Transgender activist and author Janet
Mock said in a recent interview with The Advocate that she was
not surprised by the “ugliness” surrounding President Donald
Trump's election.
In the interview, Mock, 34, promoted
her upcoming appearance on VH1's Daytime Divas. In her acting
debut – which airs Monday – Mock plays herself.
Mock was also asked about her mind-set
six months into Trump's presidency. She answered that she was not
surprised by the “ugliness” that accompanied the campaign because
she had already experienced it.
“I was outraged long before he won,”
Mock
said. “So it wasn’t just January 20 [that I became upset
with Trump]. Like most people, I wasn’t shocked that a lot of white
folk who felt they didn’t have what they wanted in the world voted
for him. All the things he said about people who were not white,
people who were poor, people of color, queer trans people, disabled
folk [were terrible]; so for me in this time period, we’ve seen him
show who he is, and we also in a sense, the people who supported him,
we saw [what] a lot of our fellow citizens think and believe. And
part of their beliefs are that some of us are more deserving of us
being here and some of us are not.”
“It’s deeply discouraging that
that’s happening. At the same time, we’ve also seen a great
coming together of a lot of folk who do not believe that. People who
do not believe in him and his administration and believe we’re a
country of immigrants and folk who should be able to have access to
live freely, love freely, be who we are, and to also band together
and resist.”
When asked, “Do you think Trump's win
opened people's eyes to the discrimination that still exists in this
country?” Mock answered, “A lot of us already knew that that
ugliness existed because we see it in our everyday lives.”
“Trans and people of color are
oppressed every single day; there are not many protections for us. So
I’m not surprised by it. But for many people, it was a wake-up call
for where we are as a country,” she said.