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Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
Power and Pride // Geena Rocero's Memoir "Horse Barbie"
How can you reclaim your truth and your power?
We’re diving into Horse Barbie, Geena Rocero’s radiant and illuminating memoir that shows her journey from a one-room home in Manila, Philippians, to trans pageants, from the perfume counter at Macy’s to New York fashion sets, and from private, suffocating, fear to a TED Talk that reframed transness as power. Along the way, we discuss her father’s complicated love, her mother’s unwavering belief and reflect on what can spark when the people who matter most tell you there’s nothing wrong with you.
Geena’s story and memoir widens from personal to political: pre-colonial history without gendered pronouns, the costs of documentation that doesn’t match your face, and the power of her viral TED Talk to turn shame into strength. We sit with the big questions: Why is femininity seen as a threat? How do entertainment and policy diverge? What changes when a community moves from visibility to rights? By the end, Horse Barbie reads like a manual for courage. It shows how story becomes strategy and how one woman’s voice can help many step out of the shadows.
If you care about trans rights, immigration, pageant culture, modeling, or the way love can change a life, this conversation brings nuance, warmth, and a clear takeaway: policy matters, family matters, and stories move hearts faster than arguments ever will.
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This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
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Special thanks to my dear friend, Jaime!
Xx, Alex
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Hi, welcome back to Babes in Bookland, your women's memoir podcast. I'm your host, Alex Franca, and today my friend Jamie is back as we discuss Gina Rossero's Horse Barbie. If you want the extended version of this episode, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or you can purchase the episode individually on Patreon or subscribe monthly on Patreon. This memoir was so fun to read, and I just had such a great time talking to my friend Jamie about it. I hope you guys enjoy. Hey, Alex. So I know that you didn't get a chance to read Gina's book, but you did listen to her TED Talk, and we will discuss that later. But I absolutely adored this memoir. I think I finished it in under 24 hours. I adore Gina, her voice. She's so funny. She writes at one point that she aims for the gumption of Elle Woods. And so obviously I loved her for even including an Elle Woods reference, but she totally does. Her story is about a trans woman, her journey, and her advocacy, but it's also just an empowering tale of where you can take yourself when you feel loved and supported by your family and friends, have the confidence to chase your dreams and the hustle to make them happen. There's an extra level of self-awareness that I believe trans people have. And maybe we could all benefit from that. Who am I really? What do I believe? What do I stand for? How can you fight to make the world a better, more inclusive, more loving place? Do you know the answers to those questions for yourself, or are you just coasting? Let's get into her memoir. It was published in 2023, and this is Gina's dedication to my nature boy, my love, to mama for her unwavering support and love, to Papa, I'll always be your Bojo Joy. To Tiger Lily for showing me the magic on stage. All right, James, we don't have any quick topics for this one. We're just gonna dive deeper. Are you ready? Let's do it. Yes. Let's start with Gina's childhood. She grew up in the Philippines and she likens her home to the home in Parasite, you know, the one where the poor family lives underground. You've seen that movie, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She writes, in all, there were six of us. My mother, my father, my two sisters, my brother, and me living in what was effectively a nine by twelve foot room separated from our neighbors by a flimsy plywood wall. Whenever it rained too hard, the house would flood and we would have to use wooden dining chairs to elevate our beds. Gina, from a very young age, knows that she is a girl. Catholicism is a huge part of her childhood. And she writes, I learned how to be trans in the Catholic Church, which is a very bold statement for sure. But she explains that even though the Philippines has the correct reputation of being a conservative Catholic country due to centuries of Spanish colonization and rule, quote, when I was growing up, Catholicism and trans beauty pageants inspired equal fanaticism. Families would go straight from mass to watching the trans pageants on TV back at home. No one really saw this as a paradox. It was just a part of our unique cultural blend. Now, James, I know that you grew up religious. Like, was there anything growing up that kind of struck you? Gina writes about not really thinking that it's this paradoxal thing, but obviously objectively, it feels like it is, right? If you grow up Catholic, but then you go home and you're celebrating people in a trans pageant, like that doesn't necessarily feel like it goes hand in hand. Was there anything when you were growing up where you felt like, huh, this doesn't feel quite like it jives with what I'm being taught at church? But, you know, maybe your family was more open or or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to think, because what you're talking about, right, is cognitive dissonance when you believe one thing and then you're introduced with other information that contradicts that, and you have to kind of decide do you cling to that thing that you believed originally or do you choose to move forward with a different train of thought? It's probably it's not one thing, but the thing that ultimately drove me away from religion and Christianity specifically, but ultimately all religion. And that was we're told time and time again that, you know, God is love and you're accepted here and you're forgiven for your sins and all that jazz. But then I felt really deep shame anytime I did something that was that I was told was sinful, like to be a little more specific, you know, as a young female with um sexual urges that are totally natural, like feeling very much conflicted about that and no place to really make sense of that until I went to college and then, you know, liberation. Yeah, that's kind of my my journey.
SPEAKER_01:There for me too were a lot of conflicting messages growing up because I was raised in the Catholic Church, but then I had a mother who was very open about premarital sex and in and almost like kind of encouraging that because she felt like that was a healthy part of a relationship and a necessary part of understanding if a relationship was working for you or not. And so it is just really interesting when you are faced with this seemingly black and white thing, like religion, right? This is good, this is bad. But then you look to the people around you, especially when you're growing up, to kind of ascertain whether there are the gray areas. Did you feel like your parents were devout in their religion? Or did that kind of give you room to question things yourself and maybe not feel so indoctrinated?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, my parents very much had the vibe of like, take what you like, leave what you don't. And this is just part of more of like a cultural thing than a devotion thing. Like we would go to church most Sundays, but skip if there was, you know, my brother at a baseball game. And um, you know, we would pray before dinner, before bed at home, but then like not in public and really not talk about God or Jesus as like part of our daily thing. It wasn't if you were having troubles, it wasn't like, oh, let's pray on it. Like, you know, that was not our vibe. But yeah, I'm also thinking like, you know, we grew up, we were teens in the the early aughts. And if we had been teens now, I think for me at least like that awakening aha moment would have happened a lot sooner because I'm I don't know that I knew what it meant to be transgender or that I had like known that I came across a transgender person and didn't see them, you know, in the media like at that age. People who are gay to some degree, but like definitely not. It was still stigmatized enough. Like you we lived through gay marriage being legalized. Like we were born and remember it being not legal in this country. Like it blows my mind that that was in very recent history. So yeah, the the youth of today, I think, are making those connections of like, man, this is this is really fucked up, like a lot sooner and able to get to that place of of inclusivity.
SPEAKER_01:That's the hope at the very least, right? That's that's the hope.
SPEAKER_00:Or they just develop hate earlier, like in one or the other.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, I do think that exposure is so important. Just recognizing and knowing that people exist differently than you do. They live their lives making different decisions and they're not bad for it. Just because you're gay or you are a different culture or different race, they're not born in our country doesn't mean you're a bad person. But the more you're exposed to that, I think that can help people educate themselves. Yeah. Back to Gina. She finds some affirmation of her budding femininity in the church, actually. This is just so fascinating to me growing up as Catholic. I felt so grateful for her that she was able to turn away from the shame because I think, you know, you and I have discussed this a lot, and you brought it up earlier that like there is a lot of shame associated with Christianity. And but for Gina, it's like this miraculous thing where she finds herself. She writes about being a part of the choir and getting tasked with gesturing the songs that the choir would sing. It's not really like a sign language, it almost seemed like a modern dance interpretation thing that she was doing. And she writes that she would mimic the powerfully feminine hand gestures that she had seen her mother make countless times. And she feels the church's acceptance of her. She's not standing in a girl little girl's body at this point, but she's embrace, she's like showcasing this feminine side of herself. And everyone in church is like, yeah, that's great, you know? So I just think that's so wonderful. She also feels major acceptance from her family. She writes about being really good at walking in this feminine way where she sways her hips as she moves. And this is called Kimbot in her country. Walking this way would put a mark on her back in her neighborhood. People would rage slurs at her on her way to school or literally throw rocks at her when she was out selling this dessert. And she writes about being so disheartened by people's malicious actions towards her that she looks at herself in a mirror one day and she writes, A sad child looked back at me. Why was my femininity such a threat? It felt so innocent for me to express it, yet it seemed to enrage other kids, puncturing our childhoods with violence and fear. But I saw something else in my reflection too. The face of someone who could save me. And you know, I thought that that was such an interesting question. Why is femininity such a threat? What is the big deal with, you know, even if Gina wasn't a girl, why can't little boys be feminine or have feminine aspects? Like, what why is that such a threat? I just love that she used that word threat because that really stopped me. Like, I understand people have really strong feelings about it, but like, what is the fucking big deal?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think it's like a couple of things. Obviously, that's a really huge question. But at its core, I think people are afraid of otherness, right? So whatever the status quo is, whatever the position of power is, like we have a tendency as a society to like reinforce that. And if there's anything that is counter to that, then it's seen as as bad just automatically, even if it isn't. So lack of critical thinking there. But um, I think it also, you know, goes back to our human origins and you know, tribalism is like part, it's kind of ingrained in us, right? And we couldn't exist in the wilderness on our own. We had to find others and build tribe. And yeah, having having a community and having a sense of like familiarity. Again, it's like anything that's other is you view with suspicion. Hopefully, now we're advanced enough. Well, we are advanced enough that people should be able to check themselves, check that initial knee-jerk reaction and say, you know what, that's my knee-jerk reaction, but I'm gonna choose to reframe that suspicion as like curiosity and look at it objectively, because it is.
SPEAKER_01:I just love that in general. Reframe your suspicion as curiosity. I think that's such a really that's such a great way of going through life. Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Jamie. Last thought on that note is I think there can also, when it's somebody you care about, there can be fear for them, just knowing how our society is. And if you see them expressing difference in ways that you feel that they'll be targeted, like that could fuel a lot of like, oh, let's not do that, let's be quote unquote normal. But I'm I'm glad to hear that Gina's family was was not contributing to that, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01:They really, really weren't. I mean, I think you bring up a really, really good point there. And as a parent, I'm not gonna lie, like, I think part of my in instincts would kick in and say, like, don't do that, don't put the target on your back, especially, you know, in this situation where Gina's mother worked long hours, her father was at home, but there were many children. Like, she was out and about by herself often. But she does write about this one moment where her dad would just hold her hand and she would kimbot next to him as they walked, and he didn't bring it up and he didn't make her feel ashamed or like it was something that she should stop doing. Frankly, like I know that Gina's experience is not potentially a typical experience for transgendered people. And it like broke my heart to like every time that I thought, oh man, she's so lucky. Oh man, she's so lucky. Like, I recognize that so many people out there aren't lucky and don't truly don't have the support and love that Gina did and does, especially with her mother coming from such a religious background, and especially growing up in a country where masculinity in boys was was expected. I just think she was really, really lucky and and will continue to get into how supportive her family was because it's a really beautiful situation. And it just reaffirmed to me this idea of how when we love one another and support one another, we really are building a better, happier world for everyone. And again, just getting away from this idea that like there's only so much to go around, or some people have to be put down and other for people uh in order for other people to be brought up. It's like if we could just really shake off those beliefs, that weird hierarchy that has been conditioned in us for decades and centuries and and and approach one another with curiosity instead of suspicion. Man, we really like we have such an opportunity to create a beautiful world. We really do. And it bums me out that like we're not sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Focus on our pockets. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I I do love too that when she she saw her reflection in the mirror, she also saw the face of someone who can save me from a very, very young age. I mean, right from when she introduces herself to us, she's a very confident young person. And again, I think this stems from the love and support from her family, but I think some people are just born confident as well. Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's love and support. I don't know. We're gonna dig in now to her relationships with her father and mother a little bit more. Later in her memoir, she stare she shares a story of where her father tells her to keep her chin up because there's quote, nothing wrong with you. And that is such a powerful sentence for a parent or a parental figure to tell a young person. From a very early age, Gina was made to believe by the people who mattered most to her that she mattered and that there was nothing wrong with her. And again, like it just makes you think of why are we even trying to put these labels on people, people who are wrong, people who are right. We are conditioned to put higher value on certain people, you know, cis, white people, men probably first, and then it like goes way down the line. Do you feel like you inherently were taught that some people were more valued in our society than others? Yeah, not like by your parents. Certainly not by your parents for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Um they're very accepting. But yeah, the the unspoken things and just society's imprint. Yeah, you learn pretty early on as a female that boys are seen as um more powerful and stronger, and that boys are generally treated better in society, right? And then, you know, as a white female, at some point you realize, like, oh, my experience is different than the experience of people who aren't white, especially women who aren't white, and that kind of intersectionality that they experience where uh any kind of discrimination is like twofold. Yeah. So, so basically, like whatever we see in power, which we know we live in a country still where only men have been president, and that's wild. Um, but we see that as normal because that's all we know. Yeah. But those things you start to pick up on for sure.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that disappointed me the most was when I believe it was the New York Times did these blurbs of people who were voting one way or the other before the election, and there was a woman who said that she was unsure she would vote for Kamala because she was a woman. And I thought, oh fuck, dude, like you're a woman. Do you not value yourself? What is that? What what the hell do you need to unpack to where, like, as a woman, one of your gut instincts is that a woman cannot be president because of the fact that she's a woman. And so I don't know, like, I don't really know what we can do to combat that besides just continue to like try to push for the changes that need to be made. But sometimes it can be really disheartening. But then I just remind myself, like, hey, I'm raising a little woman and I'm raising a little man, and that's my ripple effect. And like, I'm gonna do my damnedest to raise them to view all people, no matter what they look like, whether they're in able bodies or rare bodies, have neurodivergencies, whatever their skin color is, whether they're they came from our country or not, that like they're people and they have value. And Gina's memoir specifically, especially like it ends on kind of a disheartening note because she talks about how the Trump administration, this is she's writing this during the first Trump administration, already has walked back so many protections and policy changes for the trans community. And honestly, I don't understand why there has been such an emphasis put on the trans community. I mean, I do understand it. It's a cultural war, it's a distraction technique. But what I guess what I mean to say is I hate that it's working. One of the Trump administration's big claims is that children are unsafe with transgendered people. But in his substack, journalist Evan Hurst reports that as of October 31st, 2025, there have been 188 separate stories and reports in 2025 alone involving Christian pastors, youth group leaders, priests, Christian school teachers, etc., who have been accused, caught, arrested for, convicted of abusing kids in some way. I'll link it in the show notes. And I did try to do some research into any reports of a trans person sexually abusive or just abusive in general to any children this year, and I found nothing. I keep myself educated and informed as much as I can because I refuse to be a pawn in a game of ignorance and a tool for hate. If politicians had actual platforms of change they could rally around, they wouldn't need us to hate one another. And I have to ask myself, why do they want me to hate XYZ person? What are they hiding? Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox now. Let's get back to Gina. So, okay, so her father. She writes, Papa was a complicated man. During the day, while Mama worked, he took care of us with utmost tenderness, cleaning the house and hand washing our clothes. But once night fell, he would drink rum and become a towering, rageful presence. What seemed contradictory, like Jekyll turning into Hyde, was the predictable result of wounded masculinity. Even at a young age, I could tell his ego was bruised a little more with every reminder he wasn't the breadwinner. Again, I just feel like Gina was this old soul. She has a special connection with her father. He calls her his Bojo Joy. And she writes about how he'd wake her up some nights when he was drunk and emotional, and he'd sing karaoke and tell her stories. She writes, I later realized those late night sessions were his desperate attempt to be heard. Maybe he had accepted my transness because he knew what it was like to have deep-seated emotions that he felt he couldn't express. Maybe he saw a gentleness in me that he wished he could embrace in himself. Maybe his hyper-masculinity felt like a weight on his back, one he needed to release when it became too heavy to carry. I think we were both dreamers in our own way. I love the grace and compassion that she approaches her parents with and the respect. And I think that they mostly showed her grace, compassion, and respect. I mean, her father, like, like she calls him Hyde. Jekyll is the scientist, and Hyde is the monster. So I think she was kind of holding back a bit on maybe some of like the darker moments with her dad. But it just was really funny to me. Like I just imagined her dad waking up this like tiny little Gina and being like, come, and then like singing karaokes and pouring his heart out to a child. It made me really sad for her dad that like he didn't have an adult in his life that he felt like he could be honest with.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it makes me think of how you hope generation over generation there continues to be, you know, more progress in in every capacity, but specifically in people feeling free to be who they are, and you know, thinking of trans people in particular. I think there's this sense that, oh, there's, you know, it's all over the media, and more people are and kids are saying that they are the other gender, and that's just like it's all getting blown up because of because it's culturally accepted. And I think that there's probably always been a similar percentage of people who felt like they were born into the wrong body. It just wasn't safe to proclaim that, right?
SPEAKER_01:So well, and Jamie, let me throw something else at you, which we will get into. There are cultures who don't have gendered pronouns. So, like gendering someone is actually a very, it only happens in more of a modern sense and in certain cultures with the with the Judeo-Christian language that built it. So that's something to think about too. And Gina, Gina actually discovers this. We'll get into she kind of goes back and researches the history of her people's pre-colonization, and she's kind of floored when she finds this. Maybe we all introduce genders, and maybe we all need to like ask ourselves why, you know.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting, it's a really interesting concept. Why is God seen as a man when God isn't a human? Amen.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, let's talk about Gina's mother. And you can really feel Gina's love for her mother in the pages of her memoir. I mean, I want to give Gina's mother a big hug. So Gina writes, Mama's love was steady as the sunshine. To me, she was the kind of woman I wanted to become, one who understood that femininity and boldness belonged together. Isn't that such a great line? Femininity and boldness belong together? Yes. Mama is also a hustler. She works really hard to supplement her teacher's income with a bunch of side gigs. And this will also rub off on Gina in a big way, because Gina is a major hustler, which I already alluded to, and we will get to more of that. She writes, My femininity was so obvious to her, and her approval, though tacit at first, made my family life so much more accepting than it might otherwise have been. Yeah. And Gina will return to the love and support from her mother many times in her memoir. She really recognizes and appreciates the way that her mama's unwavering love and support helped build the wings that Gina would use one day to fly. And she she does wonder where she would be if her mother hadn't been so loving and supportive. However, Gina's mother leaves for America when Gina is almost 12. And as I was reading it, I was expecting, I was like, okay, here it goes. This is where Gina's like, and I was so upset. My mother, how could she abandon me? But really, she's she has so much compassion for her mother. And she writes that, like, she gets it. She knows that life in America is better for her mom. Her mother's family is there. She writes, I understood in order to find peace, let alone survive, she would have to leave us behind. The relationship with Gina's father is also not really in a good place. The hope is that one day Gina will join her, but it feels like a fragile future. Okay, so let's talk about Gina transitioning. When she's around 12, she starts taking birth control. She could get about three weeks' worth for 50 cents over the counter.
SPEAKER_00:Is that like mine for free? So I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's pretty awesome without insurance to just be able to roll in over-the-counter is a huge thing, too, not needing a prescription, which I know that they have recently released an over-the-counter birth control in the United States within the past few years. I don't know anybody who's on that one though. Yeah, I don't either. Um, Gina starts sprouting breasts. She writes, soon I would no longer look like the young man Mama might have expected me to become. Gina, she loves pageants and she finds herself there and she finds her community there. And she's also old enough at this point to do them on her own volition. And also she feels celebrated as a woman doing these pageants in a way that she doesn't in her day-to-day life. And so these are a huge, huge deal for her. So she's 15 when a friend invites her to meet the Manila girls after school. And these are the real life legends in the pageant world. This is where she meets Tiger Lily. Gina writes, Tiger Lily was a slender femme in her early 20s with pouty lips and long, lustrous hair, who had made a name for herself as the beauty queen maker. And guess what? Tiger Lily sees something special in Gina, especially after Gina walks. Gina writes, and just like that, she became not only my manager, but also my trans mother, my mentor, and my friend. So as we already know, transgender pageants are a national sport in the Philippines. Gina writes, before colonization, we honored gender fluid identities. And Gina has this beautiful section in her memoir. We talked about it a little bit earlier, where she will later in life dig into her people's history and discover that originally their language didn't have gendered pronouns. She writes, Then the Spanish instituted dozens of festivals for Catholic saints. Beauty pageant culture was imported via American colonization in the early 1900s. Put all those influences together, and you've got our vibrant trans beauty pageants, a cultural amalgamation built through centuries of war and conquest. In short, Miss Gay Evangelista wasn't just a pageant, it was a testament to our national spirit. Miss Gay Evangelista. So Gina's is she gay? No, Gina is a trans woman who is attracted to men.
SPEAKER_00:So this pageant, even though it was called Miss Gay Evangelista, it was kind of just like open for anyone.
SPEAKER_01:Most of the competitors are trans women or femme women, as that's kind of how she so they were just misusing the word gay. Yes. And then later she actually through her advocacy, she works really hard to try to change policy in the Philippines to help people's documents and identification match their truths. The Philippines hasn't budged on that. So you are stuck with, you know, whatever you were assigned at birth. And now it's just called the Miss Evangelista pageant. So, you know, taking small strides where she can. But yes, my understanding was that these pageants were transgender pageants. So, right, the word gay, you know, maybe some of these women were gay. I don't know. Just because you're transgender doesn't mean you're straight. Right. Gender identity and sexual identity, two different things. Yeah, that's why it was so interesting to read this too, to have kind of both worlds be celebrated and and come together yet still so separated, you know?
SPEAKER_00:It makes me think of like there's a lot more societal tolerance for things that are seen as like entertainment than when we're talking about true social change. Like you could talk about race relations in the US and like the connection with like the NFL and how people want to be entertained all day. But like when it comes to black rights, there's like there's a fine line. Don't you kneel support the NFL who yeah don't want to take it beyond entertainment and make it political. But it's not well to be a person, it's you know, to be engaged in politics because that's that's life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because you'll be affected by them either way. I mean, you can claim that you don't pay attention to politics and try to be ignorant, but at the end of the day, the policies that these people who you either vote or don't vote for are implementing will affect you and the people you love. So you might as well pay attention. Yeah. I can't stand people who don't vote. But that's for another time and place, Jamie. Let's keep going with Gina. This is the really big pageant, and Gina is just literally like thrown into it, right? The custom is for competitors to choose a celebrity name to use as their onstage persona. Gina chooses Asunta de Rossi, the star of the hit show Bubblegum Gang, the freshest young actress in the Philippines. She writes about the mix of confidence and nerves and imposter syndrome she experiences, but before the ballgown walk, they pray, and Gina writes that she feels at peace, leaving it all in God's hands. She wins second runner up, and Gina is elated, not only by her win, but by this beautiful new group and community that she has found. She writes, I couldn't imagine ever feeling happier than I did in that moment, surrounded by a group of people who not only accepted me for who I was without question, but also saw me as special, a pageant prodigy in the making. For the first time in my life, I felt fully affirmed, totally aligned with my feminine expression. I hadn't just almost won a pageant. I had unlocked something essential, something spiritual inside me too. I was a performer. It felt like a calling from above. Isn't that so lovely? Do you have any moments in your life where you found that thing that just made you feel more alive or seen like Gina does here?
SPEAKER_00:The things that come to mind are traveling alone, the times that I've done that, and especially those initial times that I did that, that like made me feel really alive. And seen in a new way, right? Because you're surrounded by no one who knows you, right? Mm-hmm. So that probably that yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool. When's the last time you traveled alone then? Maybe it's something you should think about doing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, yeah. It's been a while since I've I've traveled alone to go someplace where I wasn't meeting anyone I know.
SPEAKER_01:So that yeah, maybe I'm due. Yeah, I think you are. Back to Gina. She writes about wanting to keep the pageants and this new thing from her mother, unsure of what her mother's reaction would be to her little boy growing up to be a beauty queen. But her mother has been sent photos by other family members, and she is so proud. She says, My little baby is now a lady. You look so beautiful. Real, real love, honestly, pure love. Gina writes, I didn't need to come out to her. I never said those declarative words, and I didn't even know them at the time. Vocabulary like trans would come much later in my life. All I needed to hear was the pride in mama's voice as she called me beautiful. Okay, so Gina's kicking ass and taking names. She's making really good money. Then she goes on this little losing streak. The money is almost all gone. And so Tiger Lily, in an incredible act of belief and support, pawns her own mother's wedding ring so they can pay for another pageant. She's betting everything on Gina. And Gina calls this a major before and after moment in her life. One where everything changes for her. Can you think of any major like before and after moments for you in your life?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, the ones that stick out are before and after doing Teach for America. That was like a really formative two years. I feel like I'm a different person for having been through that experience. And then like I hate to say it because we like to forget that it happened, but the the COVID pandemic, like there was before and after. And like I think that is that experience of like lockdown. And yeah, it's really, it's really changed a lot in our society and like for me individually, before and after getting married. All right. Like that really changed life.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What would you say the biggest like formative changes were for you going through Teach for America? Um they weren't all good, but um Yeah, and then I think you know, that sometimes that happens. Like you do have these moments in life, and maybe you come out on the other end maybe less naive or more jaded. I'm not saying that's your experience, but like, you know, that can be people's experience after these big things.
SPEAKER_00:Like definitely went into it really idealistic, came out of it more. I think the words I used to use were like that it was eye-opening, heartbreaking, and life-changing. Like it just yeah, it's I'm glad I had the opportunity to get a real like front row seat view of like the problems in urban education in our country and hopefully have a small hand in making a positive contribution during my time there. But um, yeah, definitely thought I was gonna make a lot more positive impact than I did. Really, I think I was like just paying witness to the struggles. And uh yeah, I definitely needed to step back from education entirely right after that, but you know, came back to it and have had now a 15-year-long career working in education and nonprofit, and like that probably wouldn't have not been the case had I done something else after undergrad. So yeah, and it proved to me like I can I can do hard things. I don't think anything I've done since then has been hard in the way that that was hard, and that might seem there's no way to explain it to anyone who hasn't experienced it in the same way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think a lot of people attempt to have opinions and cast judgments on things like educational reform and approach who aren't in it. And until you are in something, until you're experiencing the low lows or the challenges, how can you really have like a well-rounded opinion or even know what needs to change? I think that's what I'm realizing as I grow older is like so many people who who we put our faith in to steer this country in a certain direction are coming at these issues and these problems from like way high up on their lofted chairs that they don't they're not down in the ground and understanding like what the real issues are and and how to maybe implement real change or that these issues even exist. Sometimes I think it's really easy for people to to pretend that they don't. So I always thought that it was really wonderful that you did that. Well, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And you know, there's valuable experiences to be had when you put yourself out of your comfort zone for sure. And this moment for Gina is one of those before-after moments because I think it's the first time in her life she's been loved, she's been supported, she's been accepted, but this is the first time that someone's like bet on her. When someone else believes in you, maybe more than you believe in yourself, it just gives you the courage to dream big, I think personally. That's kind of been something that I've experienced in my life too.
SPEAKER_00:Makes me wonder if she has gone on to be that person for others. I'm sure she makes an effort too.
SPEAKER_01:That's an that's an interesting question, sure, in the day-to-day. That that whole idea that, like, you know, especially women should lift one another up. But I think that that's also what her point is with this book and doing her TED talk. And she writes about, you know, she quote unquote exposed herself. That's the language that she uses, told her truth finally after having success as a model and being so fearful of that coming out, which we'll get into a little bit deeper soon, so that hopefully other people can feel like they don't have to hide their truths too. So for father, he has a stroke and it's actually his second one, and this time it's not mild like the first. And so she scales back her pageants to be with him. She writes, Papa became softer. It was as if being humbled physically had opened him spiritually. He stopped drinking, his moods were calmer, and a few months into recovery, he became a born-again Christian. But no matter how religious he became, and he got preachy, he never stopped loving me, transness and all. He'd say, My kid, no matter what people say, there's nothing wrong with you. Just be a good person. And so that's kind of the mantra that she takes with her the rest of her life. There's nothing wrong with me, just be a good person. I love that. Okay, so we get to the titular section of the memoir, chapter five, Horse Barbie. And this is where we learn that Gina had the most fantastic wig. It was this mane of long black hair. Okay, some of which James had come from an overcrowded manila cemetery. She tells us that if a family can't keep paying for a plot five years after a loved one is buried, they exhume the remains to make space for someone else. Isn't that and the hair is still good after five years? I guess so. I mean, it must be. I know. I was like, oh, MG. Um you're gonna say it was horse, horse hair. No, it was dead woman, dead woman hair. Thanks. Uh Gina credits as this mystical magical hair made by the famed wig maker Manag Sally as the reason behind her meteoric rise through the pageant scene. I think she was also the special ingredient, but her hair just gave her more confidence. Okay, so back to Gina. She was told that she looked like a horse by some jealous competitors. They'd also comment on her dark skin as light skin was coveted. Gina writes about using bleaching powder to make her skin lighter. So she writes, she flipped the insult on its head. Little by little, I became the dark horse, literally and figuratively. And once I was on top, horse wasn't an insult anymore. And I was just like, yes, girl, yes. Tiger Lily gives her the full nickname, Horse Barbie. Gina does resemble a Barbie with her long legs and statuesque physique. She writes, I hadn't just grown up to be one of my sister's dolls. I was something more, a unique hybrid being who could straddle multiple worlds, unclassifiable and unique. And it's a really empowering example of confidently embracing yourself and using your unique attributes as strengths rather than weaknesses. I mean, plus, like, she's winning, so she's like, call me horse all you want, but this horse is winning the races. So anyway, she keeps winning titles and money, but it's Miss Gay Universe 2001 that opens up doors for her. And she needs to figure out her next step, how to parlay her pageant success to a career with longevity until her mother calls. Her green card has been approved. And even bigger than that, in America, she can have her female name and the coveted F for female on official documents. A legal gender change, something she cannot do in the Philippines. Hi guys, Alex popping in here. Okay, so we recorded this episode in the summer. It is now November. I'm editing it and it's coming your way. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that the new policy put forth by the Trump administration reversing the X marker option and mandating that passports reflect the biological sex at birth. The Supreme Court recently ruled that this policy can be enforced while it goes through legal challenges. This is problematic for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of smarter people out there who go into the depths of them, but mostly your identification is supposed to identify you. And if a person has had gender-affirming surgeries, taken gender-affirming hormones, they're going to look a certain gender. And now their identification is going to be it's going to be conflicting of that. And again, my biggest thing is just why. It's literally designed only to oppress a certain group of people. It bothers me. It hurts me zero if Karen down the street was born biologically a boy and has and real has realized that she identifies as a woman and walks through the world as Karen. I mean, I know, sorry, picking Karen, maybe not the best name, but it just baffles me. It just truly baffles me. I I don't get it. But, anyways, here is a little bit of the history of um the policies for changing the sex marker on passports, which is a federal identification. Before 1992, it was very inconsistent and could require evidence of surgery. In 1992, the State Department introduced a policy requiring proof of surgery to change a passport's sex designation, but it allowed limited validity passports for those traveling for surgery. In 2010, the surgery requirement was replaced with a doctor's certification of, quote, appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition. In 2021, under the Biden administration, the State Department began allowing self-certification for gender markers on passports, eliminating the need for medical documentation and adding an ex option for non-binary individuals. This change was the result of advocacy, including a lawsuit that led to the first ex-designation passport being issued to an intersex individual. You can find out more information about all this stuff. I literally just Googled passport identity identification history, and this is what came up. It's just so disheartening. And again, I don't mean to harp on this, you guys, but like, why are they distracting us with this bullshit? What are they distracting us from? Is like what I'm most curious about. So, anyways, let's get back to this wonderful, joyous episode. I hope you're having a good time listening. She writes about how there are very few doctors who do gender-affirming care, and a lot of people resort to DIY methods, which sometimes leads to their death. Also, unfortunately, right before Gina moves to America, her father suffers a fatal stroke. But she knows she carries his blessing with her as she comes to the United States. She writes that America, quote, smelled like possibility. And it's really, it was really fascinating to read her immigrant experience, especially as a trans woman. Again, once she finds her community, she really seems to be propped up in all the right ways. But this is where she'll really come face to face with living in fear of her truth being found out versus finding the courage and the confidence to speak her truth, especially after having a good career. So life is very different very fast. She's not famous here. She's not able to perform in her beloved pageants, and she really only has her family as a community at the beginning. But she also has Lucy, who had won Miss Gay Evangelista before Gina competed. Lucy ends up being her guide. She hooks her up with a job at the Macy's Cosmetics Counter, among other trans Filipinas. So it feels like home for Gina. Lucy teaches her makeup tricks, how to contour her face, and she quickly becomes her best friend. She takes her dancing at this place called Diva's, and she seems to have all the answers. She also meets this man, Danmark, who becomes her other BFF. Soon she has enough money,$300 at the time, to pay for a name change. So her mother has the idea for her to spell Gina G-E-E-N-A instead of G-E-N-A or G-I-N-A. Just a little something different. And I thought it was really sweet. Gina writes, we both knew what was happening. She was renaming me and reclaiming me as her daughter. Mama had already chosen what I was called once. It was only fair that she got a second chance. Do you know why you're named Jamie? Especially spelled J-A-I-M-E.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I'm told that the name was inspired by the Van Halen song, Jamie's Crying. Okay. And it's actually a very empowering song. She's crying because a guy treated her bad and she sent him away and she's like upset that she did the right thing. Why it's spelled this way though, that was my grandmother's influence of like, oh, let's spell it the French way.
SPEAKER_01:Ooh lala. Back to Gina. Her new ID comes, and because of a clerical error, it actually has an F under her gender. And so she's over the mood, but she knows that like this was an error, and but she sees it as a sign. Everything's coming together. Except she has to be really cautious when it comes to seeking out flirty fun. She shares this heartbreaking story about a young woman, Gwen Araho, who was murdered because she hadn't disclosed to a sexual partner she was a trans woman before they were intimate. Stories like this, men's reactions, their temper, their violence, was terrifying. She had friends who would disclose right away, and others who didn't. Gina writes, Was there anywhere on earth I could be respected and free at the same time? I had crossed an ocean for recognition, but what good was recognition without safety? She ponders on all of this as she realizes she is wabuking, she writes. It's a W A B U K-I-N-G. It means unclockable as a trans woman. She writes to be unclockable was to ascend to the highest levels of affirmation that American society had to offer. But again, men noticing her and thinking she's a hot lady and her feeling safe to go home with them are two very different things. She does seem to find refuge in the nightclub I talked about earlier, Divas, where many cis men find her hot, know her status, and it's a safe environment for her. And she is treated well. I mean, men worshipped her and her friends. She writes, but outside Divas, though, American society sent me the opposite message. Trans women were disgusting. Television was basically transphobic propaganda. She specifically mentions Jerry Springer and Maury Probitt shows and how they would parade trans women around like liars in their media circus. She writes, Desire in America was a thorny thing. It seemed like people were really honest about what they wanted only under the cover of darkness. So it's this really interesting juxtaposition that she's living in. And also, I mean, she kind of wonders like, why do I have to share this really intimate part of myself? And this becomes an even bigger question for her after she does have her gender-reaffirming surgery. It was so interesting to be put into her shoes for a second because like I don't know what I would do in that situation. Like, at what point do you feel like you, I guess, have to say something because you don't know how they're going to react?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Neither of us have had to navigate that, obviously. But my inclination, like even to this day, would be it is Gina and other trans women's place to decide to disclose when they feel comfortable disclosing. But from a safety perspective, I probably would make a point to do that before I am alone. Alone with another person. And like there's an alone in public fair, right? There's other people around, but I mean like alone in private, right? Because that's when things can go, can go sideways for sure.
SPEAKER_01:And she has an incident with a man. They're kind of getting hot and heavy and they're back at his place. And before it goes too far, she tells him and he just like stills. And she writes that like she feels the anger reverberating off of him. And he never gets physical and he ends up driving her home, but it's not an amicable situation by any means. And I guess you can sort of understand the partner's point of view too, where it's like that could be shocking news to someone who's looking to get intimate with who, from their understanding, is not a transgendered woman. Um, so it just, yeah, it feels like a really tricky situation. And it it made me also reflect on this idea that like we all have secrets and to feel like you're forced to share something about yourself before maybe you're you're ready to merely because your body doesn't match your truth, like that just sucks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I will say I think you know, things are probably as I was about to say they've they're probably as good as they've ever been, but I don't know, with our our resurgence of of hate in this country, that's probably not true. Um, but from a dating perspective with the online dating apps, like, you know, there's an app for every community. So at the very least, like there's more ways to kind of find your find your people, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And we're gonna get to that in just one second. Because she is able to get gender reaffirming surgery only a few years after she moves to America. Her Catholic mother accompanies her to the suburb of Bangkok to see Dr. Saporn, who is famous around the world for his work. So she now has a vagina, and everyone keeps calling her a butterfly. It's very sweet. To commemorate the trip, her mother buys them gold necklaces, Gina gets a butterfly, and her mother gets a golden cross with Jesus on it. Gina writes, a pair as perfect as it was unexpected. Gina writes, Ever since moving to America, I had been on a long journey of discovery, embracing the skin I lived in, questioning the religion I was born into, and reclaiming my pre-colonial past. Coming home from the surgery wasn't the completion of that process, but it was a key dividing line between who I had been before and who I would be moving forward. I wasn't going to let beliefs of my past hold me back any longer. I was ready to seek my own truth. But she realizes she has to learn how to use her vagina because it's like a new tool to her in her 20s. And so you were talking about apps earlier and finding your people. She's able to go on Craigslist and seek out men who understand the intimate experience that they're getting themselves into. And her first time is with this really sweet guy who's constantly checking in with her, and it was a really good experience.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm very glad she had a great Craigslist hookup experience. We're not suggesting people take that route uh today.
SPEAKER_01:But I know it feels like maybe at this time too, when the Craigslist stuff was still very like pure as well. But but she doesn't really dig into it. But you're right, like we all know it can go south really fast when you meet anyone who you've been conversing with online. Uh, IRL. So again, I'm sure she took all the necessary precautions and steps, as we all should these days. But yeah, luckily it was a good experience. So she petitions for a gender marker change and it's officially approved. So no more clerical errors necessary to match her truth. She writes, This was the promise Mama had made me that if I moved to America, I could be recognized as the woman I truly am. Okay, so that dream, check what's next. This is her section where she talks about modeling. And oh my god, girl, I was I think we both really loved watching America's Next Top Model. If you are a fan of that show, Gina's memoir is also for you because she really goes into the fascinating life of a model. So Gina wants to move to New York to become a model, and so she does. She's 21 and ready, and I love how she just like has these dreams and she's like, and so I did it. Before this point, and all throughout the memoir, Gina writes about finding a lot of inspiration in a woman named Tula. Tula was a well-known model who had been a bond girl before being outed by a tabloid and professionally ruined. But Gina wants to pursue this dream, and she is so she puts this fear and worry of being outed on the back burner for now. Of course, this girl gets her lucky break within the first week of being in New York. She's hostess, hostessing at a nightclub when a photographer gives her his card. And I mean, she's beautiful. This photographer wants to shoot her and she needs pictures. That's like her calling card. So she goes to his apartment and he wants to shoot her barefaced, but she's really concerned about this because she's afraid that, you know, with her naked face, it's not as feminine as she would like it to be. So she actually sneaks some contouring makeup in the bathroom, and she writes that he either didn't seem to notice or he didn't seem to care. And then the pictures are beautiful. She writes, somehow, by suspending me in a single moment, Barnaby captured the kaleidoscope perspective, who I used to be, who I wanted to be, and what I feared. There was a deeper trepidation in my eyes, the look of a spy on her first undercover mission, but there was also determination and a hunger to make those images matter. I felt vulnerable and yet powerful. Or maybe the power came from my vulnerability. This is the beginning where she kind of starts living this dual life. She has fantastic success as a model, but she's never able to fully enjoy it because she's always afraid of being found out. She has a vagina, yes, but she still has an Adam's apple. She has to be wary of the pitch of her voice. She has to be coy about her past in the Philippines because of her fame there. As we read, we see her unraveling. And it made me so sad that she couldn't just enjoy her success because every step forward, out of the shadows and into the spotlight, she felt like she was putting a target on her back. She calls it a high-pressure existence. And this is even before social media. I mean, she she comments multiple times about how, like, if social media are around, she would be screwed. There's no way that she could even attempt to do this because people would just share information about her. But at this point, at least she can do it her way, not having to tell her truth before she is ready. She writes, the same country that had given me the freedom of an F marker could also stamp me with a scarlet T. So the high pressure existence is getting to her. She writes, I thought if I became successful enough, the fashion world and the media world would accept me when they found out, because by then they would adore me too much to trash me to the press. So she just continues living this double life, keeping the real Gina in the shadows only visible to a trusted few. And she isn't able to trust many people with herself. She writes, My body was two things at once, a joy and a burden. And I felt like as a woman, that rang really true. Like I feel like sometimes my body is a joy and a burden. Do you feel that way? Sure. Yeah, yeah. And she keeps telling herself, one day I can tell everyone, one day when they love me enough and it won't matter.
SPEAKER_00:It makes me think of like, is there anyone, any famous female that you can think of who, if they were to come out as trans and we would like didn't know this whole time that you think that they wouldn't get trashed in the background woods. Yeah. Like Taylor Swift. If Taylor Swift came out as trans, would people I'd still support her?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we we would, but we support trans people right now. Right. She's seen it played out with this Tula woman that she she talks about being an inspiration to her. That's terrifying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It seems from what you've shared in my having watched her TED talk that she just got to the point where she was willing to accept the repercussions if they were to come, rather than saying, like, oh, I'm at the point where I know I will be accepted. Um that was never gonna come.
SPEAKER_01:I completely agree. How does she get to that point where she's ready to tell her truth despite the repercussions? She books a Macy's campaign, which like seems really exciting, except that she has to go back to San Francisco to shoot it. And she's just worried the entire time that someone from the cosmetics department is going to out her. And so after all of this, like she's just growing more paranoid. She feels she's living on borrowed time, she's feeling like a shell of her old self. She decides to pivot from modeling. She writes, What was so exhausting about chasing my modeling dream was that nothing was ever enough. There had always been another milestone to achieve, another higher bar to leap over. I couldn't help being ambitious. But when had I last stopped to feel pleasure, when would I feel like I'd had enough? Again, to kind of go with her hustling, there's this great story where she talks about sneaking into the corporate offices of Inc. magazine because she knows that she doesn't have anything on her resume that will help her land the type of job that she wants because she does this modeling on her resume. So she literally barges in there hoping to impress someone. And she does. There's this man who's like, you know what? We're an entrepreneurial magazine. And I've literally never had anybody just come in as confidently as you are. So, you know what? I'm gonna give you a shot. Okay, that's just a movie moment. Um, also, I kind of wonder if some pretty privilege played in here. You know, she's an objectively beautiful woman, but this is during 2008, so layoffs come with the recession, but she's able to leapfrog this job to another one. She feels a lot of relief in the corporate world, no longer worried about being, quote, found out. And she uses all the advantages she is given, and then some to educate herself. She ends up at a biodegradable trash bag company, and at work conferences, men would basically hit on her. They'd say, You look too hot to be at an investment conference. So gross. And I know that you've had to travel for a couple of work conferences. Have you ever had like a sleazy experience like this?
SPEAKER_00:Not at a work conference, no. Like workplaces. Yeah. The one that comes to mind is actually my first real job from age 16 to 18, worked at a host as a hostess at a restaurant and didn't really have any experience, but probably only got hired because the manager was creepy and he was just like, oh, you know, attractive young female, I'll hire her. But he would just, you know, do things like we were supposed to wear a belt at one point. Like they made us wear a belt. And if you had a belt on, he would be like pull out your belt and be like, Oh, you wore your belt today. And if you didn't have your belt on, oh, you forgot your belt today. And it's just like, don't touch me. You're like in your 40s and I'm in teenager.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, you're so right. Like restaurants were ripe with predatory managers for sure. And you didn't really feel like, first off, you're young, so you don't necessarily feel like you can say anything. It's just like you would just go to your little other friends who work there and you all would just bitch about him, but then you'd his behavior never really had true consequences, you know.
SPEAKER_00:In hindsight, I probably should have told my parents because they would have been like, um, you're not working there anymore. But yeah, that. And then I also distinctly remember a server who was, I don't know, in his 30s maybe, who came up to the hostess stand, me and another hostess, and he wanted to like store something in our hostess stand for after work. It was Magnum condoms. Why are you storing your condoms in our hostess stand? That is weird. That is weird.
SPEAKER_01:Was that like him trying to like peacock or something? Like, what the heck? I that's what it had to be. Ew, ew, ew. Gross. Yeah. Well, Gina writes, I wasn't going to let these sexist assholes keep me from networking. I went to all the entrepreneur and venture tech meetups I could, staying in the thick of hustlers and refusing to take any gruff. So she's kicking ass and taking names at this new venture, and then she meets Norman. They have instant chemistry at a July 4th party in the Hamptons, and she writes about he how he very quickly shares with her that he has type 1 diabetes. She writes, I marveled at how forthright Norman was about his condition, thinking nothing of testing his blood sugar in front of me. Of course, he had no choice. This was a life or death decision for him. But was it my own secret life or death too? What would it be like for me to share my transness as casually as Norman shared about his diabetes? And then less than a month after they meet, she shares her transness with him. Norman thanks her for sharing and then asks, now can we keep loving each other?
SPEAKER_00:Are they still together? Tell me they're still together. Yes, they're still together.
SPEAKER_01:And girl, he's very handsome. I mean, like, he cute. She has pictures in her book, and you're just like, hey girl, get it. All right, so the last section of her book is about exploring herself more deeply, who and her peoples, like her ancestry. She writes about going to Burning Man and having a spiritual experience inside a temple on acid. She writes, I finally made the connection between Papa and my life journey so far. He met my early femininity with a masculine love that set me free. He was the reason I was standing here. Psychedelics can make you hear and see things that aren't real, but sometimes we need fiction to tell us the truth. I heard Papa say to me, Your femme boyhood was enough. You are more than enough, my bojo joy. And that was like his little nickname for her. Would you ever do ayahuasca or anything like that? I would never do acid, but then I read about experiences like this and I'm like, oh man, that seems so profound.
SPEAKER_00:I'm intrigued by the ones that are more positive. Research-based, I like uh psilocybin, right? Oh, I don't know. What is what's that? Magic mushrooms. I did a lot of research on them being used for yeah, psychological benefit. Yeah, I think PTSD for um veterans, like that's a population that it's been researched with pretty deeply. Also, ketamine, anything that gets at neuroplasticity, rewiring your brain, if you will. Ayahuasca, you vomit a lot, from what I'm told. And no thanks.
SPEAKER_01:And some people have really bad trips, and that sounds scary as hell. Yeah. She just seems to have this really profound moment for her where everything starts to come together. And I loved the line. Sometimes we need fiction to tell us the truth.
SPEAKER_00:I like that too.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so Gina goes on this amazing trip to discover the past of her people's pre-colonization. And we kind of talked about how she learns that there was gender fluid. There was no, there were no gendered pronouns until the Spanish came in and colonized the Philippines. And so that she just has a lot of these aha moments. And this is when she realizes she is ready to come out and tell her story, and that it doesn't feel scary anymore. It feels thrilling. She's able to let go of the shame that had been associated with the word transgender. She writes, instead, pride swelled in my heart. So through a friend that she had met in the business world, she's able to pitch an idea for her talk to a TED Talk. And it and it's really cool. She goes through the whole, the whole process and writes about how she had another Gina, another woman named Gina, who helped her refine her speech. They set you up for success at TED Talks. They don't just like throw you on stage and they're like, good luck. Like you have to say your speech to them multiple times. They teach you how to speak, they give you techniques on how to be confident on stage. And I know that you listened to her TED Talk. So what did you think?
SPEAKER_00:It was short and sweet. And but yeah, it was very clear to me in her TED Talk that she understands that she has a degree of privilege and being a trans woman. Who no one would ever look at and think might be a trans woman, right? She just passes or wa bucking. That's a new term for me. And she could have remained in silence, but got to the point where she realized, like, let me be an example for those who can't or don't feel safe enough to speak up to say, like, I am here. This is who I am. I'm proud of who I am. It also makes me think a little bit about like the PR public relations kind of thing of like getting ahead of it. But yeah, and just really doing it because she wanted to share her message and finally felt safe enough to do so and and that she had more to lose by not speaking up. I got the sense that she would feel like she had been a coward if she didn't, like at that point.
SPEAKER_01:You're right. I think it was like a make or break moment for her. And she even writes, I didn't see the word trans as a qualifier or disclaimer anymore. I saw transness as power. So she's viewing her life now from this position of power and and coming from a place of being able to shine a light brighter for people. And like she even says in her speech, her aim is to help others live their truth without shame and terror because she had come to that point herself. And yeah, I thought it was a really powerful speech. Like you said, short and sweet. I still definitely encourage people to read her memoir because while she tells you her life story, she goes into a lot further detail in her memoir. And you really get a, you know, there's there's a like um a professionalism about her TED Talk. The like her memoir gets a little sassy and get, you know, it just goes deeper into who she is and her thoughts on things. Cause yeah, all TED Talks are polished. Like it's a more polished version of her life in a way that I think her memoir, you know, is less polished and in that beautiful, messy way that like we all want memoirs to be. But it's a great first introduction to Gina if you didn't know who she was.
SPEAKER_00:I almost want like my grandma to watch it, who is, you know, someone who's older and like doesn't really get it. And I think Gina is just so approachable and, as you said, inarguably beautiful that people who are like, I just don't get it's like one, there's nothing to get. It's not about you. Here's her story. But here it is.
SPEAKER_01:And it's not, it's not a threat to you. It's not a threat to you. I know. I think that right there, like that just stopped me because it it really isn't a threat to any of us. The only threat that exists is to these people who are just trying to live their truth. And it's so sad. Like, I don't know how that got so flipped. Uh, Gina's talk goes viral and she feels an outpouring of love. She's invited to the White House. She talks about cracking a joke with Obama and like they snap a picture right at that moment. She's like, I will cherish that forever. And so she's ready to step into service of something bigger than herself. This was just the first step in advocacy. She co-founds Gender Proud, an organization focused on gender recognition policies. She writes this Imagine trying to get a job as a trans person living in poverty if your ID has the wrong gender marker on it. Imagine getting pulled over by police and having a driver's license that shows someone who doesn't look like you. Imagine trying to travel abroad and not having your passport reflect who you are. And she personally knows the pain and the relief from being able to have your official documents reflect who you really are. She writes that even though the Trump administration undid many of the gains made by the Obama administration, trans people are a global family who can never be erased. Countries can try to suppress us, they can refuse to recognize us, but we are increasingly recognizing the light in ourselves and realizing that we are powerful together. We have tasted too much freedom to ever go back to a life in the shadows. She continues. Recognizing and amplifying and documenting what another's voice is, finding happiness among one another and celebrating ourselves. Because no matter how scared you might feel, whether you are a trans kid or a 90-year-old grandma, you have one of the most powerful things a person can wield: a story, a story worth sharing, a story worth living. And that is Gina Rosero's horse Barbie.
SPEAKER_00:I think the thing that her story highlights is like while a lot did go right for her, it was and still is like a really deep struggle that she experienced. And for people who may think that being trans is, you know, just simply a choice and something that people are not hardwired into and that they're just, you know, socially molded into, it's like no one, I don't think anyone would choose that struggle, right? So if you feel compelled enough, if somebody feels compelled enough to to take steps to shift themselves into the gender that they, you know, believe themselves to be on the inside and to shift their exterior, like try and try and remember that. That yeah, and similar to any marginalized group, no one wants to put a target on their back, right? So if they're if they're doing that, it's coming from a place of like, this is what I have to do to to be myself and to live. And I can't live if I'm not myself.
SPEAKER_01:Amen. Well said, Jamie. I loved her line where she says, you all have one of the most powerful things the person can wield, a story. And that's what I hope to do with this podcast is just to amplify these women's stories and these women's experiences because you can have your thoughts and opinions about certain things. But when you come face to face with a story like Gina's and you fall in love with her because she's just such a likable, wonderful person, maybe it changes the way that you think about transness as a whole, because it's not this broad thing anymore. It's a specific person that you can equate with a specific story. And I think that that's really what she's encouraging all of us to do, whether we are trans people or not. We all have stories, we all have truths. And the more that we share those truths, the more that we can connect and recognize where one another comes from. I just loved her memoir, her story, her voice. She's funny and sassy, and she's had an incredible life full of really high highs but low lows. Her story reflects how important the love and supportive family can be. And I, as someone who grew to love Gina through her pages, just feel really grateful to her mother and the other incredible people who loved her so much. It's a beautiful example of what it means, I think, to be a parent. And it's a testament to the fact that when women support one another, lift one another up, love one another, and validate one another, we all feel more individually capable. But we need men's support too. I love the idea of you sharing the TED Talk with your grandmother. I just, I do kind of wonder if people were actually faced with knowing individual stories like what their reactions would be. I don't know. Something to think about.
SPEAKER_00:P.S. Do you know that there's a Barbie in your background and has been this whole time?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You planned it. Hi, Barbie. Where's your horse? That's just where she goes. Jamie, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about Gina's memoir. I always appreciate your thoughts and reflections. And yeah, I can't wait to chat about our next book soon. Thanks, Alex. Okay, love you. Bye. And thank you all for listening to our episode today. If you enjoyed our discussion, please rate and review the show. I would so appreciate that and share it with a friend. Jamie will be back next month to chat about Michelle Obama's becoming. But my friend Priscilla is here next week, and we are talking all about Bethany Joy Lindsays' Dinner for Vampires, life on a cult TV show while also in an actual cult. If you're a fan of hers or Wandry Hill, you are not going to want to miss this one. Go ahead and subscribe to the show and it will automatically download for you. Until next time, take care of the video.
