

If I spoke out ever single time that someone called me out of my name or labeled me as something I’m not, I would not have time to advocate for the fierce and urgent issues in my community. Issues of poverty, joblessness or a lack of healthcare, of violence, verbal and physical violence against trans women.

Mock is an individual who identifies and expresses herself outside the confines of a mainstream society that operates in a “just female or just male” gender system. It’s already brave enough for Mock to openly advocate on behalf of her community (not just say she’s a part of it), but for her to then appear on national television to talk about issues within it? Pressure. There’s the pressure to not only clearly illustrate those issues on a mainstream platform as a person who doesn’t identify within its system, but to also just make sense. Concerns within the trans community are complex, and trying to boil that down to 10 minutes is difficult (and probably can’t be done). So, why waste the little time you have to address the basic level of understanding to stop everything because of the wrong noun?

Knowing the little amount of time Morgan had to talk to Mock makes it even more important to get the conversation right the first time. When speaking to a trans individual, it’s best to look over this media guide that Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and ask them before an interview how they identify and which personal pronouns — “he” or “she” — they prefer to be used. Once that is known, it is important that the interviewer doesn’t add comments about how they used to be “men” or “women.” Doing so only undermines their present identity and frames a trans individual as someone who made one decision to become a specific gender, instead of someone with a fluid identity.

Granted, it makes sense that someone outside of the trans community is curious about the technicalities of adding female genitalia and removing male genitalia from a human body. But, Morgan could’ve opened the conversation asking Mock about the transitioning process and to segue the conversation to what it ultimately means for individuals who decide to embark on that journey. A trans individual who does so faces the reality of stigmatization, discrimination, violence or lack of healthcare; issues that Morgan must have known about, considering that he himself admitted he was on “their side,” issues that could have framed the conversation with (on his national, mainstream show) and been brought up to Mock. Morgan has the platform to touch on the issues of the trans community, a community that many are curious about, and could’ve turned this dialogue into a groundbreaking discussion on national television.

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