Geena Rocero: Being Transcendent
Geena Rocero is a model and advocate, known for her courageous journey of self-discovery and self-revelation: In 2014, she came out to the world as transgender on the stage at TED. Today, we discuss her debut memoir, Horse Barbie, where Geena bares her soul, relaying her journey as a pageant queen hailing from the Philippines. Courageously, she made the difficult decision to temporarily conceal her identity in order to pursue a career as a model in New York City, where not even her agent knew her truth. While she booked magazines and ad campaigns, deep within her, she recognized that embracing her authentic self was the key to unlocking her boundless potential. Geena's determination to live her truth serves as a testament to the transformative strength in self-acceptance and genuine empowerment. Besides telling her story, Geena also founded the advocacy and media production company Gender Proud. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN: I know you've been telling your story publicly for six years. Is that right? When you came out?
GEENA ROCERO: That was 2014, so that's nine years.
ELISE: Nine years? Holy shit, Geena.
GEENA: Yeah, it’s interesting obviously writing this book, very different as you've read in the book, very different in the context of, you know, I have to be honest, like when I did my TED Talk in 2014, talking about timing and they have no idea that year, I mean, personally for me, I wanted to do that right? And I made the decision to share my story on my 30th birthday. And I said, I'm entering my new decade as myself. That's 2013. And when they did my TED Talk and then months after that, that's when, you know, Time Magazine published a transgender tipping point. We could go deeper into that big question and a problem with that positioning. But also, you know, between 2014 and at least with when I came into the scene and did a lot of these things, there's a lot of respectability politics, you know, as in most things, right? When you are tasked as the representative, you know, from a marginalized community, I've been speaking my story, but through a very particular lens, you know. So writing this book is definitely, as what most people would say, unapologetic, in all its essence.
ELISE: Yeah, I thought it was so illuminating and in a way I was sort of ashamed at how little I know about, like I learned so much from you. Thank you. Like you're, the way that you talk about sex so openly and your Maserati of vaginas and you know, that was really eye-opening to me. I might be sexually naive, but like I didn't know, for example, that it is essentially the exact same, no one would know unless you out yourself. It's embarrassing to admit that, but I just had no idea that absent menstruation and a womb, although I imagine at some point we'll be able to do that as well. Right?
GEENA: I mean, there's been a lot of innovations in the world, that's for sure. Sharing that part of even that component, right? I mean, even when I do interviews and we're speaking about that because there is a big preoccupation. And just speaking about it from a complete, you know, sensationalist approach, you know, when I wrote this book and when I made the choice to speak about that, I was really coming from a very, you know, what, what, so in a way, spirituality tied into that and how I felt so aligned once I've done that, yes, I got the Maserati, you know? And that's great. And that's also great, you know, and that's the long kept secret within the community and it still is in so many ways. And it helped me in so many ways.
ELISE: Yeah, well, what I thought was so beautiful about it, really was your attachment to pleasure and such a clearly articulated sex drive as completely apart from gender and how important pleasure was to you. And the fact that that is still available and a through line was amazing. I assumed that was lost. Maybe that’s actually a lot of other trans women thought that that was a sacrifice that they would have to make. Is that accurate?
GEENA: Absolutely. In many ways, just like in so many things, particularly in the culture I'm speaking about, and we would straddle between, you know, Philippine what Eastern context to American context because I think, you know, I've lived half of my life in the Philippines, half here in the US. So, you know, it's quite a perspective, you know of different culture, different contexts, different nuances, but through the lens of, let's say American culture, western context, the understanding of that is again, the tendency of, because that's considered outside the norm, let’s not go and sort of share as much information about it. So that's why we didn't have access to it, full access to it, but also in the context of the innovation at the time certainly was not as much available. So there's all that confluence of those factors. Thank God, through trust within the community, I was able to access, you know, not online, obviously no social media at the time. It's pure intercommunity aspect of like, okay, let me ask you about that experience. But without the context of like, Oh, I'm, I'm just objectifying you because I'm just asking about that. Because you know, that that conversation that me and another trans Filipino, particularly in wanting to find out information as openly as possible, it's true love. It's true knowing the long history of misinformation, the long history of not being able to access particularly pleasure, you know, that was the big question.
ELISE: Yeah. And I thought it was, you know, really beautifully told and very powerful to know that that is certainly not lost. And if anything it, you know, as you came deeper into your body, that you were really in, completely in a full expression of yourself. Let's talk about your childhood, I mean, you talk about sort of the lack of gender pronouns in the Philippines, the fact that this is just a known, a very visible, celebrated, if not, it's still deprecated. Right? And there's still hate. It's not like it's a transforward community, but it is in some ways like you are fully out as a child. You are very visibly trans, very visibly a woman, a girl. Can you talk a bit about that cultural experience?
GEENA: You know, I think when I decided that I'm gonna, you know, write this book, certainly I know I've lived a cinematic life, just in the context of putting trans-pageants within a very Catholic conservative culture. The pageantry of it all in itself, obviously that's my experience, so in the Philippines, when they share those things, specifically, we have a long history of gender fluidity in our culture, it's in our language. It's very much documented. Trans people, as in many cultures around world, pre-colonial cultures, indigenous cultures, the understanding of gender has never been truly a binary way of looking at things. It's really about the Abrahamic religions that introduce a big part of that, which is a also a big part of colonization, right? So we've had that culture of gender fluidity in our culture, both from language, the position that non-gender nonconformist people play in society has a very specific, powerful role. In the Philippines, we have, again, there were so many dialects and they're usually the advisors to the local queens and kings or their spiritual leaders or someone who's believed to have access to the divine. Right? That's a role.
So in the Philippine context, so imagine when 1521 per Fred Magel, got to the Philippines does introduction of, you know, Catholicism, Christianity, but also as a tool of colonization. To be perfectly honest, brainwashing, and they saw that trans people are the spiritual leaders. You can just imagine what the priest did, you just imagine the system of, as a tool for colonization did towards how do we get rid of that. How do we completely erase as much of that? So with you have that context, right? And then obviously, for 333 years, we are a colony of Spain. That's the introduction of the Fiesta celebration, the introduction of, you know, the Christian calendar, right? The celebration of all that. And then in 1898 we were, you know, Philippines was purchased for 20 million, you know, by United States from Spain.
Thus, again, entered this new influence. And for 50 years we were in American Colony. And then the early 19 hundreds, that's the introduction of beauty pageant, like the concept of a beauty pageant on stage was introduced in the Philippines. So you have that confluence of those forces and to what it is now. That is why we have this very vibrant trans beauty pageant culture. Meaning usually to celebrate a particular saint on or a patron, like for example, downtown Manhattan, we're celebrating the Fiesta of St. Peter. Right. And usually that's a five day celebration and usually in that fifth day as the main celebration, that usually falls on the Sunday. The main event is a transgender beauty pageant. And usually that's like on the street, the stage is being built and most of the time it's right in front of the church. The whole family's watching it. So when they say these things, people, oh, you mean is accepted? It's, Tolerated, you know, it's still seen as an entertainment.
For us it's again, from a storytelling component, like who's looking at what, where's the gaze coming from? Like for us it's, for me at least, it was my way of to make money. Cause it's such a system. There are so many, actually this month, this month of May, it's actually peak Catholic. Trans Fiesta extravaganza because there's almost trans pages almost every day throughout the Philippines right now, because it's also Peak Fiesta Catholic tradition in the Philippines right now, the whole month of May. So yeah, when I say that, I like to offer that nuance, which is, as I mentioned in in the book, and in many ways, trans people are culturally visible, like mainstream, visible, but we're not politically recognized. There are no rights for trans people. We can't change names and gender markers. There's a comprehensive anti-discrimination. There's still, to this day, majority of, of affirming cares are still DIY. It's still through community. There's some changes, but still very much DIY.
ELISE: And that's where you're accessing hormones through a network and you're not under the care of a doctor, et cetera.
GEENA: There are some initiatives that have popped out, but not a system as part of the introduction of this is how you actually do it. There's some, you know, testing programs in the hospital, but not, like I said there, this is 105 million population in the Philippines, you know, and in the community or organizations that I'm still in touch with, they work with, they were like, we're barely like a organization, medical organization that supports, you know, as a system comprehensive approach to this in a population of 105 million people.
ELISE: Yeah. I wanna come back to sort of the spiritual shamanic component of this, but we'll put that in a parking lot for now cause then you, you moved to, follow your mom. That was heartbreaking that your mom had to go first. I'm glad you guys are on, I'm assuming on opposite coast still, but on the same continent again. But then you enter a parallel reversed universe, right, where you are able, on your identity card, to say that you're female in the United States and nobody clocks you to use your language as trans. Right? So you're back in the closet. So that was fascinating how you talk about being at home in the Philippines and you're not Waba-King at all. Everyone recognizes you as trans and then you go to the United States and you are Waba-King. Nobody knows, which is really interesting cultural commentary, particularly at that time, right? This is 2000 ish, and in the closet for the first time, you'd never really been in a closet,
GEENA: No. So when I moved to America first, California, right? San Francisco area. And specifically, I moved here because I'm able, that's what my mom told me, that I'm able to be recognized as a woman here in my legal documents. And because I had a different trajectory, I thought I was gonna be in Japan and continue that life because that's what, you know, what many trans people did. But my mom said that to me, so I was like, I'm moving to America. But when I moved here, I experienced it reverse. It's politically recognized, right, on documents and access to certain affirmative care. There's no glamour, there's no cultural visibility. I was like, where is the trans beauty pageants, like the way that we have it in the Philippines? And so it was a reverse, as a 17 year old, the cultural shock of what do I do? And the first representation that I saw on television, you know, trans people was Jerry Springer as a TV. And it's a particularly poignant, I'm sharing all this, you know, he recently passed and I respect as well, you know, of a person. But also there's this other side, you know, for so long that show and the ethos of that show represented, in a way, I'd say encapsulates American understanding of gender, American understanding of like what are the types of people, lived experience, and identities that that should be ashamed of.
And at the time, definitely we were, we were the target. Still is the target, but certainly at the time was like, that's the only thing that I saw and then completely affected the way I saw and the way I felt, you know, about who I am. I mean, shame definitely even more so sunk something deeper into who I could become. And in hindsight, I definitely now know that this country that promised me, you know, freedom to be who I am, there are conditions, freedom to not be fully, fully yourself, you know, freedom at this point that duh, we could only tolerate, you know? I've forgotten that horse Barbie on stage, that spirit, that power that essence and that beauty and that sort of magic that I, that I had as you know, the most prominent trans beauty queen at 15 to 17, the diva. I lost that and I've forgotten about it until, you know, when I decided that I'm really been moved to New York City and pursued this after many, many years. I had to listen to that voice again of, you know, as an artist, as a performer. To do it and I had to move to New York City.
ELISE: Yeah, I wanna talk about your New York City life and career, but before that, for people who don't remember sort of the Morri Povich, Jerry Springer roadshow, those talk shows. I remember these. So it had to have been with some frequency, this exposure of a man typically learning that his girlfriend was, it wasn't even trans, it was, oh, your girlfriend's a a man. Right. And then the sort of quote unquote shock horror of the revelation. The crowd going wild. I mean, this was common. This was a frequent, I don't know how often they did it, but it was up there with sort of the other transgressive sins like you’re boyfriend or girlfriend has another family or you know, whatever it is that they was their whole shtick, which was the one of the most powerful crack for our culture. And it's really the fear that the stokes, right? Because when you're in the Philippines and you’re clocked or Waba-King, but the opposite. In America, you're plagued by this, like this incredible fear component and what's what happens and continues to happen to trans women, in particular in our country being murdered. But this fact that men are so uncomfortable with their sexuality or this culture is so uncomfortable with sexuality, right? And that if someone, and clearly you're gorgeous and that becomes a weapon that's used against you for people who are scared of the possibility that they really wanna have sex with you, right? I mean, it’s already scary to be a woman and then it's sort of an extra level of weaponization against you. I don't know, it had to have been really traumatic, Geena.
GEENA: I mean, you know, this country is founded in puritanical belief, though anything outside, again, outside of what was considered upholding this story, this narrative of who are allowed to be fully asked themselves, which I think we now we have better language, I mean, now we could say that it's this heteronormative, white, patriarchal identity, right? If it goes outside that, shame, shame, shame, shame, be ashamed. That's something to be ashamed of. Let's completely, like not even acknowledge it through that, it's all these things that we're talking about. I've lived that life, when I was writing this book, when I was beginning to tackle what this, how I'm even going to approach this, I knew I wanted to start at what I thought that was the most traumatic and most difficult and most complicated, which is my time as a fashion model in New York City, but some would easily think that, like, what do you mean traumatic? You're a fashion model. You’re doing all this, in the external way of looking things, you know, it's all the barometer of success, right? I mean, I was doing it, but then I also had this other multiple multiverse, dual reality paranoia, always editing what I needed to say. Always be vigilant. All of those things, holding it together, this book was a process to unpack, you know, a little bit more of that because I felt like I didn't even after the TED Talk, I just went from hiding stealth to that force of wanting to speak truth into existence and find my way into being known as truly as I am, I went from being stealth to completely unapologetic trans. So writing this book, Horse Barbie, was to find that through line, what happened, why I made that decision, you know?
ELISE: To go back through all that. And it's, you know, amazing. And, and I can imagine, I mean, you write about this beautifully, but this feeling at a shoot of, are they clocking me, right? I'm the face of Remel, am I gonna be exposed? And you know, you write about it too, in this age before social media, the transplants aren't on YouTube. There's your family's in the closet too, right? They don't wanna tell anyone where you are or what you're doing for fear of exposure, which is, I mean, I can only imagine, as you said, hyper-vigilance and the neuroticism that comes from living that life. And, hopefully we're in a better place. I mean, do you feel like we're in a better place now? I mean, I know we're banning drag shows. We're saying, don't say gay. I mean, it feels like we're going forwards and backwards simultaneously, but do you think that a majority of culture is improving?
GEENA: I think, for marginalized folks, we've always known, this what you just said there about like swinging back and forth and all that, that's been in my head, you know, since I was modeling, right, since 2005, which is swinging. Like where do I fit in? Why do I do it? Yes, we have those windows of, of hope and moments in culture. But for most marginal, we've always been doing this. You know, we've always been like trying to find our way around a system that's not built for, obviously, not us, not someone of my skin color, not of my experience. Again, not to take lightly of some of the progress and obviously the hope that, that it gave me why I moved here. Is it better? Certainly. I don't know. It’s tough. I get asked this question all the time, and, not in podcast, I think in podcasts, I love because you really get to really expand on things. But when you're, you know, asked for like the quick, sound bites, there's a tendency of just comment on the freaking statistics and I'd like to say I tried to reject that in as much, you know, cause I am also someone who's, you know, in a way also became a little bit of like a policy wonk, you know, to really understand what I'm advocating for. I know life affirming power of seeing the humanity behind those numbers, behind those statistics. And that's, when I'm speaking about this, I just wanna honor the lived experience, the lived experience, particularly the most vulnerable trans youth, trans youth of color, and on all those contexts. So I wanna honor them, in the sense that yes, it’s tough and it's difficult.
If I could offer one thing, at least for me and my experience and where I'm from and the culture that I grew up with, it is really the power of community. And I'm not speaking about community, Like you to sign up for membership community, you know, and or you have to pay for a membership community. I'm not speaking about that because it's also, you know, rooted from my lived experience is that Philippines is a very communal culture. You know, when I moved here and the whole idea of like, you are an individual and everything revolves around you, it was like, what? that was the craziest thing that I experienced and obviously affected the way I've viewed myself and viewed my immediate world. You know, In the Philippines, you don't exist in individual. You're always a reflection of your community. We have this virtual called kappa is all about, and that's embedded in, in Filipino culture, embedded in, you know, Southeast Asian culture, majority of culture that's non-Western. This virtue, particularly, is basically what it means is like your inner self always shared with others.
ELISE: Mm. Beautiful. So trans is such an interesting word, right? And it means within its transition, right? That it's in some ways transcend, I think.
GEENA: It should be some something powerful, something beautiful, something like all encompassing form of evolution of some sort. Right?
ELISE: Yeah. Because how it's seen, and I'm very curious for your thoughts, and feel free to say that you very much disagree, but it feels like the contemporary, I'll call it transcendent movement, this idea that we all are equipped with masculine and feminine energy, and I would define the core masculine as structure, order truth, core feminine as creativity, nurturance and care. These energies are available to each of us. They have nothing to do with gender, although we're conditioned, particularly in a western world, to say, if you're female, you must be caring, you must be in your feminine. Although most women are definitely in both, much more easily I think, than many men, and we're being called to recognize this next stage of evolution. There's your sexuality. You know, we're sort of maybe starting to clock like sexuality and gender. Not the same thing. And now what I would love to see is gender and masculinity and femininity, not the same thing. I am curious about your thoughts on that as someone who is transcendent, but as someone who also comes from a culture where you're, has more gender fluidity, have you experienced that or do you feel like in the Philippines, there's still that binary as well.
GEENA: In the Philippines, especially how I grew up, we grew up a very, very colonial mindset. You know, obviously the religion influenced and American language influenced, our systems of government is based from when we were a colony of America. It still very much operates like that. So you have that factor, right? So, in so many ways, on where you are or obviously the concept of access and class to actual literature that honors pre-colonial identities, you won't be able to easily access that. Certainly I didn't realize this quickly, you know, I had to leave my birth country, Philippines, for me to know this and is it advantage or disadvantage? I don't know, but certainly that's what happened. I had to leave my motherland in order for me to truly understand it. But given with what I know now and what I know, some of the through line of the, looking back to how I grew up, even just the whole concept. I know we talked about earlier, a little bit on the gender binary and pronoun. I think it kind of in encapsulates this because certainly I experience this, I still experience this. I still say it, a Filipino who's born and raised in a Philippines, when you move to America or like when you speak English, I could easily call you, He, She, you know, not because it's an intention, because I just don't know how to put things in binary. Every Filipino who moves to America calls he/she. We have the word called and it's like for everybody, it's inclusive of everything, but when you speak English, it's very binary.
So even that's a encapsulation of that experience. I think one way to look at this current cultural climate that we're seeing right now. And yes, I wanna honor, as I mentioned the lived experience of the people that are being attacked is, you know, and make sure people are safe. Make, make sure people have that emotional, psychological, mental support. But, at the same time, you know, finding how that young trans person hopefully to access, still to be able to dream and do things that they're truly passionate about. Like those are the things that are like, I think the most immediate things that I would like to acknowledge and hopefully people have access and figure out ways to do that. But I think the deeper aspect here is that, if we're speaking about the people that are specifically doing this, particularly the really conservative doing this, which is how do we harness as much power by minimizing other people's power? It is truly because I think trans people and gender nonconforming people has that power and they’re too afraid of that power that they've been for so long, anybody that sees gender as this very rigid binary, outside of that story that you've been told that you've been led to believe is that immediate almost like fight or flight situation that like, I will minimize that, I will squash that, I will prevent that by, you know, creating these systems of loss so that they could stay there, you know? That's what I believe.
I believe certainly, I know now, after have going through this years and years of feeling ashamed of who I am, you know, internalizing the shame, how America sees trans people, gender in general, and what I know now, is truly, this is the power. I mean, maybe many, many years as a fashion model, definitely there were days when I feel like, why did I even, just a thought of like being born as trans and all that. Like, I love being a trans person right now, especially right after that Ted Talk in 2014 when I realized, oh wow, I've opened up. The world opened up to me. You know, this is just the beginning. It doesn't mean all my problems disappear, but certainly there’s a sense of freedom in that. So hopefully the freedom that, at least for me to start with, that I found within myself by speaking truth, by truly living authentically as myself, you know, it gives me power. I think people are afraid of that.
ELISE: I mean, I remember living through, my older brothers gay, and living through his coming out at a time of a lot of extreme homophobia, dangerous homophobia in this country too, and recognizing primarily in the people who were extremely homophobic, Oh, it's because you are a little gay and you're scared of this in yourself. Like you meet, at the time, particularly you would meet some of these hardcore right wings or be in their presence and be like, oh, you're, this is all you know, this isn't a mechanism of hating yourself. This is fear of yourself that you are projecting onto other people and hearing you talk about that too, sort of the loss of power, but I also feel like so much of it is that, you know, I think probably everyone is a little trans, right? And for a lot of people recognizing that in themselves is difficult, right. Or scary to be like, oh, I do feel my feminine, or I personally have always very much felt my masculine, you know, I was a major tomboy. I never felt like I was really a boy, but I definitely was very conscious of I am not a girl in this way. So, curious about that, do you feel living sort of within a fluid world? Obviously we're all arranged on the spectrum, right? And how much of that is born out of that fear of their own attraction or their own fascination or their own tendency or feeling that they are not this masculine male, you know?
GEENA: You know, speaking again, in the American context of always wanting to put things in a box, stay there in a box, diagnose it in a sense even, and I remember this conversation with our mutual friend, our dear, dear mutual friend, Jennifer Walsh. I remember one of our early conversations with her, and I remember she'd mentioned to me that, you know, I've never seen it in that way, in that context, and this is many, many years ago, obviously, that it's all about the spectrum. It's about why would we not allow people to have choices on that spectrum of choice and beauty and freedom, you know? And I think that's what it's about. You know, I certainly am not saying that like you will never have gender or like complete disillusionment of like, oh my God, there's no more rules. It's just about having the freedom. If you wanna stay in this, whatever in your expression, and maybe the next day you wanna be in this moment, and maybe you're just swinging back and forth and having fun and dancing around and having the best time, or maybe you really are just staying here, but because you're just staying here, you shouldn't not allow this people this dancing around to have a good time. You know, maybe you're seeing them have a good time, maybe you'll join them and have a good time. You know, in that context, that's how I see it.
ELISE: Yeah, exactly. It is strange, the things that we pay attention to or where we send our attention tells us a lot about ourselves and the fact that it is wild to me that this is so concerning when it is so nobody's business and not harmful.
GEENA: I think it doesn't become like if you're in the business of finding your own freedom, and I think maybe even just saying that or bringing that up brings about someone who's not worked through their thing, you know? You and I know we go through so much trauma and like the unpacking that and how you unpack that so that you don't transfer that trauma so you don't, you know, project that even more. I think I'm in the business of people finding their own freedom and freedom and like truly this thing that I've been told that this culture and country should be, right? And this is the narrative that's been sold to us. Especially as someone who's, you know, culture that was bought and sold for $20 million and was influenced and like characterized as the savages in that culture, let’s make them civilized, you know? Here I am writing this book, Horse Barbie, right? Tracing my story, tracing my life story, tracing my own history, my own process and I know it gave me freedom and be what it is to how people see it, but certainly for me, in speaking as who's gone through all this, who's gone through this global saga of the changes and of my experiences, I wanted to speak truth.
ELISE: Yeah. Let's go back to this idea of in Filipino culture, certainly in a lot of indigenous cultures, the third sex or this idea of trans people being spiritual leaders, shamans. I mean, I would imagine it's because they can contain, they're, they contain the binary, right? I'm looking for it, but I feel like at some point, even Jesus, who I would say is distinct from Catholicism and Christianity, feels like he said he had a feminine, he was born with a feminine soul. I think he represented in his own body, the duality, the experience of both simultaneously. I feel like in the book you write about that revelation, not with surprise, but have you gone sort of deeper into that more indigenous understanding, cultural understanding of, of what that means.
GEENA: Yeah, through my own study, through many communities of Filipinos that are decolonizing their mind, right, and in decolonizing in whatever aspect, whether it's reading books, whether it’s, you know, reading more literature to sharing it to people, to advocacy work through. I mean, for me, I have a tattoo here. but I mean, this is a pre-colonial script in the Philippines. But this tattoo, this character represented, you know, character is a trans considered gender fluid goddess fertility of golden rice, you know, like people pray in the Philippines to ate so that the harvest for next season will give them abundance, you know, knowledge of that, getting a hand tap tattoo, you know, from a cultural worker, you know, those are, when I'm speaking about this, and even through that, I'm sharing from my own journey, I think in some, even some parts of the books, like I've gone through almost this adventure way of like finding it right in that sense, unexpected.
Not coming to it from a preacher sense, like, did you know, I mean, I would love to, but I think I wanna live it by example. You know, how much freedom it gave me to unpack all of that, cause the colonial mind of who is made to feel ashamed about what's been embedded in my blood, in our blood, in our culture, in our language, in our belief system, in the way we relate to each other in our community. If that's not being unearth, you know, we're missing something, you know? Cause, for me at least, it's very grounding. You know, now that I know that I can't help but always think that I'm rooted from really that, when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling, you know, even like giving. Thoughts and advice, a young trans person, I share those part of who I am truly from all.
Lemme take you 15, 20, 21 or before 15, 21, darling. You know? And share that because even here in America, right? I mean, like, yes. We speak about Stonewall as that's a history. It's very much so, but even in this country, like we have the Native American culture that have long understood this. So when I say it's really historical and it's really been here, I think to say, oh, we've been here around, like, we literally have been around.
ELISE: I know you've been carrying this torch for a decade, right? Almost a decade since you're your TED talk, which was, you know, an opportunity to be yourself fully in the world. And now Horse Barbie is out, is there a point when wanna pass the baton and say, I know this has been sort of the primary part of my identity, but now I'm ready for like the next part of my life where this isn't the organizing principle of everything?
GEENA: I'd say this, I have asked that question quite long ago, and it's been many, many years since I think living my life fully is the best advocacy successfully, in my own terms, is the best advocacy one I'd like to consider for, you know, for myself, but certainly right after that TED talk I launched an that focusing campaign. I traveled the world. I worked with President Obama, State Department, like traveling in those places to speak about this, to put a face on the policy and the experience, right? And after a few years of doing that, I got really exhausted, spiritually. Because I felt like I've entered a different trap. You know, I left a trap of being stealth, right? Where nobody knows I was trans in the industry specifically, or, you know, obviously my line of work. But then I entered this thing of advocacy and at least in that level of, you know, as usually the only trans person in the room, the burden of representation.
I think I asked, I joke about it now, but certainly I think, let's just say, because I think it kind of encapsulated, it felt like I had my Angelina Jolie moment, you know, from modeling to like I'm speaking at the United Nation and I did right? And I did like two years of doing that. I was like, I cannot do this. I'm an artist. I wanna tell more stories. I'm gonna have a production company. Let me be like Tyra Banks and start a production company. And I did that. You know, and I think that question that you asked me about, like, even the thought of passing the baton, it's more like, how do I create pipeline or when I realized after two years of, you know, traveling the world and advocacy and, and doing all that. What was missing is the hunger, the deep hunger as an artist and a storyteller, that there are more stories that needs to be shared, that the statistics and datas could only do so much, you know? And how do I think, and that big question that I had when I launched Gender Proud Production with my co-founder, my friend Ali Hoffman was like, how do we tell stories through that lens, but fully from your perspective, you know, from a trans perspective, because you and I know in storytelling, it's always who's telling the story, you know, that gets put out there. So, to go back to, in the core of what you're saying is how do I just create pipeline? Like, now, as an executive producer in most projects that I'm a part of, you know, I have a voice to say this is how we're gonna do this and can we hire, you know, people that truly represents what the stories that we're trying to say. And I was a witness to the power of that many, many times. So not necessarily like how do I pass back on, but really how do I bring people with me? I think the, the bigger questions of the being the only one in the room, maybe when I wasn't conscious of it yet, you know, I was. And I think maybe this is like scarcity mentality of like, I wanna be the only one, you know, and be that ego-based, achievement based, individualist based, you know, I think I came to realize like, I'm the only one there. is There's a problem here, you know? And the next question is like, how do I keep that door open and bring everybody with me, you know?
ELISE: Yeah. I like that shift that you mentioned too, of being the lens, the lens of Geena and your own specific perspective, rather than being always needing to be the thing where the most quote unquote interesting thing about you is trans. And shifting that from like, actually no, let's just, I'm gonna be not the gauze, but I'm gonna bring you into a whole world of experiences that are just different and interesting experiences. That to me feels like a shift that a lot of people in social justice work are hungry for. Like, no, let's just change the camera to a wider aperture and a different lens and not make this the thing only.
GEENA: You do that by completely giving people that control to take over that language. I know in the things that I'm doing, whether it's directing, producing, writing, ally trans in that sense, where there's power through. It's, if it's seen through that lens, because it's never been through that lens, you know.
[ELISE: Yeah. But I think it's powerful too because I think you are, again, going to this idea of transcendent, I think you're offering us a vision of the future and what it would look like for everyone. To be a bit more free in who they are. And so it's not so much like here's a corollary experience over there, but here's actually the next experience.
GEENA: I grew up, again, from a very, very different culture in the Philippines. America, that’s a lot there, through my lens. That's a lot to unpack, you know?
ELISE: Geena, thank you for your time. Congratulations. Beautiful book. And maybe we'll cross paths on the road, although I'm primarily staying in this bedroom.
GEENA: I would love to, I would love to do more. I guess maybe because it's the Horse Barbie in me, like I love being that kind of engagement on stage and being in that because, you know, I feel like I have unearthed that spirit again, you know, like the title of the book is about this name that I was called at 15 years old in a trans-pageant culture. You know, arriving on the scene making this big splash, like who is this young girl? You know? And the tendency of the competition to denigrate me with that name, like oh, she looks like a horse, right, to maybe distract me. But then Tiger Lily, who, you know, one day saw me on stage, and you know what? The way you pause, the way you move, the way it's so elegant and the way the light hits you, the way you completely internalize who you are, when you're on stage, that persona that you bring, you look like a Horse Barbie. And since then, you know, and I definitely know that when I was modeling in New York City when I was having a difficult time, I embody that. I know Horse Barbie was right here in my shoulder. A horse, the spirit, you know, is next to me, behind me, guiding me. And I think this book, you know, I'm galloping and into sharing the Horse Barbie spirit. So did we just make a pun? I think you know, there will be puns. There will be puns.
ELISE: I love it. Thanks, Geena.
Well, Geena Rocero is a delight and her new memoir, Horse Barbie, is an important read. She is an incredibly generous storyteller as she explains the really full experience of who she is. I found it incredibly eye opening and illuminating and honestly a celebration of her body, her pleasure, her sexuality, in a way that’s honestly quite rare. I can’t wait to see what Geena continues to do in the world, particularly as the aperture starts to shift and we see the world filtered through different lenses, rather than people with different experiences and ideas being the subject or object of our fascination, but to see us moving to the next step, where instead of looking at Geena and trying to understand her, we can actually see the world through Geena’s eyes—and that’s something I’m really excited for, because I think it indicates, as difficult and horrible as this process has been and as far as we need to go and as much hatred still on display, I don’t believe that it represents the soul of most Americans, and I feel like we are pushing past these binaries to get to the next stage of evolution. That it really it transcendent not transition and through that we’ll find more freedom, more allowance, more understanding of ourselves and each other and a clarity about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we will continue to be.
