The Remarkable Life of Geena Rocero

She's an Emmy-nominated director and producer. This book, Horse Barbie, is going to land at the end of the month, and you're gonna see it everywhere. Okay, you're going to see major features in the New York Times and Vanity Fair. Please, the lights down just a little bit on us.

It is going to be, in my prediction, an international bestseller. It's going to be absolutely a phenomenon. So we're incredibly honored to have Geena with us. Before she comes out, one other thing: Geena's been involved in the Summit community since 2010, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But this community has been an essential part of her journey. And please give an incredibly warm welcome to my friend, Geena Rocero.

[applause]

Thank you! Hello! Look, I got cute for you guys. My high heels. Here we are. Dear, I have been just diving into this book, like feeling your life, feeling the smells, the sounds, the fears, the elation. And we don't have too much time together, so we're gonna just dive right in and we're gonna do this in about eight pictures.

So we're gonna start with this picture, and you're gonna tell us what is going on. Look at this beautiful human being looking back at us. Where are you, what are you feeling, what are you holding down inside? Take us there.

I was 21 years old in this picture. You know, it's funny, the title of this conversation is called "remarkable life," but this picture — I felt like there was a mark on my back. You know, there was a mark on who I am, there's a mark on what I could be. And the fears.

So this is — I was 21 years old, I just moved to New York City. This is 2005. This is a screenshot of — I was in a John Legend music video called "Number One." I was one of the girls. Whatever I was doing here, whatever I was feeling, I was definitely one thing: I know there was a lot of fear that's happening here.

Because in 2005, when I moved to New York City as a fashion model, I had to hide everything about who I am. When I moved to New York City in 2005, I didn't tell my agent. The fashion industry did not know I was transgender, because it was not allowed. To be an out and proud trans woman was not allowed. So I made a decision to not share that part of who I am.

And in this music video — what's crazy, and you could watch this on YouTube now — because when John Legend was singing, on my part, when I was in this scene, John Legend was singing, "Now who is she, what's her name, you don't need to know about everything." Talking about mad, cosmic, full-circle craziness.

And you're dancing seductively behind him. Yes! And him singing that to me, with him not knowing obviously that I'm trans. And there's a scene — and this picture — where I think what happened in the scene before this shot, there was a shadow and there was a scene where I flipped my hair back, beautiful silhouette. And I remember doing that shot so worried, because if I flip my hair back, what if they see my Adam's apple? What if the camera sees something? And I could be done.

You know, if they find that out — because every single trans fashion model that came before me, it's littered with stories that they're fashion models, but the moment they got outed, they were thrown into trash. They disappeared. Their careers were gone.

So as much as this — if you watch this music video, it's just — as much as it's very sexy, it's very sensual, what's going on in my mind was: do not flip that hair, because I might get found out. And my career as someone who is born and raised in the Philippines, moving to New York City to pursue a career in fashion, having to hide everything — and this is the beginning. I was 21 years old. This is the beginning of the life in New York City for eight years where I was in an industry that is all about the power of imagery, but I was not being seen.

I was a fashion model in New York City, so visible — like I was on the covers of magazines, I ran billboard Times Square, all of it.

Can I mention one other thing? Complex magazine had just called you and put you in the magazine as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world.

So that was also part of what was happening when I first moved to New York City. I was so visible but so consciously invisible at the same time. And having to manage all of that for eight years — I almost went crazy. The paranoia of always having to edit every single thing that I have to share with someone. I would go on cattle-call castings, right, where it's like a thousand models. But because we would be there for a while, in my bag, every time I would go to the bathroom, I would have to bring a tampon, just in case one of the girls asked, "Do you have a tampon?" So I won't get found out.

Now, all of us have secrets. We have things that we wouldn't want the world to know because they might end something in our work or relationship, or at least the way people treat us. And here you are — your whole life is that secret.

Writing this book, it's my way to process what happened. It's my way to process and to — I guess just to — it's true what they say when you write a book, it's all this catharsis and everything. But it was really my way to look back, but more so heal. And how much mental anguish I had to carry for eight years of my life as a fashion model, and leaving my family, leaving everything behind, and somehow just wanting to pursue a dream, but having to do all that — it took its toll on my mental health. It stole my emotional — I almost went crazy. I think I said that, but yeah, of course.

Well, let's go way back then, because here's another picture that you can tell us about.

This is the alley where I grew up in the Philippines. This tiny little alley where I grew up. This is a whole universe. Our houses, you see the flowers, is just right underneath. We live in this sub-level house, four by eight. There's four of us. It floods every time it rains. But this little alley was a whole universe.

I was, you know, a young kid playing. My family — somehow I was the youngest in our family. But somehow, in this small alley, literally this alley where I grew up, it's a whole universe. I'm always outside playing. But also, somehow, every time I leave this alley — as much as I had so much love from my family, my dad, my sisters, my brothers — every time I leave this alley, it's a sense of danger. Because I would get called all the names, you know, as a young trans Filipina femme running around. I used to sell sticky rice in the Philippines, and every time I would walk around in the neighborhood where they don't know me, but they could figure out that somehow the way I walk — they would chase me and throw rocks at me.

How old were you when you knew that you were a femme? Because that's what you would call it then. Yes, yes. I was five years old, and I clearly remember walking around the house always wearing a t-shirt on my head or a towel, and I would play around — like, this is my hair. And every queer person, I mean even a gay guy, could understand the hair flowing, right, feeling ourselves. But for me, when I was wearing that, it's not because, oh, this is my hair — I really felt, knew, that I'm a girl. And I told my mom that. Because at some point my mom kept on saying, like, why do you always wear that? I told my mom, this is my hair. I'm a girl.

And your father, who's this macho guy — can we go there shortly? This is a macho man, has a little bit of a hard time with drinking a bit. And in all other ways, you wouldn't expect him to be supportive of a young femme boy-girl in his life. And how did he respond?

Let me back up a little bit here. So as you've mentioned earlier, I've been part of the Summit community. I was on the very first Summit at Sea, 2011. I moved to New York City in 2005. 2011, being here at Summit at Sea, it was the first inclination that I could potentially come out and share my story, because this is a community that I felt could accept me.

And 2011 was a big year, and then it was also the same year I went to Burning Man, had a heroic dose of acid. I found my way somehow.

[laughter]

And in that trip at Burning Man, I went crazy. 2011 — the temple theme that year was Temple of Transition. I mean, like someone speaking to me, right? But on that trip, the thing that came back to me was my dad. And in that moment, where everything kind of felt like it made sense — because as you've said, in this book I hope I pictured my dad and painted the character and the fullness of my dad, that is very complicated. His drinking problem, violent. But somehow in that trip, I just remembered how accepting he is of me, how loving he was to me.

Unfortunately he passed away. But in this moment, when I felt like it was the first time for me to remember him, and he came back to me, and I could only imagine what my dad was carrying himself too. He was going through a lot of pain. You know, macho, Catholic guy, getting into fights, violent. Almost chased my mom with a knife one day, because my mom was the breadwinner and my dad was the stay-at-home dad.

And in the Philippines, a lot of people leave the Philippines to go work abroad. Ten percent of Filipinos are outside. You see them here, right? When I see them, I have to talk to them. I want to know where they're from. My dad was doing that. My dad was a contract worker in Saudi Arabia, working in a port. And at the time, he was contracted to work for two years straight, no coming back to the Philippines. And after six months of his contract, he had to go back home because he felt like he missed his family.

And I felt like maybe that's a part of the pain and the trauma of my dad. I'd like to think that he felt like he couldn't provide for the family. So somehow I feel that the love and the acceptance of this macho, violent guy to his trans daughter — I could only imagine maybe the sensitivity that he was feeling, that maybe he was feeling that for me too. That's why he just wanted to accept me. He did need to come home.

Okay, so we're gonna do a couple on the quicker side so we can get to some of the later ones. So what is going on here?

Well, I was fit. I was 15 years old here. So when I was 15 years old, in the Philippines we have this culture of transgender beauty pageants. I mean, if you read, it says "Fiesta Pansol Extravaganza 1999." In the Philippines, we have this culture of vibrant trans beauty pageants, and usually when we have Catholic fiesta celebrations, which is usually like a five-day celebration, and usually on the fifth day of the fiesta celebration, which usually falls on a Sunday, the main event is a transgender beauty pageant. And usually that pageant is right in front of a church.

Because I've lived half of my life in the Philippines and half in the United States, Americans would say, like, you mean it's accepted? Because it's part of the culture, it's a little bit more complicated than that. But certainly, I was 15 here. I started joining pageants. I have this trans mother named Tiger Lily who saw me at 15 and she told me, you should join trans beauty pageants. I was like, of course I'm going to join trans beauty pageants.

On my very first pageant, I won second runner-up, Best in Swimsuit, Best in Long Gown. And I was addicted. And I was making so much money. Yeah, that was me at 15 years old.

[laughter]

And then here we are. This is probably right before you moved.

Yes, this was called Miss Gay Universe 2000. I won at 17 years old. I won the most prestigious — I'm the one in the middle. Those other two are my pageant sisters. I won the most prestigious beauty pageant in the Philippines at 17. And it just took me to a different trajectory of my life.

But also, little did I know — this life that I lived, because from 15 to 17 years old, I joined every single transgender beauty pageant that you could imagine in the Philippines. Like, this is the most prestigious, but I've joined pageants next to a rice field, next to a mountain, next to a 20,000-seat coliseum, on national television. I joined them all. I won them all. So yeah, this is the most prestigious pageant, and little did I know what was to come next after this.

Okay, so a little bit of context for those that just came in. We were hearing about Geena's life in the Philippines, where she was goddamn famous — like, the winningest, most trans pageant winner of all time, kind of felt like it from my understanding. You decide to leave all of this behind because you have the opportunity to become a woman in the United States.

And what some of you missed and are just coming in: Geena then went on to become one of the most in-demand female models in the United States, being called by Complex magazine as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. And no one knew her secret.

Okay. And so bring us to the TED stage. What are you doing at big TED?

I think what I just said — like, I've been loving all the big stages. So after being a model for eight years, having to hide all of that secret, having to maneuver the stories that I tell people, having to edit everything every single day of my life — and it's making you sick, too, the secret. Having to hide all of that, something had to give. I almost went crazy.

You know, I'm not diagnosed, but certainly I was a functioning depressed person, because I would be on covers of magazines and I would come home thinking that somebody — like a Page Six editor would call my model agent to say, hey, Geena, there's a story that, oh, you're a man, you're a boy, right? The gossip pages. Because that's what happened to every single trans model that came before me.

So after all of that, I realized on my 30th birthday, I cannot do this anymore. As a gift for myself, I'm going to enter my 30th birthday to live my truth. So after years and years of hiding, I decided that if I'm going to risk my career and my life, let me do it on the biggest stage that I could think of. You know, let me come out on the TED stage. Who comes out in a TED Talk, right?

[laughter]

And yeah, this TED Talk changed my life. It's a moment — this is 2014 — and little did I know, 2014 unleashed this conversation about trans rights in public consciousness, in the zeitgeist. So this TED Talk — I don't know what I was thinking, but certainly I knew I couldn't continue anymore, so I gave this talk.

How did it feel to go from living a secret to living your full, bodily self, and once again, very much in the public eye with it? I mean, that can come with a lot of complications. But what was the shift in you between the before and the after?

You know, it's crazy, because I went from someone hiding a secret — nobody knows who I am — and it went completely to the other side. Unapologetically trans woman, giving a TED Talk, being called by President Obama, State Department, to travel the world to speak about trans rights. I felt like I was having an Angelina Jolie moment. You know, a change of career — I'm going to speak at the U.N., all of that. And I did that. I did all of that.

[applause]

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. I did that, right? And then I felt like I entered a different trap. A different trap of the burden of representation. Because I found myself in the most powerful places — at the U.N., White House, all of that, State Department, everywhere — as the only trans person in the room. And being tasked to represent the whole community.

And I said, I can't do this anymore, after a couple years of doing that. And as much as I wanted to obviously represent my community, I just felt something is wrong here. Being the only one in the room. Maybe at some point people would think you're trailblazing, you're doing this thing. But to be the only one in the room, the burden to represent the community — I couldn't continue.

And I felt like I'm an artist. I want to tell stories. And I think that realization of, if I'm the only one in the room — maybe when I was younger I felt like, look at me, trailblazing, look at this, right, doing it. I think I began to question, what is the system that created why I'm the only one in the room? And I began to question, how do I — when people say you opened the door — I just realized, how do I keep that door open?

And I told myself, I felt like that was my Angelina Jolie moment. Let me do my Tyra Banks moment. Like, let me start a production company and become the artist that I am and tell more stories about trans youth, about their lives all over the world.

And some fun things happened though. Let's get to a couple of the fun things before your artist's soul got to fully take over. Let's see.

Well, this one's pretty fun. Have you ever seen the President laugh like this? I mean, we won't talk about the hand at the back, but, you know, Barack having a great time.

[laughter]

Let's just say that, you know, I told a joke about Filipino food and I was making him laugh. I was speaking at the Democratic National Committee gala, and it's just one of those things. I was giving a speech, and I know he was following after me. And it's just one of those things, like, what do I tell him?

I remember, a couple of days before this event, he was changing different policies about trans rights. So basically, when I saw him backstage, I basically screamed at him. Like, you already kept on changing trans policies! Like a Twitter feed! And he started laughing. And thank God somebody captured this. It's framed at my mom's house, that's for sure.

All right, giving him jabs. Okay, some other fun stuff went down. What's going on here?

Well, you know, I mean, other than looking hot as hell — in 2019, I was named the very first transgender Asian Pacific Islander Playboy Playmate. And it was at the point in my life where I just felt — it was crazy how it happened.

A little backstory: this is 2018, when I was at the point of my career where I felt like, you know what, I've done the TED Talk, I'm doing the thing, blah blah blah. But I was just like, you know, really, I think I want to hold it back to — and in this book that I wrote, I think we talked about this — after doing all the advocacy work, and people have known me from the advocacy work, TED Talk, you know, this respectable trans woman, whatever — in this book, when I decided to write it, I wanted to center and honor the sensuality of the journey. You know, the relationship that I have with my femininity and what it means to me to share that with the world.

So I got a DM from Playboy, and they said, "Hey, we know your work. We have this issue that's coming out. Do you want to be our first AAPI Playmate?" It's like, of course you say yes.

All right, so we've got about a little over 10 minutes left, and there's a couple things I want to make sure we talk about. It wasn't always the case that — globally, in many indigenous cultures, but definitely in the Philippines — that being gender fluid was looked down upon. In fact, it was elevated. So I want to talk about that.

I want to talk about what's happening here. Yeah, this is one of those things. This is iconic. If you're in fashion and advertising, this is one of the most iconic covers. And we recreated that. And I was the first one on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. And yeah, in my career, it's just like, after coming out and sharing my story, just one thing after the other.

And I think the next slide after this — this is an image in pre-colonial Philippines. Transgender people. This shaman in the Philippines is called a babaylan, which is a gender-fluid spiritual leader in the Philippines, where we are the advisors to the kings and queens. We give advice on how to carry the culture.

So I think the point I wanted to share when we talked about this powerful thing here is, trans people have always existed since the very beginning of time. In most pre-colonial cultures, we've always known. My ancestors have always known. In the Philippines, we don't even have he or she — it's a gender-neutral language. And in many cultures all over the world, the Philippines is part of this language family called Austronesian, which is spoken by close to 500 million people with 1,200 dialects, and most of those dialects are gender-neutral.

So this thing called gender binary — what is that in the Philippine context? The introduction of gender binary is a tool of colonization. Because in pre-colonial Philippines, we've had this gender fluidity, and then in 1521 we were colonized by Spain for 333 years — thus the introduction of patriarchy, Catholic religion. And then in 1898, we were bought by America for $20 million. We went from Spanish colony to American colony, thus the amalgamation of that influence.

But I think I wanted to end on this image, because in my journey now, as much as I'm in this trajectory writing this book, I think the most important thing for me is still truly to honor my pre-colonial roots. How spiritual it is for me as a trans woman, the sensuality of the journey, and to honor the long history of power, destruction, beauty, and spirit. And to carry that, to know that my ancestors have survived and lived it. I just want to continue sharing that story and go back there, go to the roots.

[applause]

Thank you. And in this moment, I think it's really important to point out: with all the anti-transgender legislation that we're seeing right now, where the most vulnerable — the most vulnerable transgender youth that just want to be who they are — are being erased by governments, by systems, by legislation. I just want them to know. I work a lot with trans youth. But I just want them to know, if there's one thing I could share: obviously, what we know now is it's not gonna get really better right away. But know that you are part of this long history of people that have always existed.

And I believe, I truly believe this: as much as we're being tried to be erased by governments, by systems, by media, by culture, I think that one of the main reasons is that the powers that be that want to erase my people, my identity — particularly trans youth — is that they know that trans people have the answer. This whole thing of rigidity of gender that's been in many conversations here about feminism, equality — we've lived it, we know.

And in this moment in our culture, the messages that we're receiving from a culture and a system that doesn't want us to exist — but trans people still choose every day to live our truth, to express who we are. I honestly don't know what's more powerful than that.

So my final question to you is a couple things. One, I hadn't come across this term and it just might be my ignorance, but when you were talking about the surgery, it was "gender-affirming surgery." And I was like, I haven't heard that terminology. I'm going to start using that terminology. When it's about transition — "gender-affirming surgery."

But what are other things that we can do for people to learn about the lives of trans people, people that are gender fluid? If we have kids, if we have friends that have kids — just in general, how can we be part of changing this? You know, decades and hundreds and years and millennia of erasing this incredible power. And we talked about what's threatening: it's the power of gender fluidity. It's not the differentness of it, but it's the power. So those two things: why are we afraid of that power, and what can we do? Simple question.

[laughter]

Thank you. I think what I'd say is, really look in your heart. Those things that you've been questioning about what you've been led to believe — the limits of what you could express, who you could love, who you could be with. The story that I've shared with you all is that: find it in your heart. The freedom that I've shared, the freedom that trans people offer to the world — and hopefully what you truly see is the freedom to be who you are. And truly reflect on that.

But more so, if you have a trans person, gender non-conforming person, particularly a kid — be that vessel of light and be that support and that love. And I understand that we're still unpacking these systems and culture that we've been led to believe, that gender is just binary. Be there for that young trans kid.

I've had so many people in my life that were there in the right moment, that guided me into that direction. I don't know what I would have done without the support of my transgender mother, my macho dad. It was those people that led me to the next thing. And hopefully, if you ever encounter anybody that's different — but particularly trans youth — honor them, support them, love them. Do not question and debate their existence, because it is not a debate. That's what I said.

[applause]

Take out your phones and make sure you grab that, right? Because many of you are going to be moved to do something next. And do something hyper local.

We have two minutes left. What else do you want to tell these beautiful people?

I'll see you on the dance floor!

[laughter]

Thank you. Thank you. I got cute for you guys. Let's go!