I completely agree with Adam on his assessment of both points regarding the reaction to Piers Morgan’s interview with Janet Mock. Empathy, or the willingness to see an issue from another’s point of view, is not only appropriate for all parties, it’s the most productive. Lumping your potential allies into the same bucket as those who despise you by treating them with contempt because they misspeak or unknowingly offend you will only leave you more isolated.

I liken this issue to the plight of the African American community, of which I am a part. If we berate someone every time they, in a genuine attempt to learn about the African American experience, say something inaccurate or even offensive, they will stop asking questions and be too scared of being called a racist to ever actually learn and progress.

And to assume that the under-privileged have no responsibility for their communication as it relates to their oppression, simply because of that oppression, puts 100% of the responsibility of a healthy and thoughtful conversation on the people who ill-equipped to hold such a conversation. To think that someone who probably doesn’t even acknowledge their privilege, and definitely doesn’t understand the depth of that privilege, can speak with the appropriate vocabulary and focus only on the things that are most important to that community is foolish.

What Janet Mock and other harsh critics of the Piers Morgan interview were expecting is a 500-level interview for a 100-level audience. This is nonsensical and naive. Janet Mock is on CNN because she is transgender and has a tremendous story. Her gender identity is obviously pertinent to the story. What she and other critique fail to realize is that the CNN interview is most viewers’ first experience with a transgender person. To a respectful degree, they need to know about her, which includes her transition, in order to be able to empathize with her. She can’t expect them to care about her cause if they don’t care about her.

Since Janet and the LGBT community live and breathe the experience, they are the 500-level students in the 100-level class. It’s reasonable to be upset that the class material is basic, but they have to remember that they are in the 100-level class – a society still in the introductory phase of transgender issues. Elevating the classroom material is all our responsibility (including Piers Morgan), and we do that by asking and answering questions, and being patient and understanding with those who want to learn. After all, isn’t that what we expect from others?

Another comment regarding your postscript:
I just watched both the Piers Morgan-Janet Mock interview and rejoiner . The original interview is pretty light-weight and consists primarily of Piers fawning over Janet’s courage. He does sensationalize her story a bit and I can get how Janet might feel annoyed; but I didn’t see anything that would warrant her harsh Twitter backlash.

Based on the rejoiner interview, Janet’s seems to have two concerns: 1) Piers describes her as being “born a boy” (She argues that the term “boy” refers to a person’s identity not the presence of a penis, and she never self-identified as a “boy”). 2) He sensationalizes her story.

Regarding #1, Janet has every right to promote the use of the term “boy” as an identity label and not a label of physiological gender, but she won’t get very far if she berates people for using the term the way it is predominately used in society. If this is really the approach she thinks will be effective, she should walk into delivery wards and chastise every doctor, nurse and parent who proclaims “it’s a boy!”

Regarding #2, Janet is incredibly naive if she thought that a traditional global media outlet would interview her without trying to sensationalize her story at all. I am sure she got the interview primarily because CNN though their viewers would find her story a bit mind-boggling. Yes, part of why people find gender change interesting is because it is deviant and goes against many cultural norms. That is NOT the aspect Janet wants to focus on. However, while Piers did tap a bit into that sentiment, it wasn’t his primary focus. Instead he focused on the other part of what makes her story so interesting – the tremendous challenge of doing what she did. It took much more courage for her to realize her identity than, say, for me to realize my identity as a liberal when born into a conservative family. It took courage precisely because it is so counter-normative. Acknowledging and applauding that courage is mostly what Piers was doing, and I would think that would be appreciated by Janet.

Jay mentions in the postscript of this podcast that since Piers is a privileged white male and Janet is a transgender black female that the onus is on Piers to empathize with her and not the other way around. I couldn’t disagree more. Empathy should not be thought of as something to be given out in proportion to ones privilege. The disadvantaged (as well as the advantaged) will have a much better understanding of the world, will better affect positive change, and will be happier if they empathize as much as they can with those who are not like them.

On the postscript following up on your recent trans* rights episode… have you considered partnering with some trans people next time? You seem willing to confront your own privilege, but there are going to be things that cis people like you and me just won’t be able to guess about the lives and perspective of trans people. There are some awesome trans bloggers out there…