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After releasing her book, Redefining Realness, Mock appeared on Piers Morgan Live where Morgan "sensationalized" her trans lifestyle.

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On Tuesday evening, author Janet Mock joined "Piers Morgan Live" for a face to face, primetime interview.

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In her second novel, Janet talks about truly finding herself and what her purpose is in her life throughout her twenties.  Readers get an intimate view of her own insecurities, successes, and failures throughout her twenties.

Advocate for Trans Community

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In this New York Times bestseller, Mock discusses her childhood and life experiences as a multiracial trans person in America and offers insight about different challenges that trans people face that people may not know about.

Intersectionality

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Janet Mock appeared on Oprah's Emmy award-winning SuperSoul Sunday in May of 2015 to discuss her life story and activism. SuperSoul Sunday is referred to as "mind-nourishing conversations between Oprah and top thinkers, authors and spiritual luminaries."

Bootstrap Theory

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The Life-Shaping Moment Janet Mock Had in Kindergarten | SuperSoul Sunday | Oprah Winfrey Network

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Janet Mock reflects on a defining moment in her life that took place in kindergarten. For more on #supersoulsunday, visit http://bit.ly/1tNw5dg Find OWN on TV at http://www.oprah.com/FindOWN SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/1vqD1PN Download the Watch OWN App: http://bit.ly/2hr1nX2 Download the OWN Bold Moves App: http://bit.ly/2hglOIa About SuperSoul Sunday: SuperSoul Sunday is the multi-award winning series that delivers a timely thought-provoking, eye-opening and inspiring block of programming designed to help viewers awaken to their best selves and discover a deeper connection to the world around them.

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Mock started a twitter hashtag to represent literally, girls like herself. "Girls with a little something extra" as she put it, who don't fit gender norms, don't define themselves by their gender or label themselves as transsexual or transgender even.

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A few months ago, I participated in a focus group at the Hetrick-Martin Institute with eight other trans women. We gathered to offer insight into resources available for young trans women, and more importantly what we would have wanted (in resources, support, spaces) growing up to make our adolescence a bit easier.

An amazing discussion was sparked among the women, the kind of intimate conversation that can only happen with people who have shared such a unique experience. We may have grown up in different times, with different resources, and different challenges, but we were all trans women who ultimately chose to live visibly and were looking for ways to make it better for girls who were coming of age behind us.

The key takeaway didn't happen in our adult group. It happened in a separate focus group, where younger trans women offered their perspectives on what they wanted, what was available for them and more importantly how they saw themselves.

When I asked the facilitator how younger trans women identified, she said, "They don't call themselves trans, transsexual or transgender."

Then how do they define themselves?

"When I asked them who they were," the facilitator said, "One girl simply stated: 'We're just girls...with something extra.'"

And did they all agree to that?

"Yes, some said they were 'just girls' - point blank," she said, "And others agreed that the 'something extra' was necessary."

I found it exhilarating that these young women were naming themselves, that they were identifying how they wanted and that they exerted themselves in a world that rarely, if ever made room for them. I found myself uplifted by the "girls...with something extra" because it wasn't coming from a place of want or lack. It didn't fall prey to the tired, simplistic, limiting media sound bite of "girl trapped in boy's body." Instead it celebrated who we were as trans women: We have something extra. You can take that literally or figuratively, which is how I choose to read it: We are extra, we are more, we are special, we are everything.

I grew up just like these girls: ballsy, sassy, so sure of where I was going and how I was getting there. No one could tell me otherwise. I was a girl, with something extra: extra going beyond my genitals; extra as in sass, extra as in a killer volleyball approach, extra as in the bounce of my curls, extra as in my refusal to be a victim just because people chose not to get me, extra in the sense that I had a dream and sacrificed a lot to ensure I made those dreams my reality.

When I think of the girl I was growing up, I also think of my blind spots as well, and how I learned nearly everything I knew regarding hormones, dating, doctors, presentation, self-esteem, document changes, etc. from older women who grew up as a girl like myself. I grew up with women who knew the way-to a certain point. They could help me navigate the physical transition process, but they weren't as keen on where to go from there. No one talked to me about life after my teenage transition because education usually wasn't an integral part of the trans woman way where I grew up. Though they weren't able to help me get to college, most did wish me well when I moved to New York. And these same women supported me when I told my story nearly a decade later.

But when I came out, I was suddenly urged to identify myself: Are you transgender or transsexual? And frankly, I thought this to be one of the silliest things to be confronted with upon my sharing such a personal story with the world.

As a young woman, I only used those terms a few times, mostly because I didn't attach my sense of self to those political and medical terms. They didn't sing to my inner sense of being, they were mere labels meant to organize me and put me in my place. So how did I identify? I was a girl automatically reared as a boy who rebelled against my family's expectations to be the woman I knew myself to be.

But I'm a writer and I know the power of words, so I'm not going to feign naivety to get out of this often contentious matter in our community. As soon as I came out I was labeled as transgender. Marie Claire proclaimed, "I was born a boy." Transsexual activists argued that the LGBT establishment was misgendering me by calling me transgender.

In the end, I embraced it all because none of them could easily define who I inherently am. But it wasn't until I began speaking to other girls who grew up like I did in my post-coming out life during speaking engagements and fundraisers, on Twitter and Facebook, over coffees and dinner and on subways, that I began using phrases like, "You know how girls like us do." "You know girls like us are doing big things." "Girls like us know how to make it work, honey."

Girls like us rolled off my tongue. The root of girls like us started in private conversations with young women looking for role models, becoming role models, wanting to be heard and hoping to make a difference.

And then in March, Jenna Talackova was told because she was not a "real woman" that she could not go after her dream. And as I was writing about her, I realized that despite the fact that we look different, had different backgrounds and experiences, I knew her. I knew her on a level that only a girl who walked a similar path that we did could know.

And because of this, I cried over a beauty pageant, and I don't even watch beauty pageants. But sashaying across a stage in a gorgeous gown was Jenna's dream; it's the equivalent of me seeing my name on the glossy hardcover book boasting words I wrote to convey my truth. We all have different dreams, and this was Jenna's and in a sense it was mine. So I shared Jenna's petition on Twitter, and said:

Please sign & share this women's rights petition in support of transgender beauty queen Jenna Talackova & #girlslikeus: ow.ly/9TYc6

- Janet Mock (@janetmock) March 27, 2012

And that was the online birth of #girlslikeus. I didn't think it over, it wasn't a major push, but #girlslikeus felt right. Remarkably a few more women-some well-known, others not-shared the petition and began sharing their stories of being deemed un-real, being called out, working it, fighting for what's right, wanting to transition, dreaming to do this, accomplishing that.... #girlslikeus soon grew beyond me, and I continued to feed it: I shared quotes that touched me, articles that celebrated trans women, essays written by trans women, #FF women who inspired me, and took pictures with #girlslikeus who I call my friends and dear sisters. Then, I gave a speech at the University of Southern California which was a way for me to express the anger and frustration and hope that fueled my efforts over the past year of my living visibly. I got the chance to tell bits of the injustice CeCe McDonald faced. I got to talk about how Paige Clay's end could've easily been-and can still be-mine. I rallied the strength to hold back tears as I read over words that were written just the night before. I shared that speech on YouTube and spoke out against the New York Times' sexist and transphobic depiction of Lorena Escalera, and then, remarkably a few outlets used their platform to amplify the collective voices of #girlslikeus ( Bitch Media, Feministing, Fuck Yeah Feminists, GLAAD, TransGriot, WildGender), and my dream came true: #girlslikeus was used on its own without my @janetmock handle in it. It had a life of its own. Intimate, frivolous, deep and vain conversations were being had, women were connecting to one another, finding sisterhood and friendship, yet I also noticed something brewing as well. A piece by QWOC Media (Queer Women of Color) touted #girlslikeus as an online campaign meant to empower trans women of color. Yes, this was true, but it was not the whole truth, as #girlslikeus began as a means to connect all willing trans women across colors, generations, sexual identities and class. That sound bite from the QWOC piece unknowingly created a rift in the community of sisters I aimed to build, and made some white trans women feel as if they were "intruding" on #girlslikeus because it was touted as an empowerment tool for trans women of color, not just trans women. So I made it clear in a series of Tweets that #girlslikeus is for ALL trans women, and ultimately that just because a brown woman establishes a mini-movement does not mean that white women can't contribute.

#GirlsLikeUs is for ALL trans women, regardless of color, but all who lend their voice to amplify ours knows that intersectionality matters. - Janet Mock (@janetmock) May 15, 2012

That tweet was RTed by more than 40 followers, and served as my answer to any confusion about who I created this space for. Still, I knew I needed to create a definition, so, on the advice of @Arizona_Abby, I created the following to define #girlslikeus:

A space created by and for trans* women with the purpose of connecting, upLIFTing one another, and sharing resources and stories. It reaches across generations and color, location and socioeconomic standing, established by @janetmock in March 2012 to empower trans women to live visibly and connect in sisterhood and solidarity.

I also created a growing list of trans women on Twitter who've contributed Tweets to #girlslikeus (please Tweet #girlslikeus or "I stand with #girlslikeus" if you'd like to be added to this list). And I also noticed that trans women were including #girlslikeus in their profiles, as if it were a badge of honor. And to me, it is.

I want #girlslikeus to be an encouraging space, for debate, for love, for hope, for struggles. I want younger girls to have the space to be frivolous, to talk about transition, to talk about genitals if they want, to ask after the types of procedures people had, etc. It's your choice to answer or not. I also want it to be a space where women can discuss hot topics, debate about issues, point out privilege blind spots, and share new articles, policies and essays regarding issues facing trans women and women in general. But it will not be a space where we smack one another down, where we judge each other. We're judged enough in the world.

I want us to be fully ourselves, and hopefully in the process of sharing our most authentic selves, we'll find like-minded sisters whom we can embrace and love and connect with because it's only in our connecting that we will be more powerful and ensure that our voices and our lives and our struggles and joys matter.

Lastly, #girlslikeus is not a mandate for all trans women, and does not aim to speak for all trans women. One hashtag, label, group or person cannot be everything for everyone. But it can be something for some. And we must learn to support one another and let people live and tweet without judgment or a need to criticize. The mere existence of a new hashtag where some trans women find solace and sisterhood should not threaten anyone to the point that they are attacking it. It's frankly not that deep.

When I created #girlslikeus, people wanted me to define exactly what it meant - and I was still discovering that. All I had was a phrase that resonated with me, and luckily it resonated with a few other women. And despite the passing hostility, I pulled the conversation toward a direction of love. It sounds sappy, but I must say that what I've come to realize with oppressed, misunderstood communities like ours is that hurt people tend to hurt people. We live in a world where we are so fearful of being excluded and told we don't belong that when something is created - even in good intent - we receive it with skepticism, hostility and anger.

And I don't react to hostility with hostility. It's not my style. Instead, I shut my ego up and aimed to see each Tweet for what it truly is: Another woman wanting to be heard and yearning to know that she matters. That's why I created #girlslikeus in the first place: To let trans women know that their lives matter, and no one will be dismissed. So in that spirit, I present:
5 FAQs I've Been Asked About #girlslikeus:
1. Why call yourself #girlslikeus when it seems you're distinguishing yourself from the general population of women?
There's not one way to be a woman. Trans women share issues with non-trans women yet also face unique issues that only other trans women will understand on an intimate level. Yet #girlslikeus is not a monolith, and we don't all equally face the same kind of discrimination and struggles. While I wholeheartedly welcome all allies to contribute links and Tweet their support, it was important to me that there was a space for us, created by us, especially in a world where our mere presence causes such hostility.

2. Why is it #girlslikeus and not #womenlikeus? I'm not a girl.
I wanted this space to be intergenerational and wanted to encourage young women online to connect with women who've been where they've been, and to reach across age and nationality and ethnicity and truly connect. If you're a woman and feel "girls" is just too immature for you, know that it was created to support younger women who need to know that women like you exist, and hopefully the depth of that potential connection will outweigh the semantics regarding women vs. girls. Your wisdom as a woman is needed to uplift, inspire and encourage girls growing up to be women.

3. #girlslikeus seems like it's only for well-known, attractive trans women. It should be #girlslikethem.
The roots of #girlslikeus began with conversations with young women and launched in support of a beauty queen. So I understand the miscommunication, but #girlslikeus has always been about all trans women, regardless of looks, celebrity or gender expression. I know that there is not one way to be trans as there is not one way to be a woman or a human being. I welcome all women, from those who are thinking of transitioning to those who are way past transitioning and don't even feel the need to bring it up. I welcome women who don't and do identify as advocates, activists, academics, political or feminists. I want this to be a space where so-called everyday trans women just living their lives in their towns can dip in and connect without feeling as if they need to fight or educate or be activists. I welcome women who identify as lesbian, pansexual, bisexual, asexual, heterosexual, trans-attracted, the whole gamut. I'm also grateful to the well-known trans women who used their platform to spread the word about #girlslikeus when I established it, but it's lesser known, so-called everyday trans women who have fed #girlslikeus and kept the conversation lively. I am in love with all of these women, regardless of their color, location, level of so-called attractiveness, and how they fall on the gender spectrum.

4. What about #guyslikeus?
I encourage my trans brothers to create such a space for themselves, but will not be arrogant enough to believe that not such a space doesn't already exist for them or that they're not already organized via other platforms. I will leave the creation of space for trans men to trans men, and will continue to support the idea that we all occupy more spaces on Twitter as seen in #girlslikeus,#transfeminism, #transchat, #wehappytrans, #fourthwave.

5. What's your plans with #girlslikeus?
It's still very new, but I do hope to expand it to its own website, outside of Twitter and my own site. I want it to be a space where trans women can tell their own stories, offer wisdom and guidance to younger women, share articles and links and most importantly uplift one another. It'll also be great to create physical spaces where we can get together in person and connect as well.

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My Journey (So Far) with #GirlsLikeUs: Hoping for Sisterhood, Solidarity & Empowerment

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A few months ago, I participated in a focus group at the Hetrick-Martin Institute with eight other trans women. We gathered to offer insight into resources available for young trans women, and more importantly what we would have wanted (in resources, support, spaces) growing up to make our adolescence a bit easier.

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This article challenges feminist praxis by stating that although feminist slogans and sayings on clothing items are "in fashion", they may not actually have any positive effects for our society. Wearing clothing with feminist saying could possibly be a form of slacktivism.

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It all began in 1972. Labyris Books, the first women's bookstore in New York City, opened that year, and along with it, birthed a slogan that would become a modern feminist rallying cry. The bookstore had a shirt designed for it, a simple white t-shirt with the words "The Future Is Female" in blue bold letters.

Fast forward to 2015 when graphic designer Rachel Berks saw a photo from 1975 on Instagram of musician and activist Alix Dobkin taken by her girlfriend at the time, Liza Cowan. Berks re-posted the image on her Los Angeles shop Otherwild's Instagram account, and she was overwhelmed with the number of requests asking her to remake the shirt. Berks modernized the original 1970s version and created 24 shirts.

Within 48 hours, she sold out and started working on the next run.

Throughout the 2016 American presidential election, the shirt gained new political meaning as young women proudly donned it at Hillary Clinton rallies and in Instagram selfies paired with #ImWithHer buttons. So when Donald Trump was elected on November 8, Berks figured sales for the t-shirt would slow down.

Instead, on Nov. 9, Otherwild's online shop sold more than on any other day before. "It was like people woke up the day after election and needed the slogan more than ever," says Berks.

While t-shirt-as-feminist sloganeering isn't a new phenomenon - the "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" shirt made by the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2003 and made popular by Ashley Judd kick-started the trend - it's certainly proliferated over the past year.

Feminist-branded clothing is everywhere, from indie boutiques and fast fashion chains to the runways. Dior sent a model wearing a white t-shirt emblazoned with the words "We Should All Be Feminists" down their Spring 2017 catwalk, a specific nod to feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's book of the same name. Meanwhile, Topshop's take on progressive politics is decidedly vague with their "Save The Future" t-shirt, which, as they describe on their website, allows you to "speak your mind with a statement piece of clothing."

These t-shirts are being worn by everyone, from celebrities like Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Natalie Portman, to woke millennial women and Gen Xers and their stylish toddlers. Along with pink knit pussy hats, these shirts became the de facto uniform of the Women's March on January 21, the day after Trump's inauguration.

It makes feminism seem fun and aspirational rather than absolutely vital to the health and longevity of the human race

But while the t-shirts push feminist politics into mainstream conversation, they're not the equivalent of true political action. As momentum from the Women's March slows, is wearing a t-shirt becoming the sartorial form of slacktivism? What role do they have in the current feminist movement?

For Berks, political activism is built into the core of her business. She donates 25 per cent of the proceeds of each sale of the US$30 The Future is Female t-shirt to Planned Parenthood, and so far has donated more than $50,000. Otherwild's other slogan t-shirts, such as "Gender is a Drag" and "Sister Resistor," donate proceeds to The National Center for Transgender Equality and the ACLU.

"What does it actually mean to be a feminist or to be an activist? Is it just about wearing a shirt?" asks Berks. "For me, it certainly isn't. I've founded my business on raising money for social justice organizations."

Amanda Brinkman, the New Orleans-based designer of one of the most popular "Nasty Woman" shirts, has also seen how tapping into the trend can help support the causes she cares about. During the third presidential debate, Brinkman watched as Trump called Clinton "such a nasty woman," and immediately knew the insult had to be put on a t-shirt. She quickly mocked up a design - a simple white shirt featuring a red heart with the words Nasty Woman inside - and posted it online. Brinkman expected to sell five shirts or so. Instead, within the first 24 hours, she sold more than 10,000.

"I think the reason it really resonated with a lot of people is because we knew these things were said about women, especially those who are prepared and intelligent, behind the scenes," says Brinkman. "But to have it said on this international platform confirmed what we already knew to be true. Coming from such a vulgar person, it's a compliment."

From the beginning, Brinkman pledged 50 per cent of the shirt proceeds to Planned Parenthood and has donated over US$130,000 to date. Before the shirt went viral, Brinkman worked for over a decade in nonprofit management and sees the value that retail has in affecting change.

"The [non-profit] work that I was doing had a large impact over an extensive length of time," says Brinkman, "With the Nasty Woman shirt, I was able to donate so much in so little time. That's really exciting for someone who craves change."

Rather than releasing more variations of the Nasty Woman t-shirt, Brinkman wanted to do something more "meaty," so she designed a day planner, filled with biographies on famous feminists and political how-to guides, such as ways to contact your local representatives. "I wanted to make it accessible to someone with any level of understanding of politics," she says.

Another part of Brinkman and Berks's business model is ensuring that their wares are ethically made. The same can't be said for the knock-offs sold at Zara and Topshop, or even those produced by more noble causes. In 2014, the Daily Mail alleged that their version of the "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt made by UK-based feminist charity The Fawcett Society (in collaboration with ELLE UK magazine and British retailer Whistles) was actually produced in a sweatshop by women earning 62 pence an hour.

While there's no doubt that exploiting female workers clashes with the very tenets of feminism, it's not the only ethical dilemma at work. "There's something about the sloganeering that's happening now that's decontextualized. It makes feminism seem fun and aspirational rather than absolutely vital to the health and longevity of the human race," says Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch magazine and the author of the book We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrl to Cover Girl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement.

Indeed, the US$710 price tag of Dior's "We Should All Be Feminists" t-shirt is opportunistic, tone-deaf and clearly an attempt to capitalize on a political movement - even if the designer later announced it'd be donating money to Rihanna's charity, Clara Lionel Foundation.

Furthermore, how much of this trend is merely about self-identification - a not-so secret handshake amongst fellow feminists on the streets or on social media - rather than actually about enacting social change? "There's a limit between consuming a product and that being in itself a feminist act," says Zeisler. "It's what I call 'marketplace feminism,' this idea that you can buy something and feel good about it, and that stands in for thinking more deeply about the nuances of an issue."

Thereu2019s a limit between consuming a product and that being in itself a feminist act

Putting a price-tag on feminism is a complicated issue. Sure, buying a shirt that donates a portion of the proceeds to an important cause is better than doing nothing at all, but your actions shouldn't stop there. So much more work needs to be done.

Since fashion changes constantly, there's also the fear that when a store like H&M embraces feminism, it reduces an important political movement to a trend that inevitably will go out of style. Feminism is about structural change and advocating for women's equality, which includes improving labour laws that fast-fashion chains exploit.

But this doesn't mean the trend need be dismissed entirely. For Ilya Parkins, an associate professor of gender and women's studies at the University of British Columbia, fashion is a valid outlet of self-expression and creativity. "The reaction to fashion as vapid is misogyny in disguise, even amongst feminists," says Parkins. "There's a history that we can trace back to Ancient Greek philosophy of associating femininity with artifice, while men are associated with depth. Anti-fashion critiques often hinge itself on that, and that's a problem."

Recently, feminist slogans have spread beyond the t-shirt, to tote bags and baby onesies, and even hijabs. Toronto designer Nour Kaiss has put a new lines of scarves she hopes will challenge perceptions of who can be a feminist. Launched earlier this year, her company Nourka makes head scarves printed with the words "Feminism" and "Equality." For Kaiss, the scarves subvert the idea that Islam and feminism are incompatible. "People don't see those two as going hand-in-hand together," explains Kaiss. "They look at a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, and they might think her husband or her dad told her to wear it and she doesn't really want to. But in fact, I'm wearing it proudly, and I'm also a feminist."

While wearing the printed scarves as a hijab, Kaiss has had numerous strangers ask her about how feminism and Islam are related, and even what the word "feminism" means. "It gets a conversation going, which is what I want to happen," she says.

In the end though, just starting conversations can be seen as a form of slacktivism, the type of lazy protest that is more performative than demonstrative. What these feminist-branded wares do accomplish is to normalize the term "feminist" and neutralize some of the negative connotations.

At this past summer's Comic-Con in San Diego, a young girl wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt, cape and headband started crying while getting an autograph from her hero, the real life Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot. Gadot's Justice League all-male co-stars - Ben Affleck, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher - looked over as the actress and little girl held hands. This single instance exhibited the impact portrayals of feminism in the mainstream can have on the next generation of young women.

For this little girl, feminism isn't just the future, it's the new norm.

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Is clothing adorned in feminist slogans a powerful statement or just another form of slacktivism?

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It all began in 1972. Labyris Books, the first women's bookstore in New York City, opened that year, and along with it, birthed a slogan that would become a modern feminist rallying cry. The bookstore had a shirt designed for it, a simple white t-shirt with the words "The Future Is Female" in blue bold letters.

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Kelly Herron, a Seattle jogger, was running her usual route and stopped for the bathroom, where a man was waiting inside with intents on raping her. She took defense classes just recently, and put them to good use.  She defended herself and kept screaming "Not Today Motherf*cker!" You can view her battle scars in this picture and see the actual route she took when she was being attacked as she was using Map My Run. She create a brand, NTMF, to help empower women in the running community and part of the proceeds go to reconstructive surgeries for assault survivors.

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This New York Times article explains why feminism is popular again - more than ever before. The article claims that this may have stemmed from the loss of presidency for Hilary Clinton. More and more people continue to accept a feminist stance into their own views and will hopefully continue to do so in years to come.

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People have been declaring feminism dead forever, and after Donald J. Trump 's election victory it was tempting to wonder if the naysayers were onto something.

While 94 percent of black women and 68 percent of Hispanic women who voted chose Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump - despite his long record of misogynous insults, sexist statements and gross behavior, despite his pledge to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which gave millions of women access to birth control, mammograms and other benefits, and despite his promise to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade - won the support of 53 percent of white women voters, only 3 percent less than gentlemanly, sane Mitt Romney.

Flash forward a few months, though, and wow. The women's movement is back, and not a moment too soon. Started by a Facebook post and organized in just 11 weeks, the Women's March was arguably the biggest demonstration Washington had ever seen, to say nothing of the huge marches the same day in other cities. And then, while commentators predicted that the marches were just a one-off, came the Huddles - small neighborhood groups, mostly of women, who helped kicked off what has come to be called the Resistance. "Before the march, I hadn't been to a demonstration since 1980," said a participant in the Huddle I attended down the street from my home in Manhattan. "I hadn't demonstrated since the Vietnam War," said another. That's a long time between marches.

What activated these women and the many millions like them? There was Mrs. Clinton's loss - not just the fact that she lost despite winning three million more votes, but the misogynist attacks on her. There was the threat to women's rights, especially abortion rights, and to 50 years of progress on civil rights and civil liberties, religious tolerance, anti-racism, health care and L.G.B.T. rights. There was the permission Mr. Trump's victory has given to louts and bullies to push women around. In short, there was the whole dark cloud of reactionary politics that is Donald Trump, of which male entitlement is a signal part. Women see that entitlement in their daily lives. Even women who voted for him acknowledged it was there, but seemed to shrug it off as an unchangeable fact of life.

But there's something more. Feminism has changed. It's lost its earnest, been-there-done-that aura (undeserved, but there you are). When my daughter was in college 10 years ago, she was one of only two or three girls who raised their hands when their sociology professor asked if any of them called themselves a feminist. And this was Wesleyan, a famously liberal school. I recently visited a sociology seminar at New York University, and asked the same question. All the students raised their hands - including the two men. "Feminism is cool now," explained one young woman, citing the movement against sexual assault on campus as one factor and the influence of pop culture idols like Beyoncé and Emma Watson as another. The goals may be the same as ever, but the movement feels different. It is more interracial, younger, queerer and far more internet savvy than it was a decade or so ago.

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March, Huddle, Fight: Why Feminism Is Back in a Big Way

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People have been declaring feminism dead forever, and after Donald J. Trump 's election victory it was tempting to wonder if the naysayers were onto something.

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My Favorite Murder is a podcast by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark that empower women by discussing vulnerable topics that are usually brushed under the rug, especially for women.  The two comedians (who also discuss murders) talk openly about mental illness, talk about their own therapy, debunk gender roles, and applaud bad ass women around the world.

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A top 10 regular on iTunes' comedy podcast chart, My Favorite Murder has been featured in Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, Nylon and Rolling Stone magazine. Aside from being avid true crime enthusiasts, Karen Kilgariff is a stand-up comedian and television writer and Georgia Hardstark is a writer and host for the Cooking Channel.

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Stuff Mom Never Told You is a podcast hosted by two leading advocates for feminism in Washington D.C., Emilie Aries and Bridget Todd. In this episode, the hosts break down the term and explain how we can all add an intersectional lens to feminism.

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Intersectional Feminism 101 | Stuff Mom Never Told You

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The term "intersectionality" is pretty popular these days. Emilie & Bridget unpack the origin of this term, why it's so important, and how we all can bring a more intersectional lens to our feminism.

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Beyonce's entire album (including videos) was secretly dropped in the middle of the night on April 23rd, 2016. Beyonce shares the struggles, hopes, dreams, joys, and pain of black girls and women. This is revolutionary because black women aren't typically the center of attention for inspiration and stories. Beyonce takes her own intersectionality and tells her stories

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What would happen if we took the hopes, dreams, pain, joy, loss, bodies, voices, stories, expressions, styles, families, histories, futures of black girls and women and put them in the center and started from there?

Or rather, is one outcome. Surely there are other possibilities that are utterly obscured because we rarely even try to place the black woman at the center of the puzzle. Lemonade disrupted our inner ear, throwing us off balance as we confronted the breadth of all we have missed, ignored, and submerged by pushing black womanhood, even our own, to the margins. As a black feminist scholar I have been thinking, teaching, and writing about the intersections of race and gender for two decades, but the sheer force of Lemonade's visual and sonic artistry is still unfamiliar terrain.

The call-and-response tradition is so deeply embedded in black cultural practice, so to help understand the meaning of this moment I sent out a call of my own to writers and thinkers who center black women and girls in their work. They responded. I like to think of this as MHP's lemonade stand, getting in-formation about Bey's latest contribution.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It is no secret that I am a platinum member of the Beyhive. Recently and publicly I said, "to hell with any job where I can't talk about Beyoncé!" So, let's assume I am not a neutral arbiter of the relevance of Lemonade. But this is not just another music video. It is not just another Beyoncé video. Something different happened here, didn't it?

It is the most vulnerable, raw, and artistic album that she has ever made, and with the passing of Prince just days before its release, it makes me feel that true artistry, musicianship, and risk-taking didn't die with him.

-Danielle Moodie-Mills is CEO of Politini Media

I think, finally, we are seeing the real Beyoncé. It wasn't that she was not real before, but she is consciously lifting up a carefully constructed image that has obscured her true feelings and hurts. Many artists have their life issues thrashed out in the press, but I believe this visual album is a true look into an introspective woman who has decided to deal with a very deep hurt in a creative, but direct way. Her love of black women, her family, and her people show throughout Lemonade, and she is a person who thinks deeply about the past and the connections to the present day problems we face. I have always been a fan, but I have a newfound respect for her creativity since "Formation" and .

-Anthea Butler is Associate Professor of Religion & Africana Studies UPenn

I missed Lemonade's premier-not so much defiantly as indifferently. And then around 8:15 on Saturday night, the universe (i.e., black Twitter) told me to get my life. Roughly four hours after that, my girlfriend ensured that I would when she text me to say Lemonade made her cry. In the four years I'd known her, I had not seen her cry once.

-Mankaprr Conteh is a junior at Wake Forest University

I wanted to set her aside and believe at least one black woman was not handed lemons, but lemonade, already chilled and sweetened.

I think it's some of Beyoncé's best work-it's honest and open, and much of it is beautiful (especially the piano ballad "Sand Castles." But if I have to pick a favorite, it would be a tie between "Hold up" and "Don't Hurt Yourself," the song with Jack White. I have to admit I'm a fan of Angry Beyoncé, liberating herself and giving people hell. I also love that she weaved reggae and funk/rock riffs into those songs, and tried other innovative things on the album, including a really good country song in "Daddy Lessons."

-Joy Ann Reid is MSNBC national correspondent and author

I'm glad she continued to tell her story from her own point of view. She created a whole album talking about what SHE wanted to talk about. Love, infidelity, intuition, anger, rage, redemption, black women's lives and losses. And none of this looks like a get the Coin 101. She looks like an artist willing to lose some fans to say what is really on her mind. It looks like an artist having her say and making it plain. Folks always want to say that Beyoncé isn't smart, but this is smart. She's given us weeks worth of material to think about. And as the co-chair of the academic wing of the Beyhive, I'm thankful. This is boss stuff right here.

-Blair LM Kelley is Associate Professor of History at N.C. State University

MHP: For years I used Beyoncé as a talisman to compensate for my fears. When I felt inadequate I summoned my inner-Beyoncé and channeled her fierceness. She told me I could survive, run the world-slay. I know the social and emotional violence that result from idealizing, black women as irrepressibly strong and uniquely independent, while expecting them to suppress their own needs to care for others. I did not do it consciously, but I wanted to set her aside and believe at least one black woman was not handed lemons, but lemonade, already chilled and sweetened. This video project forced me to halt the charade and to reckon with the brokenness of Beyoncé. Is it possible Lemonade represents a more durable inheritance of strength?

There is a definite and, at times, aggressive melancholy born of broken marital and social contracts. Lemons. There is also a righteous certainty about her value and, by extension, the intrinsic value of Black women and all of our myriad experiences, from apathy to freedom. Lemonade. "Spun gold out of this hard life."

-Alondra Nelson is professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia University

"You can taste the dishonesty/It's all over your breath" That lyric gave shivers! What was so brilliant in that line is that we have all at one time or another been that desperately in love and betrayed.

-Danielle Moodie-Mills is CEO of Politini Media

But this don't even have to be about Bey & Jay. She did this for all of us. The album and the visual art alongside it became a representation of the betrayal, anger, and despair that Black women (at least me personally) feel from the world and feel from Black men collectively and individually. But she didn't leave us in that hollowed out space. By the time she gets on that stage in the yard and started belting out FREEDOM before the mothers of slain sons I thought. "Anybody else just wanna run in these streets and break everyone's chains?" When it was all over I sat on my couch and "...only church folk will understand this. You know that high you feel after the spirit moved? That's me right now, just rockin" on my couch.

-L. Joy Williams is President of Brooklyn NAACP

The mix of lyrical and plaintive, and a fierce and urgent claim of her terrain. It felt like an occupation. The unequivocal occupation of herself in her life's tapestry. She is composing, situating, making art, being messy, exercising a fierce craftiness, and making it-like gumbo? like jazz? The improvisational impulse of her own artistry.

-Karla Holloway is professor of English and Law at Duke University

It was a staggering statement of the fragile-resilience of the black feminine self. I say "fragile resilience" because Lemonade is defined by these performative shows of strength amidst demonstrations of how difficult it can be to hold on to your mental wellness when not only a society steeped in racism and sexism lives on your back, but also the betrayal of the love of your life. I kept feeling like-amidst the political, the southern black iconography, the fires, and the proudly "crazy" imagery-I was hearing Al Green's "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" on a loop in the background.

-Dave Zirin, is sports editor for The Nation

MHP: Lemonade was marked of striking visual image layered in unexpected ways often vastly discordant with the music. I barely know where to begin, but I am interested in your initial reactions. What did you see that you couldn't shake hours later? For me, it was the jump. I never caught my breath after watching Beyoncé hurl herself from that ledge and having to take that long plunge with her. It was a terrifying answer to a question I have asked myself with frightening regularity in recent months. What if I just gave into the darkness I feel by going over the balcony? To suddenly take that journey rendered me numb. To realize I am not alone in having imagined the fall is what finally let me feel again. What are the visual moments that most affected you?

The red room scene that happens between "Sorry" and "6 Inch," where she's reciting a poem on loss, and the red halls and the portal of light are a vagina. The first moment that room appears on screen, the dots in the far-off look clitoral, and then as the shot pans down the hallway, with poetic references to "blaming the moon for causing the flush of blood," I realize that I'm being led through a Black woman's vagina, perhaps a menstruating one. I'm not sure what to say about this. But the visual is historically significant, because Black women's vaginas have never been represented on their own terms.

-Brittney Cooper is assistant professor of women's and gender studies and Rutgers

What really stuck out to me was Beyoncé riding a horse. That might seem random to most, but if you're Houston, you are not a stranger to the sight of people-yes, Black people, too-riding horses down the street or on a sidewalk. Like many things she does, it reminded me of home. I love how committed she is to showing her Texas and Louisiana roots. We share a background in that respect and it always make me happy to see the biggest star in the world be so damn country. Said with love.

-MichaelArceneaux is a columnist at Complex

"What's worse / being jealous or crazy?" Beyoncé asks in the song "Hold Up," the second featured on . "I'd rather be crazy," she decides, a fire suddenly blazing behind her as she walks, maniacally, crazily around town, thrashing car and store windows. The moment appears to be an homage to a scene in the 1995 film "Waiting to Exhale," when Angela Bassett's character lights her cheating husband's car on fire. Black women (Ahem MHP) know the scene well, it has become somewhat of a refrain for us when we intend to, or are, burning shit to the ground. Whether it's our cheating husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, patriarchy, racism, classism, sexism, it's a visual manifestation of the black woman's power. It's us up front, the burning car torched behind, in the rearview. We are exercising our right to be angry, without any qualms. How do we look to men, especially white men? Nah, who cares?

-Collier Meyerson is a reporter at Fusion

I was most struck by the images in several sections of the visual album of black women and girls, of all hues and dazzling hair textures and shades, in period clothing evoking antebellum Louisiana but infusing it with modern girl power. Those images were so visually rich, because they are so divorced from modernity, but the women themselves were thoroughly modern in their obvious strength and attitude. I also loved the way the gorgeous water sequences in the "Denial" section that erupts into a frenzy of jubilant, bat-wielding destruction in "Hold up." And of course the women with faces painted in a send-up to Yoruba culture adds to the notion of that inextricable link between Africa and the American slave narrative.

-Joy Ann Reid, MSNBC national correspondent and author

When a little dark-skinned girl looks at Beyoncé longingly in "Accountability" under a voice-over of Bey reciting the line "You look nothing like your mother," she acknowledges the colorism that haunts us. In jumping to her death, she confronts the reality of suicide among us. Over and over again, Lemonade reminded us of the intertwined, continuous, diasporic suffering of black folk. When I saw a woman in a southern-gothic dress made of West African Ankara fabric overlooking the newly renovated Superdome, my heart dropped. "The past and the future merge," Queen Bey had foreshadowed earlier. No one image better captured the heartbreaking truth of that line. The violence of colonialism in Africa, of the enslavement of West Africans, of the dehumanization of their ancestors in Katrina, and of our continued erasure through capitalism and gentrification-all depicted in mere seconds.

-Mankaprr Conteh is a junior at Wake Forest University

I keep coming back to the image of Beyoncé on the porch with Amandla, Zendaya, Ibeyi, and Chloe and Halle. The rich colors, the range of Black girl beauty, the signification on the porch, and the strength of that frame brought tears to my eyes. The first shot of Beyoncé in that golden yellow dress and water pouring out as she exits the building- Oshun. The scenes with multiple generations of Black women loving on one another conjured memories of the women/femme centered spaces in my own life. The Spanish moss interspersed throughout-I felt like I could smell each scene. The landscape shots provoked all of my senses. The face and body art struck me as well. The art on the bodies, not unlike the rest of the visual album felt deeply rooted in a plethora of African diasporic traditions and practices. This visual album offered an abundance of beauty, pain, vulnerability, love, rage, loneliness, kinship, sadness, and resiliency through complex, rich, and deeply intimate, but shared imagery of Black womanhood/girlhood/femme-ness. Also, Serena twerking and serving baddest chick in the game realness beside Bey as Baddie Bey re-imagines Ntozake Shange's "Sorry"-it don't get much better than that.

-Treva B. Lindsey is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University

MHP: Ok, We have to pause for a moment because Treva brought it up. The Serena Williams sequence gave me life. Initially I was thinking of it as a fabulous, relevant, reinterpretation of the Michael Jackson, "Remember the Time" moment with Iman, but somehow it is far more than that. What did you read in it?

Of course I love Serena twerking, and then I love the moment that Bey lets Serena occupy the throne. In the Black Girl Magic Kingdom, thrones are for sharing.

-Brittney Cooper,

As for Serena, she is her generation's avatar of not only surviving but thriving in hostile environs. Tennis-particularly women's tennis-is an even more acute version of white beauty norms, power, and marginalization of all who don't conform. Serena is the one who kept it 100 and emerged triumphant. Tempting to write that she is the Beyoncé of tennis or maybe Beyoncé is the Serena of music, but I think in the context of Lemonade, Serena is an aspirational figure for Beyoncé because she is not feeling triumphant. She's trying to get to that place where Serena already resides but saying that she still has rivers to cross, and her love can join her on that journey or he can get to steppin'.

-Dave Zirin is sports editor for The Nation

MHP: Now, let's take a moment and think about how very Southern Lemonade is. As the director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, I appreciate that this black woman's voice is also a voice from the south, just as Cooper's turn of the century book was titled Voice from the South. It is worth noting that Beyoncé's black womanhood is not representative of all black aspects of womanhood; she is situated in a particular history, a history that resonates with power legacies of both oppression and resistance. Think of Bree Newsome scaling that flagpole in South Carolina to bring down the Confederate Flag on a cloudless blue sky day last summer. It was genuinely beautiful to see that flag in her hands. Then think of the nine people whose massacre precipitated that beauty. The South is both of these realities. What did you think of how Lemonade represented the South?

The South, a main character in Beyoncé's , signals a beginning to the album's meta-narrative: the history of black women in America. A long and menacing chain hangs alongside a shed, eerily knocking against wood. It's the first reminder to black women that we are of this place-the sticky, sordid South that has left an indelible mark on us and we on it. Our collective body and memory stands in its tall grass, on its creaky stairs, outside of its slave sheds. Moments after we are introduced to its landscape, three black women appear in fine dresses from the antebellum period. The second woman sits on the wooden stair attached to a tiny shed, taking up space, a striking image of a black queen during slavery, or is it after? Over the image, Beyoncé says "in the tradition of men in my blood you come home at 3 a.m. and lie to me / What are you hiding? / The past and the future merge to meet us here." What we're seeing and what we're hearing aren't incongruous, but a foreshadow of the next 54 minutes: White men have erased us from their history books, from the families we were forcibly made a part of, from their riches. So, Beyoncé has done unto them what they have done unto us for centuries-in Beyoncé's South there are no white men. But the physical erasure of white men in does not take away the pain, suffering, and victimization they have inflicted upon us. The South represents black women in all our complicatedness-we are as much impacted by the chains as we are lifted up remembering ourselves as queens.

-Collier Meyerson is a reporter at Fusion

The South emerges as the past, present, and future of Black womanhood.

I love Beyoncé's South. Her south is hot sauce, postbellum swag, and grandmothers who remind you that you gone be alright. That Spanish moss hanging from trees is all things New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston. ... History and the original practice of anti-Black state violence happened on these shores. It was in these spaces that Black women's lives, bodies, pleasures, and prerogatives became tethered to the project of white supremacy. So it is incredibly important to go back to these places to wrestle with and wrest from them notions of freedom that matter.

-Brittney Cooper is assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Rutgers

Beyoncé is centering the South and also connecting this to the Black global South. She is unapologetic in her Blackness, her woman-ness, and her Southerness. Lemonade is an archive of Black womanhood/girlhood honed in the South. The South emerges as the past, present, and future of Black womanhood. The visual album rejects the holding of the South as solely a place trapped in history. The project asserts a complex, variegated, and infinitely generative space of Black kinship, creativity, resistance, and freedom dreams. This is incredibly valuable intervention, as it contributes to a tradition of southern Black women writers, artists, performers, and mothers/aunties/grandmothers/godmothers sustaining families and our communities through their creative genius and unbound imagination.

-Treva B. Lindsey is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University

What I love and will continue to love about Beyoncé is that she has always pulled from her southern Black culture. Even when others weren't aware of what she was pulling from music (New Orleans bounce, screw, and certain kinds of flow) or just choreography or even aesthetic ( B'Day era), she's very much a southern Black girl and keeps all of those mores and customs out front. I find it valuable in that there's no one on her level who has managed to include so much of that culture in their work and have this kind of global appeal.

-Michael Arceneaux is a columnist at Complex

Beyoncé is giving a very different South that is usually portrayed in music videos. It follows a theme all the way back to "Deja Vu." The juxtaposition between a Southern Louisiana Landscape (her mother is from New Iberia, LA) and the gulf coast, with scenes from New Orleans (and also Houston, with the country song and horses), is a much more complicated "Southscape" than what we are used to seeing. The flipping between time (late nineteent early twentieth-century dress and the present day) speaks to the generational issues with "men" in her family and many other black women who have had to deal with the same issues of infidelity, etc. I also loved that she did a country song, about learning to "shoot" from her father. [This] is an important element of southern life, not only for hunting, but for protection from white mobs and others who would try to come and take away black-owned land.

-Dr. Anthea Butler is Associate Professor of Religion and Africana Studies UPenn, Philadelphia

She locates herself in a southern terrain from a space of unlimited geography. It's a claim and a specifying which some would want to separate her from, but she makes evident this is her ancestral space. And that "looking south" matters.

-Karla Holloway is professor of English and Law at Duke University

It looks like she went home to the South to be born again as who she really is and not the facade that has been well sculpted through the decades.

-Danielle Moodie-Mills is CEO of Politini Media

She shows us scenes of both everyday people living their lives in the South and images of famous black women from across the United States and the Caribbean sharing sisterhood and solidarity in the South. Black people have a complicated history in the South. It is our Ellis Island, where many of our ancestors entered the country through slave markets and later during the Great Migration fled to other parts of the country to escape violence and to seek better economic opportunities. But in recent years many of us moved back to the South where now more than half of the Black population lives. We have a history of pain there as well as rich roots and traditions that make us who we are. Beyoncé honors the South and in Lemonade she takes us back home and she invites us to embrace our roots there.

-Sherri Williams, Communications Professor and Writer

Beyoncé uses supernatural elements and often portrays the actresses as damaged or delusional, while unveiling the issues that black women face in the American South. In the end, she reminds us that even though "the South" presents us with some terrible feelings, it is undeniably home. The visuals of plantations and unkempt scenes of urban areas paint a picture of the painful history that the South holds. However, it is the culture, and the dialect of the South that help the complex characters make sense of the world around them. Southern black sisterhood helps black women understand how to navigate the horrors of the South and bring into perspective the trauma and joy that it holds.

-Camry Wilborn is a graduating senior at Wake Forest University

MHP: Then comes the most undeniably political sequence in Lemonade. What do you make of the inclusion of the mothers of slain young black men who are most identified with the Black Lives Matter movement?

You can't deal with the Old South-especially with those obvious antebellum references-without addressing racialized violence. And agree or disagree, these boys and men, starting with Trayvon, and including Michael Brown and Eric Garner, have been linked in the minds of many black Americans with past victims of racialized violence like Emmett Till (whose family even attended many of the early marches in Florida for Trayvon's family). So given the progression of her Old South narrative, it made perfect sense. And it fits with Beyoncé's increasingly open embrace of black liberation imagery and messages.

-Joy Ann Reid, MSNBC national correspondent and author

We know these women because of the unbearable pain they continue to endure. Their inclusion is both a way of bearing witness and of loving out loud the women whose pain bring them into a kinship based in state violence. But they press on and we must press on because their pain is a call to love, a call to fight, a call to never forget, and a call to imagine a world in which Trayvon, Eric, and Mike could survive, live, and thrive.

-Treva B. Lindsey is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University

She reminds us that even though "the South" presents us with some terrible feelings, it is undeniably home.

What I love is that Bey took the time to make public space for these Black mothers to grieve. And including them, particularly Sybrina Fulton, a full four years after Trayvon's death, reminds us that though some of us may have moved on, these Black mothers must live with this grief every day.

-Brittney Cooper is assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Rutgers

Seeing Sybrina Fulton, Lesley Mcspadden, and Gwen Carr holding the pictures of their slain sons left me speechless. To see them in formation with other black women in the next scene talking about freedom brings light to an issue that we have discussed in my Black Lives Matter class-black women are not allowed to grieve. For black women, even grief is political. Seeing a single tear fall from Lesley Mcspaddens eyes reveals that the undealt grief is still there and we must acknowledge that. She is fighting, but she is fighting while hurting-a feeling that most black women can relate to.

-Camry Wilborn is a graduating senior at Wake Forest University

I appreciate their inclusion, though I wonder if she will reach out to the mothers of Renisha McBride and Sandra Bland for something in the future. I mean, I don't know the details. She may have already tried, but since Black women are often susceptible to police brutality, I'm curious to see when might Beyoncé take them on from a Black women's perspective in her art.

-Michael Arceneaux is a columnist at Complex

Those images were arresting and they stayed with me. We know the names Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. We've often seen their faces and heard their stories. But we don't see enough focus on the women who brought them into the world, the women they left behind, the women who continued to fight for justice for them-their mothers. The presence of Sybrina Fulton, Leslie McSpadden, and Gwen Carr holding photos of their dead sons forced viewers to acknowledge their loss and their pain. The mainstream media cycle is telling new stories, but in Beyoncé uses her massive reach in the media space to remind us of their loss and the nation's ongoing problem of police brutality.

-Sherri Williams, Communications Professor and Writer

As a mother of a slain child, I found this, how can I say it ... Gratifying. She gave our grief a visible space. Too often grief wants to be buried alongside our children. But it survives, and she noticed it

-Karla Holloway is professor of English and Law at Duke University

MHP: I think many of us were surprised to discover how glorious and complicated and painful and awe-full the story of our worlds might be with black women at the center. Can you reflect a bit on what Lemonade might teach us about black womanhood?

I believe wholeheartedly that Beyoncé made this album for black women. For all of us that are expected to deal with our open wounds quietly while society keeps ripping them open again and again, by killing our sons, raping our daughters, making us invisible. Beyoncé with this album doesn't just say "I see you," she says "I am you."

-Danielle Moodie Mills, is CEO of Politini Media

I think it's important for us to realize when we're talking about Beyoncé, we're talking about dozens, maybe hundreds of people. We're talking about Melina Matsoukas. We're talking about Warsan Shire. We're talking about the songwriters and choreographers and designers and hair stylists and make-up artists and business people that have and continue to create her brand, many of whom are also magical black girls. I hope they get as much credit for their remarkable achievements as she does.

-Mankaprr Conteh is a junior at Wake Forest University

Since Black women are often susceptible to police brutality, I'm curious to see when might Beyoncé take them on from a Black women's perspective in her art.

I love the multigenerational conversation that Bey constructs on this album. And that multigenerational conversation gets cinched for me in hearing Ms. Hattie at the end talk about "being served lemons and making lemonade." In the end, every Black girl I know is saved by what the Black women who came before her bequeath to her in the way of making a way out of no way. And it reminded me of one of my last conversations with my grandmother, as she almost with urgency, tried to tell me everything she wanted me to know about sex and pleasure and the value of constructing a full life. Seeing Ms. Hattie made me miss my grandmother, and made me so grateful for her at the same time.

-Brittney Cooper is assistant professor of women's and gender studies and Rutgers

What I see in is Beyoncé collapsing the notions of separate humanities for black womanhood. This visual album is Beyoncé telling us that she doesn't see a distinction between the sexual, political, spiritual, and artistic selves. In the scene where she is standing in front of a fire wearing some antebellum inspired lingerie, the image is asking us to consider not only Beyoncé as a product of black Southern traditions that tend to go ignored in the diasporic experience, but also that the women responsible for those traditions were not unlike Beyoncé. We have assigned political meaning to their experiences of slavery and its aftermath, but rarely do we consider what pleasure-particularly sexual pleasure-may have looked or felt like for them. We don't ask about their pain beyond what is politically useful for us. We attempt to shame black women in the present based on our projections of our limited imaginations onto our foremothers. Beyoncé is asking us to not separate her from that cultural lineage because she has embraced her sexual self (or her angry self, her hurt self, her forgiving self) but to challenge ourselves to rewrite our understanding of our ancestors. She moves through many different images of black womanhood and each asks us to do the work of not separating one from the other, as they are all not only legitimate expressions but a part of the same tapestry. Serena Williams twerking and Sybrina Fulton grieving do not exist on a spectrum, or as entities in competition with one another. For black women, they are one whole experience.

-Mychal Denzel Smith, author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

Beyoncé's undeniable virtuosity-she is mining several genres and creating new ones, in addition to singing and writing all of the tracks and co-producing the album and its videos-ensures that this work transcends any banal "woman scorned" script. She is performing at her own pace, to her own beats, and on her own terms. But this is not happening in isolation. She is launched from and supported by the formations of Black women that are a recurring visual theme and embody the creation of "alternative communities that empower," to use feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins phrasing. This current of Black women's community-making that runs through the album makes the inclusion of the mothers of slain Black men moments of despair but also painful possibility.

-Alondra Nelson, professor of sociology and gender studies, Columbia University

We attempt to shame black women in the present based on our projections of our limited imaginations onto our foremothers.

presents an arresting array and diverse tapestry, marked by complexity, regarding black womanhood that-in its variety-defies monolithic or stereotypical representation of black women. In essence, the range in representation operates even in Beyoncé's own persona, which varies throughout the visual album, in that she embodies a range of emotions and dynamics that humanizes rather than presents her as a type lacking dimension. As such, whether intentional or not, the personalized narrative (marked by disillusionment, anger, and reformation) has such depth that it resonates as a universal set of circumstances with which folks, regard of race, could identify. Yet, that does not deny the fact that is clearly a tribute to and celebration of black girlhood and womanhood in all its beauty and despair, triumphs and tribulations, singularities and solidarities in sisterhood. affords black women the dimension we deserve yet seldom get

-Trimiko Melancon is an award-winning author, professor, Beyoncé enthusiast. She lives in New Orleans

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Melissa Harris-Perry's 'Lemonade' Round Table

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What would happen if we took the hopes, dreams, pain, joy, loss, bodies, voices, stories, expressions, styles, families, histories, futures of black girls and women and put them in the center and started from there? Or rather, is one outcome.

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Race, Ethnicity, and Breast Cancer | Susan G. Komen®

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Learn how rates of breast cancer in the U.S. vary by race and ethnicity.

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Glamour editors from across the world teamed up and created an issue of Glamour that was entirely created by women only. This included any photography, articles, interviews, and graphic design in the issue.

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Years ago a reporter asked my old boss, the legendary Glamour editor Ruth Whitney, whether she was a feminist. These were the days before feminism was a popular T-shirt slogan, when polls showed the vast majority of women and men found the term, and the concept, unappealing. I remember Ruth relaying the incident with an impatient Midwestern shrug: "I told him, 'What's the alternative?'"

I thought of that question last March when, two days after International Women's Day, the editors-in-chief of Glamour's 17 international editions gathered in Paris for our annual conference. Feminism was on all our minds: Many of us had walked proudly in the global women's marches in places like Cape Town, Munich, and Washington, D.C., two months earlier; every day we were watching women in our home countries standing up and demanding to be heard. All of us were covering these subjects-from equal pay to political representation to gender violence-passionately. But a question remained: What could we do?

We did have one idea. Several months earlier we at American Glamour had taken a look at our own pages and discovered that, to our dismay, only 37 percent of the photographers featured in the prior year's issues were women, along with 32 percent of hairstylists and 49 percent of makeup artists. (At first I was relieved by that 49 percent-till I discovered that the larger the story was, the higher the odds we had chosen a man.) Our practices were standard for the industry, and the reasons are complex-high fashion, and fashion photography, have been traditionally male dominated-but regardless, we decided we wanted to do better, and established the #PoweredByWomen initiative to raise the presence of female talent on our pages and screens. (If we're going to complain about Congress being just 20 percent female, I figured, we'd best make sure our own house was in order.) So there in Paris our international group wondered: What if we thought bigger? What if all 17 editions of Glamour decided to produce their issues using women creators? Yes, fashion photography isn't the presidency, but don't we all have to do our bit?

So we did, and for the November issue, our staffs-made up of women and a few talented men-sought out diverse, dynamic female creators for every assignment we made. Every photo in our pages? Taken by a woman. Every hair coiffed. Every lash curled. Every set created, whether you're reading your magazine in Dallas or Dubrovnik. As one hairstylist told us, in a video you can watch on glamour.com, it's pretty nice to be able to say, "I made this, and it's f-cking fabulous."

So back to feminism...I asked my international sisters recently what they thought of the term, and the passion of their responses made me want to stand on my desk and cheer. In some parts of the world, "the word feminism is not very much in vogue," Andrea Ketterer, the editor of Glamour Germany emailed, "but we are convinced there is no other word for fighting for equal rights. Why should we give the baby another name just to make others love it? It is our responsibility as journalists to convince and inspire." Jo Elvin, editor of Glamour U.K., agreed: "I know some people are afraid to use the word feminist, to be defined as 'man hating'-which to me is all the more reason to reclaim its correct meaning: A feminist is a person who believes in the equality of men and women. Hell yes, I'm one." And Pnina Fenster, who edits Glamour in South Africa, a country with a deep understanding of the importance of protest, put it this way: "Do I believe in equal rights? For sure. Do I believe in equal opportunities? You bet. Do I love the word feminist? Absolutely!"

I do too, because I'm with Ruth: There is no alternative.

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Your Next Glamour Magazine Will Be Entirely #PoweredByWomen

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Years ago a reporter asked my old boss, the legendary Glamour editor Ruth Whitney, whether she was a feminist. These were the days before feminism was a popular T-shirt slogan, when polls showed the vast majority of women and men found the term, and the concept, unappealing.

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Hegemonic feminism (pg 117)

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The #MeToo social media movement of late this year (2017) gave women the courage to speak about their stories of sexual abuse. The movement sparked when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted reaching out to women to speak about their sexual abuse/harassment that have affected their lives.

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Watch the video above with women sharing their stories about sexual abuse and harassment.

Have you been aware of the #MeToo social media messages? Have you participated?

Do you ever discuss issues around sexual assault and harassment with friends, family, classmates or others? Why or why not?

In "#MeToo Floods Social Media With Stories of Harassment and Assault," Anna Codrea-Rado writes:

Women are posting messages on social media to show how commonplace sexual assault and harassment are, using the hashtag #MeToo to express that they, too, have been victims of such misconduct.

The messages bearing witness began appearing frequently on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Sunday, when the actress Alyssa Milano posted a screenshot outlining the idea and writing "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet."

Tens of thousands of people replied to the message. Some just wrote "me too," while many others described their personal experiences of harassment or assault.

The author and poet Najwa Zebian wrote: "I was blamed for it. I was told not to talk about it. I was told that it wasn't that bad. I was told to get over it."

Other celebrities who took part include Anna Paquin, Debra Messing, Laura Dreyfuss, Lady Gaga and Evan Rachel Wood.

Men also expressed their support. The comedian and activist Nick Jack Pappas wrote: "Men, Don't say you have a mother, a sister, a daughter ... Say you have a father, a brother, a son who can do better. We all can."

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us:

- What is your reaction to the #MeToo movement? Have you participated in this hashtag campaign? Has it impacted your understanding of or attitude toward sexual harassment and assault? If so, how? If not, why not?

- Do you think that talking about these issues can spur change? Why or why not?

- Do you think this is a watershed moment in our culture? In other words, do you think #MeToo has prompted a turning point in the ways people talk about and react to sexual misconduct? Or do you think things will simply return to the way they have been after time passes? What makes you think so?

- What role do you think social media has played in the discussion around sexual harassment and assault?

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What Is Your Reaction to the #MeToo Movement?

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Watch the video above with women sharing their stories about sexual abuse and harassment. Have you been aware of the #MeToo social media messages? Have you participated? Do you ever discuss issues around sexual assault and harassment with friends, family, classmates or others? Why or why not?

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Aerie Body Positivity Campaign Challenges Weight Bias

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Aerie Body Positivity Campaign Challenges Weight Bias

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American Eagle's line, Aerie, prides itself on not retouching their models. Their campaign to end weight bias continues to leak into other company's magazines as well, including Darling magazine. Aerie's model, Iskra Lawrence, speaks with Elle in this interview about body positivity.

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Iskra Lawrence Goes Behind the Camera With Her Body-Positive Message | ELLE + Fitbit

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The body-positive movement has continuously gained momentum, and if you're looking for someone to be its face, you couldn't do much better than model Iskra Lawrence. The British beauty struggled through self-doubt in her adolescence, but has grown to love and embrace her body, exercising because she deserves to, not in an attempt to lose weight or chase an unattainable physical standard.

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This "Scrub Mommy" which is an official product of "Scrub Daddy" is basically just the same product but pink. It displays "marked language" because it is called out as a girls product, instead of just a pink Scrub Daddy, because it is pink.

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My mom, who is an administrator in an urban school in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, sent me this article by Jona Olsson. She is a part of the equity team for Osseo School District and discussed this article during a meeting. This article explains the different ways North American White people can start to re-learn how to become more aware of racism while growing up in a nation that has always been racist.

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Racism and Sexism in the Doctor's Office

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Racism and Sexism in the Doctor's Office

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Not only do patients of color receive lower quality healthcare treatment than White patients, but doctors and nurses can experience this oppression as well. According to this study, the majority of African American and Asian doctors received biased comments about their race from their patients. Female doctors were also more likely to hear biased comments from their patients than male doctors.

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In a survey of about 1,200 doctors, nurses and physicians assistants, nearly 60% of them say they've dealt with a patient who has been outwardly biased towards them based on their race, gender, age or weight.

Nearly half of those biased patients even went as far as requesting a different doctor because of their own pre-conceived notions about their health care professionals, according to a WebMD and Medscape survey published Wednesday. It's called "Patient Prejudice: When Credentials Aren't Enough" and it also polled over 1,000 patients.

While there currently isn't a formal system in place that aids doctors in reporting or dealing with such behaviors from their patients, the survey noted a few ways health care pros have coped.

"The data showed that nurses do a better job of reporting these instances than doctors but neither has the appropriate resources," Senior Medical Director for WebMD and Medscape, Dr. Arefa Casoobhoy told the Daily News. "One thing we found is that they were able to take care of the patient but maybe they (doctor or nurse) wrote it down on the patient's chart - a legal document."

David Cross doesn't recall making racist comments to Charlyne Yi

African American doctors (70%) and Asian doctors (69%) were by far the most likely to hear biased comments from patients. One Stanford University professor and practicing physician told the survey that he was once told to "go back to India" by an aggravated patient.

"(I) exited the room in a cold sweat," Dr. Sachin Jain said.

Women were more likely to field comments about their gender - at 41% - than men were - just 6%. And female doctors and nurses had to deal with patient remarks about their age (36% vs. 23% of men) and weight (15% vs. 9% of men).

"None of the comments (shared by doctors in the survey) were incredibly surprising to me as a woman physician, a woman of Indian origin," Casoobhoy told the News. "My own way of dealing with it is to end that conversation and redirect it - I will launch into 'I was born in Connecticut, I grew up by an Airforce base, my dad's a doctor and a retired military officer.' Patients aren't coming in to be offensive; they're coming from a good place."

High school investigating racist Instagram video of cheerleaders
Send a Letter to the Editor

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Majority of doctors deal with racist, sexist patients: study

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In a survey of about 1,200 doctors, nurses and physicians assistants, nearly 60% of them say they've dealt with a patient who has been outwardly biased towards them based on their race, gender, age or weight.

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White House "Week of Inclusion" Debunked

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White House "Week of Inclusion" Debunked

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The White House proclaims "Week of Inclusion" as a part of National Bullying Prevention week, but this particular institution fails to be inclusive for transgender people in the military, Muslims traveling in the country, LGBT employees, among others. Huffington Post breaks down the irony this "inclusion week" by highlighting what has occurred while Trump has been in office.

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As part of National Bullying Prevention Month, first lady Melania Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos kicked off the "Week of Inclusion" on Monday at a Michigan middle school, where they participated in "lessons about respecting others, kindness, and inclusion."

President Donald Trump 's White House might have been a better first stop.

Since taking office, Trump and his administration have announced or implemented several policies that legal challengers say do just the opposite of what the "Week of Inclusion" purports to promote.

Here's a refresher on some of those decisions:

Trump signed a memo excluding transgender people from serving in the military

In a series of unexpected tweets in July, Trump announced that transgender men and women would no longer be allowed to serve in the U.S. military "in any capacity."

He signed a memo the following month formalizing the sweeping ban and tasking Defense Secretary Jim Mattis with determining whether to remove already enlisted transgender individuals from their positions. The policy change will go into effect sometime after January 2018, government lawyers have said.

In the lead-up to its implementation, the exclusionary measure has faced several legal challenges. Most recently, 15 Democratic attorneys general led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey filed a brief last week arguing the ban is unconstitutional, against the interest of national defense and harmful to the transgender community.

Trump has defended the ban as a cost-saving measure, and supporters have praised the move as cutting spending on transgender service members' treatments and procedures related to gender confirmation. But critics say those arguments aren't rooted in any statistical evidence and that the number of service members seeking hormone therapy each year, for example, would result in a mere 0.04 to 0.13 percent increase in the Defense Department's total health care spending.

It wasn't the Trump administration's first affront to transgender citizens. In February, the administration announced it would no longer bar schools from discriminating against transgender students, undoing an Obama-era policy.

He's targeted Muslims through his ongoing travel ban attempts

Trump's several attempts at his travel ban have all predominantly singled out people coming into the United States from Muslim-majority countries. Each iteration of the proposed ban, federal judges have found when blocking it, discriminates on the basis of nationality and is not rooted in any evidence that it would protect U.S. interests.

"Each new version is just an updated version of the previous ones, and they all have one goal: to keep out people primarily from majority-Muslim countries," Becca Heller, head of the International Refugee Assistant Project, said amid Trump's latest attempt at the ban earlier this month. "We will not rest until this cruel and senseless policy is blocked for good."

His administration argued against civil rights protections for LGBT employees

In July, Trump's Justice Department filed an amicus brief arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not cover employment discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation.

The brief was filed in the case of Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who said his employer wrongly fired him after Zarda revealed his sexual orientation to a customer. The Jeff Sessions-led DOJ wrote in its brief that Title VII does not apply in this case.

"It does not, as has been settled for decades," the brief read. "Any efforts to amend Title VII's scope should be directed to Congress rather than the courts."

That position constitutes an effort by the Trump administration to allow prejudice against the LGBT community, the American Civil Liberties Union argued.

"The Sessions-led Justice Department and the Trump administration are actively working to expose people to discrimination," James Esseks, director of the ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project, said in a statement. "Fortunately, courts will decide whether the Civil Rights Act protects LGBT people, not an Attorney General and a White House that are hell-bent on playing politics with people's lives."

His administration weakened protections for sexual assault victims

In September, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rolled back Obama-era guidance under Title IX directing colleges and universities on how to handle complaints of sexual harassment and assault.

With that rollback, schools are now allowed to raise the " preponderance of evidence " standard that the Obama administration guidance established for finding that students had committed sexual assault.

Legal challenges to the new guidance have said the change singles out campus sexual assault victims, the vast majority of whom are women, because it creates a tougher standard of evidence for abuses based on sex than exists for other civil rights violations.

"Ironically we have the secretary of education issuing discriminatory rules that apply only to violence against women and subject only victims of sex-based harm to second-class treatment on college campuses," Wendy Murphy, a lawyer who filed a lawsuit challenging the new policy, told reporters in Boston last month. "That is unconscionable, that is unacceptable, and it is unconstitutional."

His administration is forcing previously protected immigrants out of the U.S. by rescinding DACA

In September, Sessions announced the administration would phase out Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the 2012 program created to protect undocumented youths from deportation.

The decision was met with several lawsuits, many of which said the White House violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it canceled the program, resulting in a due process violation.

Critics of the decision have argued it is rooted in racist, anti-immigrant beliefs, not in any concern for safety; DACA recipients are legally required to have clean criminal records.

"Notwithstanding the occasional claim that President Trump wants to show 'heart,' his administration will invoke whatever views of statutes and executive power maximize cruelty towards the foreign nationals he and his supporters most despise," Cornell University law professor Michael C. Dorf wrote in a Newsweek op-ed assessing the administration's reasoning for rescinding DACA.

ALSO ON HUFFPOST

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The White House's 'Week Of Inclusion' Can't Undo All These Exclusionary Trump Policies

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As part of National Bullying Prevention Month, first lady Melania Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos kicked off the "Week of Inclusion" on Monday at a Michigan middle school, where they participated in "lessons about respecting others, kindness, and inclusion." President Donald Trump 's White House might have been a better first stop.

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This study focused on how eating disorders could develop from food blogging, but it brings up a big point without even trying. "The sample in this study consisted of 45 online blogs written by young adult women... Blogs written by men were not excluded from this study: there simply were none in this community."

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Healthy Habits or Damaging Diets An Exploratory Study of a Food Blogging Community

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Barstool Sports, an organization famous for comedic commentary on anything sports related, coins the phrase "Saturdays Are For The Boys" suggesting that men should partake in drinking, tailgating, objectifying women, and playing sports only on the weekends.

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Best of "Saturdays Of The Boys" Recap Video

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What'd you accomplish in 2016? Dave: "Expanded my company, sold it, moved to NY." Big Cat: "Created my own podcast, got it to No. 1 on ITunes." Feitelberg: "Slept in every day, ruined KFC Radio, made barstool unreadable with SAFTB garbage."

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Expanding Your Horizons is a national organization that holds conferences for girls in grades 7-9 to encourage and develop their career interests in STEM fields in an effort to overcome a history little participation of women in these fields. NDSU hosts one of the conferences each year.

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Expanding Your Horizons at CWU provides 5th through 9th grade girls the opportunity to learn about careers for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics from women already in those careers. In the past, we have had presentations by medical doctors, nurses, veterinarians, state police, engineers and many others. http://www.cwu.edu/cesme/expanding-your-horizons

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The "Romphim" fell victim of viral trending memes this summer on Instagram and Twitter as the Kickstarter company released the "Romphim" starting in May 2017. Elle Magazine questions why we laugh at men dressed in "feminine" clothing.

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RompHim/Daniel Webster-Clark

The RompHim might seem like the latest instance of a traditionally feminine thing being repackaged for a man in a way that lets him retain his sense of masculinity. The Kickstarter for the product-a line of rompers for men, it's that simple-blew past its $10,000 goal on its first day. You might roll your eyes at another instance of men refusing to acknowledge that they're doing something feminine, assuring themselves "don't worry, boys, this is a MAN'S romper." But are they the ones cloaking this in a veil of irony and jokes? Or are we still just uncomfortable with men dressing like women?

"We still aren't totally sure why rompers haven't been widely adopted by men," the RompHim team told ELLE.com over email. "Most of our reference pieces were either from the sci-fi movies...from '70s films and photos (including James Bond in Goldfinger), and a few high fashion pieces intended for men." However, they admit that a lot of the reluctance probably comes from the piece being currently associated with women's fashion, and that it being a single piece makes it feel like a dress.

But that's precisely what they say attracted them to rompers, and to brighter colors and patterns that evoked spring and summer. "It seems like an outfit that allows people to express themselves without needing to go as avant-garde as some runway looks."

Rompers are funny to laugh at, because they're called "rompers" and they're literally children's clothes. There's something silly about the style no matter what. And there's something about RompHim's marketing that makes it seem like a joke. Maybe it's the photos of all of them laughing and drinking, or the pun-y name. Or maybe it's that, as a few Twitter users have pointed out, they just look like "douchebros" who are laughing to protect their fragile masculinity.

When your masculinity is so fragile you call it a "RompHim" to negotiate your internal sexist beliefs that anything feminine is inferior. pic.twitter.com/EK76ooNRmx
- Charles Clymer🏳️‍🌈 (@cmclymer) May 15, 2017

But the RompHim team insists they're not wearing their outfits ironically. "We've talked to a lot of guys who would wear them with pride, even if it's a bit outside their comfort zone. I'd imagine some people will buy these as more of a joke, and we obviously can't control why people wear them―in a way though, that's part of the fun of fashion." And unlike with other typically women's products repackaged so men feel comfortable using them (from Slimfast-like diet supplements to face moisturizers), it's much harder to find rompers that fit cis male bodies. And if a man learns something about himself after wearing a romper, does it matter if it starts as a joke?

RompHim/Daniel Webster-Clark

Well, maybe. Masculinity is a delicate thing. It sits atop its throne, making 25 cents on the dollar more than anything beneath it, and is terrified of losing its perch. Womanhood is not something to aspire to. As such, men often feel the desire to explicitly distance themselves from anything feminine. They need special , , and nail salons, and while there are certainly all manner of beauty products and clothes marketed exclusively to women, you're more likely to see a woman using a "man's" product than the other way around.

The "unisex" fashion landscape is littered with all types of grey pants and boxy jackets, "neutral" colors and shapes that work on "everyone." The secret is though that all almost clothing is unisex, a black sweatshirt as much as a purple sequined skirt. The only thing preventing the latter from being in the unisex market is the idea that men wouldn't deign to tarnish their manly images with obviously feminine fashions. Projects like RompHim could help men realize that masculinity isn't so narrow, or they could be treated as this summer's funny costume. But don't blame RompHim if you think men wearing rompers is inherently funny.

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Is RompHim a Joke or Do We Just Laugh at Men Dressed Like Women?

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RompHim/Daniel Webster-Clark The RompHim might seem like the latest instance of a traditionally feminine thing being repackaged for a man in a way that lets him retain his sense of masculinity. The Kickstarter for the product-a line of rompers for men, it's that simple-blew past its $10,000 goal on its first day.

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Model Teddy Quinlivan reveals her trans identity after living as a cis female since the age of 16.  She reports that she wanted to not only do it for herself, but make a statement against the new political party for transgender community rights. "The transgender community -- for so long underrepresented in fashion -- can today count several fashion superstars in its ranks, namely Gucci muse Hari Nef and fashion week stalwart Andreja Pejić."

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Written by Clive Martin, CNN

As the fashion industry bows to pressure to become more progressive with its casting choices, a new generation of models from all backgrounds, cultures, genders and sexualities has taken to the runways. The transgender community -- for so long underrepresented in fashion -- can today count several fashion superstars in its ranks, namely Gucci muse Hari Nef and fashion week stalwart Andreja Pejić.

Now, in a CNN Style exclusive, model Teddy Quinlivan is publicly disclosing her transgender identity for the very first time.

Quinlivan, 23, is a catwalk and campaign regular, having walked for the likes of Jeremy Scott, Carolina Herrera and Diane Von Furstenberg at this fall's New York Fashion week alone. Since being discovered by Louis Vuitton's creative director Nicolas Ghesquière in 2015, her career has been in the ascendant.

Speaking between New York Fashion Week shows, Quinlivan explains what inspired her to come out, during what appears to be a crucial time for transgender people.

'Doing it for myself'

"I've decided to reveal my trans identity because of the political climate in the world right now -- particularly in the United States," Quinlivan said. "We made an amazing progression under the Obama administration, and since the new administration took office there's been a kind of backlash.

"There's been violence against transgender people -- particularly transgender women of color -- since before I even knew what transgender was. I just felt a great sense of urgency. I'm very fortunate to be in (a) position (that) I never really thought I would be. It's really important to take advantage of a time like this."

With her views on Trump and violence against the trans community, would Quinlivan say that her decision to come out is rooted in politics, or something more personal? "I think the personal is political," she replied. "It's political, but I'm also doing it for myself. I was ready to come out, but I think the times we live in elevated the sense of importance and urgency."

Quinlivan accepts that her announcement may bring a backlash from less accepting corners of the internet -- or even negative ramifications for her fashion career.

"I'm definitely a little bit nervous, because I've been presenting as cisgender (a person who identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth) for so long," she said. "Since I transitioned when I was 16, I've been living as a cis female ... I was very lucky, because I won the genetic lottery -- I looked a certain way and my voice hadn't dropped. That privilege gave me a lot of confidence to walk down the street, date and (work) in the fashion industry, where people I would presume I was a 'normal' girl.

"But when you come out as transgender to the world, on a platform, there may be some backlash. People might be violent against me because of something I never chose. That makes me nervous, but I'm really excited to share my story with the world. My optimism outweighs the fear."

Quinlivan already has several high profile supporters behind her decision, including designer Marc Jacobs who wrote: "I respect, admire and support Teddy's decision to come out as transgender. Now more than ever it is vital that we pledge our allegiance to the LGBT community and use our voices to encourage and inspire acceptance, equality, understanding and love."

GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement that Teddy is "sending a phenomenal message to transgender youth by using her personal story to show that transgender women can and should aspire to be whatever they want to be."

'No role models'

It seems likely that Quinlivan's vocation in the fashion industry will change from simply "model" to "transgender model." But she's willing to accept the label.

"I don't think it's a problem because I don't think there's anything wrong with being trans," she said. "I'm a woman first and foremost ... I'm a model but I'm also transgender, and I think in a time when I can count most transgender celebrities on my hands, (this) is crucial.

"If being transgender is something that gets attached to my name throughout my career, then it's for a worthy cause. But I look forward to the day when it doesn't matter.

"Unfortunately, I didn't have any trans role models until I was probably 18 or 19. Laverne Cox being on 'Orange Is the New Black' is new. Janet Mock, Caitlyn Jenner coming out -- that's recent.

"When I was growing up it was all Jerry Springer and Maury Povich. I was seeing this exploitation of trans women. They were made to seem like a bad joke. I felt like that was such a negative portrayal. I wasn't like the women on these TV shows, so it gave me a lot of confusion.

"Hopefully my story reaches people in the same way that the stories of Laverne Cox and Janet Mock have (already) reached trans people. There are not a lot of openly trans people in media, and I think it's really important to show people that not only am I trans, I'm (also) very successful and good at what I do."

But what role does Quinlivan think that the notoriously fickle, often superficial fashion industry can play in this? Can she use it as a tool for social change?

"I think one of the ways we can help people in the trans community is to give them a platform," she said. "And I think the fashion industry plays a very crucial role in that. The fashion industry dictates what's in fashion, what's cool, what's acceptable. It's not just about who's walking fashion shows ... it's about who's on every newsstand in the country.

"The transgender community needs more visibility. And with more visibility will come more acceptance."

Zahra Jamshed contributed to this report.

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model teddy quinlivan comes out as transgender - cnn

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Written by Clive Martin, CNN As the fashion industry bows to pressure to become more progressive with its casting choices, a new generation of models from all backgrounds, cultures, genders and sexualities has taken to the runways.