Janet Mock Quotes

Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.

In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.

I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time.

I've read a lot of different versions of myself - and all of them are true because it's all opinion, and they're as accurate as it can ever be. But I don't think that I've been deft at hiding parts of my personality.

I'm not one aspect of the human experience - none of us is.

I don't think any of us like to be reduced to just one label.

I'm not going to force your participation in a conversation, I'm going to say I can be an example that these things can exist and don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like being a queer artist and being a Christian. Those things don't have to be mutually exclusive and I'm just going to be honest about them so that you know.

Identity is made up of lots of different things now. Different colors and patterns stand out at different times. Different instruments in the symphony of being are more distinct than others at different times.

As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am.

Being bisexual, being bipolar, being biracial - it's been used to define me, but I am desperate to be indefinable.

I am a woman, and I am Jewish; I'm a film-maker, and I'm a writer, so you cannot just put me in one box.

I am just myself, and who I am is a lot.

These days we don’t have to fit into something other people think we are. We’ve leveled the playing field, life is inclusive. I’m a mom, sex detective, wife, fearless, gentle — we can now, with grace, be all of what we are.

I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we're visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what's been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context.

Even with whatever people want to label me with, there are so many other sides to me.

What is interesting about me isn't that I am a mother, it is who I am. I love my family, but if I just talk to you about being a mother, it's boring. I am sorry, but it's reducing who I really am, and it's really boring.

My views on equality are pretty obvious. I mean, I did play a highly complex lesbian techno DJ on TV, but I know it's not always easy to come out and tell the world where you stand.

I'm a lot of things at once. I want my audience to choose the side they like most about me.

I didn't want to come up with some generic Johnny Bravo type name. I'm not that cool, so I might as well stick with my birth name.

The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.

I can honestly say I've never thought for a second about whether a character reflects poorly on any group. All that matters to me is that the character is true to my belief in who he or she is.

No one is any one thing.

The world I live in is not all white people, not all straight people, and it's not all people who have their acts together, either.

If I don't get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says 'openly gay,' then it's worth the risk because I've had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.

I love the powerful woman who's complicated. There's no push to be one thing or another thing. It's all human. That's what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.