Last night, noted trans activist Janet Mock accused Piers Morgan of “sensationalizing” her life during a live interview on his show.
Mock appeared on the show to discuss the release of her book, Redefining Realness, and was taken aback by a tag that described her as “a boy until age 18.”
According to BuzzFeed, Morgan referred to Mock as having “been a man” although she has never identified as such, and posed the question “How would you feel if you found out the woman you are dating was formerly a man?” on Twitter. This just weeks after Katie Couric’s abrasive obsession with the bodies of trans women Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera was hailed as a “teaching moment” for America.
In an interview with BuzzFeed last night, Mock accused Morgan of having “bad judgement” and “reductive thinking about gender”:
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He’s trying to do info-tainment. He doesn’t really want to talk about trans issues, he wants to sensationalize my life and not really talk about the work that I do and what the purpose of me writing this book was about.
My book is not about Aaron or my relationship, but that’s the most sensational thing they want to pull out. They’re not talking about my advocacy or anything like that, it’s just about this most sensationalized … meme of discussion of trans women’s lives: ‘We’re not real women, so therefore if we’re in relationships with men we’re deceiving them.’ So, it just feeds into those same kinds of myths and fears that they spread around, which leads to further violence of trans women’s bodies and identities.
What they’re saying is, ‘Only until I got the surgery, then I was a woman.
Thrown by Mock’s post-interview reaction, Morgan took to Twitter to defend himself:
Very disappointed in @janetmock 's tweets tonight. Deliberately, and falsely, fuelling some sense of me being 'transphobic'. Unpleasant.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 5, 2014
I've never been subjected to the kind of nonsense that @janetmock and her supporters are accusing me of now…wish I'd never booked her.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 5, 2014
As for all the enraged transgender supporters, look at how STUPID you're being. I'm on your side, you dimwits. @janetmock
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 5, 2014
Miraculously, Mock has agreed to appear on Piers Morgan Live again tonight at 9 p.m. to discuss the issue further:
Looking fwd to a fruitful discussion. MT @piersmorgan: So @janetmock has agreed to come back on my show LIVE tonight. CNN 9pmET.
— Janet Mock (@janetmock) February 5, 2014
Will you be watching?
Stevenw
My preferred title: Janet Mock Is Going To Blast Piers Morgan With a Shotgun Tonight.
It offends me that Piers can claim to be British; he’s such an odious trickle of diarrhea. That he appears to be famous constantly bewilders me.
NG22
OMG, I am setting this to DVR right now. This has to be the first time I actually want to watch Piers’s show. I really want Janet to lay his ass out.
(For the record, I understand Janet is post-op, and has been all throughout her adulthood, so the rest of the comment doesn’t apply to her at all.)
I hope trans supporters don’t get on me because of this, since I consider myself a supporter as well. But as a gay man, I’m really intrigued by the men who date pre-op trans women. I’m not grossed out by it at all. I actually find it really hot. I wonder if there are any men who identify as straight, but date pre-op trans women. I think my interest has less to do with having a ‘reductive view of gender,’ and more about the reductive view many straight men have about their sexual orientation and identity.
DShucking
I just watched it. She’s so full of shit and is a perfect example of why I am losing my feeling of support for her community. She fired off angry tweets about how offensive it was for Piers Morgan to say she was born a boy so he gets vilified. He has her back on tonight and repeatedly asks why he was vilified for saying she was born a boy when she herself repeatedly said in the Marie Claire interview in 2011 with her that she was born a boy and now she refuses to answer the question. Instead repeatedly giving little speeches about ignorance of trans issues and how difficult life is for trans and condescending to his ignorance. Hypocrite. I lost all respect for this woman. This community can’t even agree on the terminology themselves yet attack everyone else for not knowing. Their community is far too small to attack and alienate allies.
Snapdragon
@DShucking: I didn’t see the second interview but I can Image how it went. I also agree with you about the community, the long battle over transsexuals being crammed under the transgender umbrella continues to rage on only serves to cause mass confusion not only among the community but also to those outside the community trying to understand or learn the terminology.
I find it saddening believe that the gay and lesbian community will continue to allow the trans community to play at the adults table when they continually act like children out in public at every turn. I for one think the trans community is far to small, poor and to F*&^%ed up for them to ever be taken seriously. While they have made some progress in getting some laws changed that has only been with the backing of the G and L community for without that backing they would be like hoos and not be heard
Arkansassy
Transsexual writes book sensationalizing her life so the whole world can read the intimate details of her life gets mad at someone for sentionalizing her life. Um… Ok.
Icebloo
Piers Morgan is such a scumbag ! He worked for Rupert Murdoch’s evil right wing extremism empire rising to be an Editor of The Sun which was the flagship newspaper of Murdoch’s in the UK. The Sun helped keep right wing extremist Margaret Thatcher and her right wing loony Conservative party in power from 1979 up until 1997. The Sun would print lies, lies, lies to keep people from knowing the truth. Piers Morgan is responsible for those lies and that corruption and bias for many years.
Then he runs away to America to reinvent himself as a left wing “journalist”. He is a snake. He will use anybody to get more money and more fame. He is a total fame whore and a third rate journalist. CNN should have got someone decent for that job. Shame on CNN !
tomron
I’m afraid the lady made an ass of herself. I hate it when “our side” gets so damn combatant that discussions turn into raging arguments. Piers (whatever you think of him, you must admit he has been on the right side of LGBT movements consistently) merely quoted from the header of an interview with Ms Mock of some years ago, which said something like “I was a born a boy”. How the hell was he to know that (as she claimed) she did not write the header and that it was not a direct quote? By the way, she insists on separating the transgender rights movement from the LGB(T) movement, which I found sad. She seems to be an extremely intelligent lady, but came across as an angry bitch, and a rude one at that. When Piers offered some “advise”, her snarky response (before he had a chance to tell her that when being interviewed she should object right there on the spot and make her point, rather than wait and cause a brouhaha later) was “I don’t need your advise”. As much as I wanted to hear something positive come out of her mouth, I waited in vain.
MY advise to all angry LGBT seekers of equal rights would be to pick your fights prudently, and especially to NOT pick a fight with an ally.
IvanPH
Sensationalizing her life?! She wrote an entire book about her life for crying out loud! Isn’t that sensationalizing?
And let’s get real, please. No straight man would date and marry a trans woman. You must be living in fantasy if you think otherwise. That’s why you can’t blame Piers Morgan in implying that there may be a deception happening when a trans woman dates a straight man.
I also don’t get what’s wrong with the Katie Couric interview. A lot of trans people get sexual reassignment procedures. It’s perfectly understandable why Couric would ask her guests if they had any surgery done. Why make a big deal about it?
The trans community should just separate itself from the LGB communities. Most of them, anyway, identify themselves as straight who are simply on the wrong body.
teejay
Well, I never thought I’d want to defend Piers Morgan, but Janet Mock did not come out of that well.
If the crux of her objection was the recurring reference to her being formerly a man, then she completely botched any opportunities to describe how or why this is offensive. Partly because she didn’t handle the interview well, coming across as aggressive and self-righteous (and the repeated references to ‘I liked it when you compared me to Beyonce’ etc was not doing her any favours), but mostly because the offence is, as she says, all about nuance. Except really, relatively speaking to the community’s bigger problems, its nuance to the point of over-sensitivity. The fact is, concepts of being born a boy, and being born with your gender yet to be determined, are not mutually exclusive – you can exist as both, biologically and psychologically. Its pretty obtuse and actually asinine to make a huge deal about refuting that you were born male – you can argue the subtleties of gender identification all you like (although what point there is in that on a programme like this is another question) but, there is also a legitimate biological definition that should still be allowed to stand as well.
What Janet failed to put forward was the point Laverne Cox made more successfully – the fixation on genitals/ sex/ body parts etcetc, as a way of reducing the human inside to just a body. But again, over-sensitivity: so straight men are obsessed with sex-change operations? Boo hoo! Big shock! Gay men and women have long since accepted (or at least put up with) straight mens’ obsession with what they do with their bodies when they have sex – its a base, prurient but unavoidable obsession, but once they get that out of their system, they can move on. I say ‘they’, but another element of the debate that Janet visibly failed to put forward was that we are all a bit homophobic and transphobic. I’ll admit it – I’m probably overly curious in sex-change operations.
In a viral video doing the rounds, Panty Bliss made a brilliant speech about the fact that homophobia exists in us all, straight and gay, and the best we can do sometimes is just to minimise it – it’s a wonder, given our cultural and societal norms, that we’re not all more homophobic. And similarly, we’re probably all a bit transphobic, and Janet would have done much better to tell Piers that he was but that’s ok, she probably was as well sometimes, and his intention was good and, for now, that’ll do. There really are much bigger battles than this one.
inbama
Most trans folk are nice people struggling with a difficult life.
The Orwellian lingo trans activists have developed, however, is an insult to any thinking person whether you imagine your brain is in the wrong body or not.
robirob
Maybe I am too jaded, but to me this reeks like a PR stunt.
Spike
@robirob: And she succeeded as he has invited her back on the show. Sucker. Should have stuck with his original tweet in reference to being sorry that he invited her on in the first place. Then again, I guess at this point he’s using her as well, if not more as this faux fight will bring up the ratings and lead to more free press.
TinoTurner
Let the trans backlash begin. First Katie Couric gets “blasted” for asking a very real, honest question that the whole world wants to know. Then some lunatic trans calls out Jared Leto for playing a trans person and now this?? This is why as a gay man, I do not want to be associated with this mess.
Snapdragon
@robirob: You known the same thing passed through my mind for a second. Since Janet’s trying ti hick her book this could all have been a stunt to drum up attention and help book sells.
Snapdragon
@IvanPH:
What R U Smokin ! There are millions of straight men who chase transsexuals and yes many of them marry the transsexuals they date. Have you not heard about the case in Texas Thomas & Nikki Araguz. This is just one example but there are thousands more you never hear about.
As to your other comment that Katie Couric has a right to ask questions about people sexuality…….REALLY ? Who does that do you see other talk show host asking the other people they interview if they had sex changing surgery ?
Your comments prove you really have NO IDEA what you’re talking about when it comes to the trans community so the best thing you can do is shut up !
jvcarroll
I support trans rights, but not the feckless behavior of Janet Mock.
It amazes me that someone who has lived such a remarkable life of facing adversity head-on couldn’t be open and honest with Piers Morgan at the moment she felt offended. He’s an ass, but he’s also an ally. He would have responded to her correction if only he’d been given the chance. It’s people like Mock who cause all of us to lose ground with those who don’t yet understand.