American writer, television host, director, producer and transgender rights activist. Her debut book, the 2014 memoir Redefining Realness, became a New York Times bestseller, and was followed by Surpassing Certainty, published in 2017. She is a contributing editor for Marie Claire and a former staff editor of People magazine’s website.
Her father, Charlie Mock III, is African-American, and her mother, Elizabeth (née Barrett), is of half Portuguese descent, part Asian descent and part Native Hawaiian (k?naka maoli) descent. She began her transition as a freshman in high school, and funded her medical transition by earning money as a prostitute in her teens. She chose her name Janet after pop singer Janet Jackson. She underwent sex reassignment surgery in Thailand at the age of 18 in the middle of her first year in college.
Mock earned a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Merchandising from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2004 and a Master of Arts in Journalism from New York University in 2006.
In April 2015, Oprah Winfrey invited Mock to be a guest on Super Soul Sunday for a segment titled, “Becoming Your Most Authentic Self” where she discussed “proudly and unapologetically” claiming her identities. In September 2015, Mock was invited back to join Winfrey’s Super Soul Sessions where Mock discussed, “Embracing The Otherness.” In 2016, Mock was named to Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.
The television show Pose premiered on 3 June 2018 on FX. Mock is a writer, director, and producer on the show, and is the first trans woman of color hired as a writer for a TV series in history. In 2019, Mock signed a three-year deal with Netflix giving them exclusive rights to her TV series and a first-look option on feature film projects; this made her the first openly transgender woman of color to secure a deal with a major content company.
Mock lives in New York City. She married photographer Aaron Tredwell in 2015. The couple filed for divorce in February 2019.
Link to Wikipedia biography