On Wednesday, Sept. 21 Janet Mock came to SUNY Oneonta as this year’s Mills Distinguished Lecture. She is best known as a journalist and for her work advocating for transgender rights. Her New York Times’ bestselling memoir "Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More" tells the story of life growing up and her journey to becoming her true self. Interviewed by SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski in what felt like a talk show conversation, Mock discussed her gender identity in how her schools and teachers affected her, her start of #GirlsLikeUs, and her transitioning growing up.

Her memoir was this year’s Common Read for the college. The Common Read is meant to advocate diversity by encouraging students to examine and understand topics such as equity, inclusion and personal history. Each year the college puts on the Mills Distinguished Lectureship honoring the memory of Professor Albert Mills and his wife, Helena, whose donation to the College of Oneonta Foundation led to establishment in 1988 of a fund to bring prominent speakers to the college.

As many students of the college are aspiring teachers President Kleniewski asked about her growing up in Hawaii and how teachers and schools played a huge role in Mock’s transitioning. After transferring from a school that was not tolerant and accepting of who she was, Mock became an outgoing student and was able to be herself without much discrimination. She described one experience when her social worker, went to all her teachers for the year to make sure that she was called “Janet” in high school as it was not her legal name yet.

With this experience, Mock stated, “teachers are vital to creating spaces where people are comfortable.” It is up to the teachers to create the safe space at school for students and to help them with their “lived reality.” Because if students are not safe at home or at school, where can they feel safe? Overall, all schools should always be seen as a safe haven for all students.

In 2012, Janet Mock started the Twitter hashtag called #GirlsLikeUs. It is meant to empower and support transgender women around the world. It has brought together numerous conversations among transgender women all across social media and encouraged them to tell their own stories as many, especially those of transwomen of color, are seldom heard. It has received a lot of attention from several queer-media sites.

She started #GirlsLikeUs because one days she had asked a facilitator how young transwomen identified themselves they didn’t respond with “transgender,” “transsexual,” or “trans.” They just said they were girls. She found it “exhilarating that these young women were naming themselves [and] that they were identifying [themselves] how they wanted and that they exerted themselves in a world that rarely, if ever, made room for them.” Generally, the hashtag is a way of saying “I’m here” so transwomen can support one another.

Throughout the whole thing, the crowd in Alumni Field House was so great with claps, whistles, finger-snaps, and cheers, that Mock took out her phone to take a Snapchat video of it all. Afterward, the line to meet her and have her sign her memoir was about 100 feet long.

Janet Mock currently works as a contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine and is working on her second memoir, "Firsts: A Memoir of the Twenties Experience," which is set to be released sometime next year. Mock’s story is something that everyone should read about. It is an honest, informative, and fascinating way of learning about the life that transgender people lead.

Because if we can feel freedom in our own bodies then how are we going to feel free of ourselves and how can we ever get freedom of them?