Before Geena Rocero was a profitable mannequin, she was a toddler within the Philippines who was inquisitive about female garments. The nation’s well-liked transgender magnificence pageants drew her in first as a viewer after which as a competitor. It was in these pageants that she picked up the nickname “Horse Barbie”—a reference to each her stupendous manelike wig and her tall stature. Rocero dominated pageants all through the late Nineteen Nineties alongside a sisterhood of supportive trans magnificence queens; she additionally started to take off-label estrogen to DIY her personal medical transition. A transfer as an adolescent to San Francisco enabled a social transition and subsequently a medical transition below a physician’s care.
The discrimination Rocero skilled as an Asian and Pacific Islander lady with a darkish complexion made life in America tough. But quickly the long-legged magnificence caught the eye of a trend photographer in New York City, and her worldwide modeling profession took off, touchdown her on billboards, in music movies and even in a 2005 Complex journal characteristic known as “The 10 Most Beautiful Women in the World.” Yet Rocero remained closeted—and continually afraid of being outed and doubtlessly shedding her profession—for practically a decade.
Rocero’s life story is a very engrossing whirlwind. Readers don’t have to have earlier information of the colonialist historical past of the Philippines, gender-affirming look after transgender folks or the modeling trade to get pleasure from Horse Barbie. She explains every thing in accessible language, imparted like a trusted good friend.
Rocero’s outsider-to-insider perspective as a Filipina immigrant underscores America’s combined acceptance of transgender folks, who, Rocero explains, are “legally recognized here but culturally misunderstood.” In the Philippines, the presence of trans of us in pageants is mainstream, however she discovered that many Americans solely see transgender folks depicted negatively or offensively on speak reveals reminiscent of “Jerry Springer.” Despite her accomplishments, Rocero remained in concern of turning into a statistic of one other murdered trans lady. “I had crossed an ocean for recognition,” she writes. “But what good was that recognition without safety?”
Horse Barbie is an emotionally participating learn. Rocero’s pleasure in her success as each a trend mannequin and a extremely seen trans lady of colour is difficult gained, and having the prospect to examine it seems like a privilege.
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