Geena Rocero, a model who is a biological male identifying as female, and who immigrated to the United Sates from the Philippines, is claiming that living in the U.S. as a trans person is “nightmarish” in a new memoir titled, Horse Barbie.
Ironically, Rocero acknowledged to CBS Mornings that one can be “legally recognized” as their opposite sex in the Unites States, unlike in the Philippines.
“As someone who was born and raised in the Philippines, we didn’t have access to be able to change name and gender marker in legal documents, so when I moved to America, it was my way to be like, ‘Oh here, I could be legally recognized as the woman that I am,’” Rocero said.
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The transgender model went on to claim that despite being legally recognized as a woman in the United States, “there was no cultural visibility” in America, “Thus, when I moved to New York City in 2005, I had to go stealth.”
CBS Mornings host Tony Dokoupil pushed back a little bit, asking Rocero why the memoir describes life in the U.S. as trans person to be “nightmarish,” when the transgender model was able to get a major publisher for a book, as well as obtain a TED Talk.
“I actually want to talk about the visibility, right, because so much has changed culturally in America. Your book is out, you’ve got a major publisher, you’ve got a TED Talk that went viral, right?” Dokoupil said. “People know you, and yet you also describe the situation here in the U.S. for trans people as ‘nightmarish.’”
Rocero responded by saying, “I really felt like I’ve been, like, living — because I’ve lived half of my life in the U.S. — I mean, half the life in the Philippines, half here in the U.S. So it’s just this constant navigating the different cultures.”
“Because what we have in the Philippines and what, you know, I’ve experienced in the Philippines, now we know that visibility is just one component and finding equity. It should be all of that, right?” Rocero added. “The equity access to the most basic rights, the visibility, respectable, nuanced, dignified visibility for trans people, all of those things.”
The transgender model also claimed that “trans youth” are under attack in America.
“I think even in this moment that we’re seeing right now, the attacks on particularly trans youth, the most vulnerable in our country, we need to honor their lived experience,” Rocero said.
After CBS Mornings suggested that Rocero’s book can help many people from “any walk of life,” the transgender model said, “I think there’s something powerful with trans people, like, we know who we are.”
“And in the world that tells us — that doesn’t give us space — we still choose to be who we are. There is nothing more courageous than that,” Rocero added.
Rocero was able to trick society into thinking he was a real woman for years as a model, before eventually coming out as transgender in a 2014 TED Talk called “Why I Must Come Out.”
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Rocero’s ironic and bizarre remarks about living in the U.S. as a trans person being a “nightmarish” experience come as American society has become obsessed with transgenderism, with celebrities, corporations, academia, the mainstream media, and entertainment hyping transgender propaganda and guiding more and more youths to doubt their biological sex.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.