Global transgender model and activist Geena Rocero charmed the audience at the sold-out 30th annual Professional BusinessWomen of California‘s conference last month.
Rocero was at the conference, themed “Unstoppable,” to speak about the power of storytelling and being a transgender feminist. An estimated 7,000 women attended the conference.
It’s the first time the conference ever had a transgender woman as one of its keynote speakers in its three-decade history. Rocero said that she hopes more transgender women will follow her in taking the conference’s stage.
Rocero, 36, is definitely unstoppable. She’s busy working on a book and producing new TV shows, she said, though she wasn’t ready to discuss the details about the projects.
Since she came out during a presentation at the 2014 TED conference, Rocero has catapulted her career from magazine covers to global transgender policy adviser, advocate, and producer.
The TED talk was the first time she revealed her true self to the world, she said.
“I had enough,” said Rocero. “The thought of living a double life and the paranoia that somebody would out me and it would ruin my career was getting too much. I was ready.”
Rocero started her modeling career entering transgender beauty pageants as a teenager in the 1990s, first in the Philippines and later throughout Asia. In 2001, she moved to San Francisco to be with her family.
The move was a complete flip for Rocero. In the Philippines, transgender people are “culturally visible” in the community and mainstream TV, she said, but “not politically recognized.”
“In the U.S., San Francisco specifically, it was the other way around,” said Rocero, who underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand with the support of her family when she was 19. She was also able to legally change the gender marker on her government-issued documents and receive trans-specific health care. “There was a degree of political recognition … but there was no mainstream visibility.”
“That kind of paradox, growing up in the Philippines and moving to the U.S., really informed a lot of my advocacy and my policy research,” said Rocero, who moved to New York in 2004 to pursue her modeling career.
In her eyes, policy isn’t enough. It’s just a step. Cultural representation isn’t enough. It’s just a piece of the puzzle. The two pieces have to constantly work together in order to effect change, she said.
Rocero turned her eye to media to bridge the gap between policy and transgender people’s stories. Her first effort garnered her a GLAAD award for the Logo show “Beautiful as I Want to Be.” The show matched transgender youth with successful transgender individuals as mentors.
Her TED talk has been viewed more than 3 million times and has been translated into 32 languages, according to the TED website.
“It was a powerful moment. It changed my life. It freed me because for so long I had always been myself, but I couldn’t really fully be myself … not fully living my most authentic self,” she said.
Unbeknownst to her, she was on the cusp of a transgender entertainment revolution in the U.S. Several years ago, Laverne Cox became a breakout star on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black.” Writer and producer Janet Mock wrote a best-seller. Jazz Jennings starred in “I Am Jazz.” All helped bring transgender issues into the mainstream.
“I’m so lucky,” said Rocero, acknowledging the support from her loving family. “I could live and give this love because I was given this love.”
On the global stage
Rocero co-founded Gender Proud, an international transgender advocacy campaign for gender recognition policy, the same year she came out.
She focused her efforts mainly on gender marker and legal recognition by governments on official documents, working with the United Nations, White House, and State Department on international policy related to transgender rights.
For trans people, countries generally have five levels ranging from no legal gender recognition to self-declaration of gender. Many countries demand transgender people have surgery with forced sterilization, undergo two-year hormone therapy treatment, or be diagnosed with gender dysphoria in order to legally change their gender marker, she said.
Rocero quickly noticed that she found herself as the only transgender person at the table discussing gender policy.
“That’s not a compliment,” she said.
Rocero also noted a difference between policymakers and transgender people’s lived experiences.
“I just found a disconnect on people making decisions on the lives of trans people, mostly trans people of color, globally or indigenous people,” she said about how they had the statistics, but “they miss[ed] this nuanced, lived experience.”
That prompted her to think of ways to “keep that door open” and how to invite more people and demand that more transgender people be at the table, as well as telling transgender people’s stories through the power of media.
The current state of anti-LGBT politics around the world doesn’t deter her despite the impact it has on LGBT communities.
“The violence against LGBT people, particularly transgender individuals, is directly related to the people at the top in governments … demonizing trans people,” Rocero said. “That speaks volume[s] to how trans people are being treated all over the U.S., all over the world.”
She believes the attacks are “an opportunity to rise up.”
“It’s an opportunity to just be more unapologetic in our deeds and our project,” she said.
Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at Skype: heather.cassell or oitwnews@gmail.com.
Originally published by the Bay Area Reporter.
