Geena Rocero Celebrates the Multiplicity of Trans Identities

Geena Rocero has been telling her story as an openly trans, Filipino-American model since giving a TED Talk in 2014 that went viral. That video turned her into a leading trans advocate and activist overnight. In her new memoir, Horse Barbie, Rocero takes us on a vivid journey, from the gay pageant scene in Manila, capital of the Philippines, to the New York City modeling industry, from a life of intense isolation and secrecy to one of advocacy and community.

Throughout that journey, the spirit of the “Horse Barbie” guides and buoys her. What started as a mean nickname from the pageant scene became, for Rocero, a symbol of a wild, gender-nonconforming spirit that has been part of Philippine indigenous culture for generations, even as Filipinos like us absorbed and made American culture our own through nearly half a century of Western colonization. The result is a trans woman who is unafraid of being brazen, confident, and honest about who she is and what she stands for. I had the opportunity to interview Rocero over Zoom a few weeks before Horse Barbie’s publication.

You wrote this about the moment you were about to take the TED stage: “It wasn’t lost on me that I might be the only trans person in that room. Hopefully my talk could change that.” The first article I wrote about being trans was in response to your talk, so I’m one of the living embodiments of your words. How do you feel about the fact that there are so many people who were inspired to live our lives publicly as trans because of you?

We’re starting with this? (Tearing up.) You’re making me all emotional here; I thought we were just going to have a kiki. It’s all this crazy full circle. I literally just got back from the TED conference last week. And it was my first time back since my TED Talk. It’s particularly emotional because I was so afraid of doing that talk. I knew I wanted to do it because I was suffering. It was really the mental anguish that I was feeling of having to—I was done hiding. I was done having to manage two realities in my life, this paranoia that made me sick, that made me exhausted all the time, having to carry the burden of my secret. People at TED came up to me and said things like, “Your talk in 2014 was the most memorable” or “Your talk, I’ve shared it to a young, trans niece that I have that’s coming out.” I just get really emotional. I wanted to free myself, and to hear from people like you. Knowing my story freed other people too, it makes me feel good.

How does telling your story in book form feel, after telling it at TED and in other ways?

This book is my way of processing what happened after that TED Talk, because I went from super stealth, super afraid, and then I went viral. And that launched me everywhere, right? I went from being afraid, worried, paranoid, to swinging to the other side, an unapologetic trans woman. I worked with the UN, President Obama’s State Department, traveling the world, going back to the Philippines. This book was my way to process what happened in that in-between and to dig deeper. Even just giving the TED Talk—I had never given a public speech before, but I had been on pageants before. I was the diva in pageants. I remember standing on that stage, and that Horse Barbie spirit came back off that pageant scene. I borrowed elements of it, the inner desire to share something. Writing this book allowed me to go back there, trace my family, trace the relationships I’ve had, from my dad, from my mom, to my trans mother, Tigerlily. All of those things led me to where I am right now. Each chapter is written sort of as the different identities I’ve inhabited. And there’s a lot of them.

Mikey Sanchez

You write about babaylan, who were priestesses and trans shamans from our indigenous traditions. Can you talk about where that spirit comes from and how it moves through you when you experience it?

I am well aware that being onstage, I carry with me this long history of precolonial trans identities, genderfluid in spirit, gender-neutral in our language—though, on top of that, the forces of Spanish colonization. That’s why we have religious fiestas. On top of that, the forces of American colonization. So I carry all of those with me. All of those things are me. All those complicated forces and nuances, they’re all me. Having lived in the Philippines half of my life and half here in America, I will always be on that spectrum, and in that fluidity of perspective and analysis or spirit, notions of kapwa (community). I will always have that. It’s so lively, the community aspect in the book, because I don’t know anything else. American individualism was such a foreign concept for me. I was born in a poor, working-class background. I was always surrounded by people. It’s this notion of community as something embedded in our culture. So, moving here in America at the beginning, certainly it was so confusing for me. This thing of Puwede na iyan, bahala na iyan (“It’s fine; let’s leave it up to the gods”) is sort of speaking to notions of “Let's just be present here.” Whatever the expectations of the gathering or an event or whatever someone is going through, in that moment when you just say, you know what, “Puwede na iyan. Bahala na iyan.” Let’s just be present here. This is what we have.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like for you during that stealth period, being alone, having to cut yourself off from communities you had formed in San Francisco, for the sake of protecting your privacy?

I made the decision to start writing the part that was most difficult to write, which was my time when I was stealth as a fashion model, because it was the most complicated moment in my life. It was both femme-affirming as a fashion model, but also the saddest, because I was not in touch with my trans pageant family. I left my best friend, Danmark, in San Francisco, and my trans family in San Francisco that took me in, that showed me the way. I had to leave all that behind. So thank God I had Erica as my one trans best friend who knew everything. And if I didn’t have that, I don’t know if I would have survived. Because I had to protect everything. Every single thing in my life was all about being vigilant and being limited and being calculating and editing everything, you know? That would drive some people crazy. It almost drove me crazy. So it was sad, but also, again, this complicated thing. Maybe it’s this American individualism—I really want to be at the top of the game. I really have this ambition. So I really needed to get through it. I needed to just put that aside. But I also know how sad that was.

And lonely.

Very lonely. When I was joining trans pageants, I was always surrounded with fans, my trans pageant family. I always had people with me. So to compartmentalize that world, it was a struggle.

I was in an industry that is all about the power of imagery. I was so visible, literally and figuratively, in all the senses of the word, but I was also at the same time consciously invisible. That’s what I did.

It was really striking to me when you wrote about being in Indonesia and finding out how our languages are related. I wanted to ask you about this word sulit, which in Tagalog means worthwhile or worth it. But sulit in Indonesian means difficult, which feels like a great metaphor for the paradox of being trans. You describe your life as a trans woman as something difficult, a struggle. Do you think the struggle was worth it?

The most powerful thing we have is to understand the real power of what it means to be a trans person, particularly as someone who comes from a culture that’s been colonized multiple times over. To truly understand, particularly the precolonial belief system and what it is that’s always been there. It’s in our blood, in our culture, in our language. It’s in our spirit. And that power is so innate, but all these forces—media, political realities, cultural things, shame, masculinity, all of that—try to really bury that power from us. [For trans people of other cultures, you must] find that out on your own terms, go back to your history, unpack the myths, the stories, the expectations of your own culture, how you’ve been raised, how you’ve been taught, signals and messages that you’ve been brainwashed to believe. Because once I’ve pushed through it, I love being a trans Filipina. It is really my secret power.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Meredith Talusan's debut memoir, Fairest, was a 2020 Lambda Literary Award finalist. She has contributed to The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and WIRED. She is also the founding executive editor and current contributing editor at them., Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ digital platform.

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