Model: Why I came out as transgender
Model Geena Rocero speaks at the TED2014 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, earlier this month
Editor's note: Geena Rocero is an activist, a model, and the Founder of Gender Proud,
a movement that aims to change the global perception of and
conversation about transgender individuals. The opinions expressed in
this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Monday is International Transgender Day of Visibility, and the day I have chosen to "come out" as transgender.
We are all assigned a
gender at birth. Sometimes that assignment doesn't match our inner
truth, and there needs to be a new place -- a place for
self-identification.
I was not born a boy, I
was assigned boy at birth. Understanding the difference between the two
is crucial to our culture and society moving forward in in the way we
treat -- and talk about -- transgender individuals.
One of my earliest
memories is from 5 years old. I used to drape T-shirts on my head, and
would delight in feeling the fabric on my back. My mom asked me, "why do
you always wear a T-shirt on your head?" I responded, "It's not a
T-shirt, Mom -- this is my hair."
Growing up the
Philippines, I was involved in transgender beauty pageants from the age
of 15. In Asian cultures, the fluidity of gender has been part of life
for thousands of years, evidenced by the Buddhist Goddess of compassion,
GuanYin and the Hindu hijra Goddess, Bahuchara Mata, who is sacred to
men who want to be cured of impotence, and to women wanting to become
pregnant.
Yet despite this nuanced
understanding, and despite the pageant culture I grew up in, in many
countries, fluidity is celebrated but not politically recognized.
A personal turning point
came in 2005, a year before I became a U.S. citizen, when I was
traveling through Tokyo. Back then, I still had my Philippines passport
and my former male gender marker, but I presented as a woman. I was
taken into the immigration office at the airport and questioned for
hours about my identity. I have friends in the Philippines -- where
there is no law that allows them to change their name and marker -- that
have these experiences every time they travel. It's dehumanizing.
When I first moved to the
United States to work as a model, and I finally had the opportunity to
change my name and gender marker, I felt as though my outside self
finally matched my inner truth. I really felt like I'd made it but, over
time, I realized that there's a lot of work that needs to be done and
that I was only just beginning.
Today I am launching
Gender Proud, which envisions a world where transgender individuals are
able to self-identify with the fewest possible barriers.
In most of the Western
world, conceptions of gender remain very rigid, but that exists
alongside progressive legal systems that afford transgender individuals
some limited rights.
There are varying
differences of understanding between Eastern and Western cultures, and I
hope Gender Proud can create a new understanding. We are partnering
with All Out to
identify countries where legislation is at a "tipping point," and we
plan to funnel resources to on-the-ground activists and organizations
working to create change.
There's a long history
of people within the community who stood up and fought for justice. I
was inspired by the trailblazers, such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera
and by organizations, including the Association of Transgender in the
Philippines, Transgender Europe, Global Action for Trans Equality, among
others.
I believe that a more
mature and in-depth contemplation of the subject of transgender will be
the bridge that leads humanity to a deeper understanding of gender as a
whole. This deeper understanding begins with the realization that we
live in a culture that assigned us gender at birth and that the
appropriate roles and expectations of our gender are defined by our
society and our culture.
In today's globally
connected and ever-diversifying world, culture is now more fluid and
more flexible than ever -- and so too should be our understanding and
perception of gender.
To learn more, please visit
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