Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric and this is next question. When Gina Rosera walked into our podcast studio, I have to be honest, I was stunned by her beauty. She was wearing a gray Kashmir sweater, black jeans with a simple silver necklace, and she had a regal, almost otherworldly quality. She also had a very unpretentious easiness about her. But behind all of this is a pretty extraordinary life story, which she writes about in her new memoir called Horse Barbie.
America still needs to see more stories about what it truly means to be trans and not just one type of representation. You know, for eight years passing as a sist model to knowing that we need to tell more varied stories because I think that's when we really fully show the humanity of it.
Gina describes herself as a little femboy growing up in Manila in the Philippines, and she got very emotional talking about the unconditional love of her parents, especially her mother, and what it was like for so many years being, as she called it, both visible yet invisible, as she kept her true identity a secret. We'll talk with her about going stealth for so many years, terrified she would be discovered and lose everything.
Would you like a chair? You sure? I feel bad? You can get us you sure?
Okay, all right, okay. I am super excited to be here with you, Gina Rossero, to talk about your memoir Horse Barbie, and really talk about your life, because to say it is an extraordinary life, I think is a massive understatement. Before we talk about the content of your book and your story, I just wanted to ask you a bit about the process of writing it. Yeah, As someone who recently wrote a memoir, I'm curious what it was like for you to chronicle your entire life.
I wrote this during the pandemic, and it was two years of writing. And it's just that process of getting in my space from nine to three o'clock.
I'm a morning creative.
By three pm, there's nothing like I'm quite literally exhausted and I need to just completely chill down.
You're tapped out.
I'm tapped out, And I was doing this for two years. I would listen to a podcasts, I would read a book, or light up a candle, have ats, or read a little page of another person's memoir, you know, and just
getting into it and I'm sure you know this. But in that process where I could feel that I'm sort of entering a different world or I'm levitating, I knew there's something and I would feel that when I would get to that zone and I would snap out of it and look at the thing that I wrote, It's almost magic, you know.
I enjoy being there.
So I think that's what kept me going back for two years every day ninety three.
Wow, that takes a lot of discipline.
Yeah.
When I wrote my book, a lot of people said why now, So I'm curious why now? For you, at this stage in your life, did you feel you wanted to write a memoir because you told your story to the world and a Ted Talk in twenty fourteen, did you think, gosh, I want to do more than a ten minute Ted talk. My story is more complex and interesting than that.
Yeah.
I went from being stealth as a fashion model, where the industry didn't know my model agent did not know I was trands right, I was hiding. I was living this too realities. I went from being stealth to TED talk to United Nations to traveling the world advocating for trans writes, and it felt like I was missing that in between.
I didn't get a.
Chance to process that in between, and writing this book was my process to unpack a lot more. I didn't write it chronological and really went straight to my time in New York City when I was a model, because I felt like, if I'm gonna do this, which is this big task, I felt like, let me focus, and I think the most difficult part in my journey, which is crazy because I was modeling, but it was also the most traumatic, you know, in my life.
In fact, the book starts with you in a John Legend music video in two thousand and five and the anxiety you felt. Honestly, I felt anxiety just reading those pages, worried and so concerned that you would be found out, and how agonizing that was. Yeah, why did you want to start with that? Oh?
Give me gooseba?
I think it represented a lot of things, a lot of things in my journey. But there's a lot of magical coincidence in the book. In that beginning of that story, the title of the song itself you know, which is now who is She? And then the lyrics that he was singing to me during my part of the music video was just incredibly like magical coincidence that he's asking
me who I am. I was so visible, but I was also invisible, consciously invisible at the same time, while at the same time feeling sexy, feeling myself, feeling like my dream, but at the same time knowing this conversation that's in my head and that moment where I need to be careful, but I also need to do good so I could really continue this job. It really just encapsulates a lot of you know, what the book is about, you know.
And anxiety of being who you are privately but not who you are publicly.
All of those things happening at the same time. You know, this was a dream that I've had growing up in the Philippines, and it was a dream come true. But that you know, little femboy that who I am in the Philippines thinking like I can't believe this is happening.
I'm actually doing this. But then some.
Parts of me really wants to just like get me out of here. I cannot continue doing this, you know, because.
It can't keep living a lie.
Basically, like to think of a very complicated woman.
You know, let's talk about your childhood, because I loved reading about it. It was so evocative with your siblings and walking into your house and smelling clorox on the linoleum floors, and then walking a little further and seeing your dad fixing dinner while your mom was at work.
You know, I don't think at the time in the Philippines there's no such thing as considered middle class. You know, it's just the beginning. I mean, my mom was working, but I definitely know at the end of the month, we're always running into like who do we borrow money from to, you know, to put food on the table. You know, we're always running out of money for sure. So my mom was working, my dad would stay at home.
Dad so which is very unusual for the time, right.
Yeah, it's you know, Philippines is a very long history of matriarchal society, but also in the context of you know, very patriarchal you know, control as well. But the woman runs the country like small businesses are run by women. My mom is a very strong woman. So definitely, I at the time, I didn't see it like as the reverse role. It's just some obviously I was young. There's no critical analysis.
I knew.
I knew my mom goes to work and then my dad stay at home, and he's the best stay at home dad, you.
Know, except when he drank, and then things got a little hairy, very very and it was hard for him. It was hard for him to have even if it's a matriarchical society, it was clear from your writing that wasn't easy having your mom as the breadwinner for him, right.
You know, I have not spoken so much about my dad, and this book was the first time really like talking about it. Even in my ted talk I shared obviously the support and the love of my mom, and this book was actually the first one where I was really,
you know, able to process what that was. But certainly this book was my first time to really remember a lot of the complication, you know, the relationship with my dad because I always remember, you know, being taken you know by him at the wet market and going every day taking me to you know, learn I think in some way I learned how to be comfortable in the kitchen.
I love cooking because of my dad, because of that bonding that we had, right I mean, every day at six pm we would go to Guadalupe Public Market and it's known to be like the best chef in the neighborhood. Actually, it would get hired to cook in a fiesta, you know, But then it's fiesta, there's drinking, and he would come home drinking. Maybe that feeling of guilt that he wasn't the provider took its tall and I think it's expressed in that very violent.
Rage, Gina.
Why don't you read a passage from your book all about your childhood, Manila.
Sure?
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 x 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. We also had to keep a watchful eye for the crafty jumping rats who liked to steal pieces of our marinated pork casino or slice of spam that had been left on the table, ferrying them back to the places unknown as they squeaked with the delight of their pillage.
We'll be right back, and we're back.
I know you write about when you were five or six years old and you had an epiphany. Can you share that part of the book with us?
Standing there in front of the mirror, I started to take off my T shirt, which had a print of one of the animated robots from the show Voltage five, so I could step into the shower. But right before I was about to slip out of it, while the collar was still around the top of my head, I paused and looked at my bare face. There was a presence in it. It was speaking to me out of nothingness. The oversized shirt had flattened the top of my hair, the fabric draving behind me like a veil all the
way to the floor below. As I swayed gently from side to side, my shirt moved like actual, real long hair would, brushing against my shoulders. In a powerful moment of recognition, it is my long hair, I whispered to myself. I'm a girl.
I want to talk to you about when you first had this feeling.
That was probably the first time where I felt that recognition. And when people say, like, what are your early memories, I'd like to think that that's the thing that's kept coming up because it was so strong. That's the one that was so significant to me. And to see that in the mirror, the reflection at such a young age, that that knowledge that like, this is who I am and saying it first to myself.
Was powerful.
I think many trans people I've talked to say from a very early age they felt not comfortable and their bodies, not comfortable in their skin, that something was wrong. Did you sense that even before you had that moment in the mirror.
Yeah, trans people, especially young trans people, we know. You know, it's we know that truth and how powerful it is. It becomes uncomfortable when we go outside. You know, there are immediate surrounding or safe spaces or neighborhoods or communities that doesn't accept it. You know, that's when it becomes uncomfortable. Or the early messages that we receive about who were supposed to be, that's when it becomes uncomfortable. But the truth of that recognition is very present to every single
young trans person. I knew it happened to me, and you know the places when they travel, when they talk to trans youth and then their family. It's very early when you at a very early age.
I'm fascinated how different it is in the Philippines in terms of the way transgender people and transculture in general is treated and seen.
You write.
When I was growing up, Catholicism and trans beauty pageants inspired equal fanaticism. Families would go straight from mass to watching the Supera Serena trans pageants on TV back at home. No one really saw this as a paradox. It was just part of our unique cultural blend. That is so wild and so fascinating to me that this conservative Catholic country has a very expansive view of gender and a very accepting view of gender in general.
I'd like to say, I want to offer I guess more nuanced context here.
Acceptance is a very very big word.
Right, tell me about sort of why it is celebrated. And you were a fem boy, yes, and you talk about sort of the way you walked and it never felt like you were full of shame for who you were, and that is I think a pretty foreign concept here in the United States.
Yeah, shame is a big component, especially when they moved here. But growing up you know that culture that we have, it's very embedded in our culture.
Gender fluidity.
We don't have he or she in our language, so it's very much embedded in our culture, pre colonial in the Philippines, but because it's so embedded in our culture, colonial times and then Catholic system, you know, sort of took over in the Philippines all over the Philippines and then instituted this thing called Catholic Fiesta celebration, which is
year round. But during those Fiesta celebrations, which is a Catholic celebration, the main event for everybody to go see is transgender beauty pageants, where the whole family watches it, you know, and it's just part of how we celebrate it because it's been embedded in our culture, you know, and that became my job when I was fifteen.
There's a pageant.
Almost every single day all over the Philippines during the month of May.
And growing up in that environment, did it make you feel much more comfortable with your early gender fluidity and the fact that you know that you carried yourself like a girl and not like a boy. And can you explain sort of your mom watching you, You describe her, you know, radiantly watching you with so much pride. There was never any kind of conflict for her.
Yeah, certainly she had questions, especially as we've gotten closer in our relationship, you know, and our women to women conversations. She've had questions, but at that time, growing up, I wouldn't even say, like it's a power, you know, it's so easy for me.
It's the power of representation.
It's cultural, you know, it's so embedded in our it's in our language, it's in our every society. I like to say that trans people are culturally mainstream visible in the Philippines. I also again recognize how lucky I am to have, you know, mom, even my dad who fully accepted me and loved me, not one resistance to to it all. And I guess it's love, you know, I guess you know, my mom truly just loved me. That that's my mom and my dad just somehow found that in them to accept me and love me.
When you were nineteen, you went to Thailand to get gender affirmation surgery and your mom came with you, again an example of how incredibly supportive she was to you. Can you talk about that experience with your mom?
Just take an excuse me?
Yeah, of course, you know, I'm.
I wouldn't be here without the love of my mom, you know, going with me to Thailand and to go through that.
You know, my mom is super Catholic still and I can't question her Bible. She would hang up.
The phone, but the love that she that she hasn't support, never questioned who I am going, you know, a Catholic mother supporting her trans daughter fully.
I mean we went to we went to have an irreversible surgery in a suburb where nobody spoke English, and she was like, I'm coming with you.
I will hold your hand, give you my rosary before you go into you know, your operation, and to be there. It was exactly what I needed, you know. And it was obviously a big decision. Lots of fear going through my head in what my life would it would have been if I didn't have the support and love of my mom.
Particularly you also have or had a trans mom, Tiger Lily, a woman who would become your lifelong friend and mentor. You met her when you were fifteen years old, So tell us about the role she played in your life.
Ohger Lily, I just called her, you know, on the way here.
We speak all the time. You know, I've known.
She's still in the Philippines.
She's still in the Philippines. I've known Tiger Little since I was fifteen. You know another woman that changed my life. I was fifteen when I met her saw something in me. She asked me to join my first pageant, and that pageant that I shared called Super Syrena, which is this televised pageant.
I remember, I was fifteen years old. I was still in high.
School, and I remember just watching one of the finals of this pageant. I was still in school watching it. It was amazing seeing all the girls dreaming, you know, but also not vocalizing that I want to be like them. And little did I know a week a week and a half later, I would meet Tiger Lily and I would join trans pageant. Somehow she saw something in me. She made me try on the swimsuit. I felt, you know, sexy, you know where wearing that two piece Anian swimsuit. And
she saw the confidence. She made me join that pageant, and I, you know, the woman that I was seeing on television was in that competition. I beat all of them, like it was like a fantasy world. And she took me on, you know, and then our life journey together has been you know, magical, I'd say, and she kind of, you know, she became my other mother. She was my chosen mother. She was my best friend. She was also my pageant manager.
All at once, I wondered about your mom moving to America when you were still pretty young. You decided to join your mom in California. Was after you won the Miss Gay Universe pageant in two thousand. That was a huge deal for people who may not be familiar with the different pageants, that's that's a major major deal.
Yeah, that was the biggest And for me to I won that, that's such a young age and I was sixteen about to turn seventeen. I reached the top at such a young age, became a pageant diva, making a lot of money, the most popular trans pajiant queen. And to win that big one was it was the biggest moment, you know, and that just solidified my legacy in the pageant culture. My mom one day called me and she said, you know, your Green carpetition came through. You're now moving
to the US. And initially I said no to her because I was a pageant diva. You know, it's a pageant queen in the Philippines. You know, I'm making so much money, you know, all of that thing as a young you.
Know, pageant queen is an overachiever.
But then when she came back to me and she said, you know, when you moved to the US, you could change your name and gender marker and your legal documents.
And that did it for me.
And as a seventeen year old trans Philippe that's a young immigrant seventeen.
A culture shock.
That was the biggest culture shock from I mean, the first question I asked my mom was the transpageants, Like, there's no transpageants here. But somehow I met this model who used to model in New York City. She said, if you really want to do this, you have to move to New York City. And I was like, okay, I'm going to move to New York City. And because of that thought it opened up that whole floodgate again of wanting to be a model.
I wanted to.
Pursue it, but the fear is always there that you know, anyone could out me and it would destroy people's career like it happened to It's well documented, it happened to so many trans women, trans particularly trans woman of color, that the moment they got out there, they were done, you know, discarded. So you have this ambition to be so visible, right whether on Times Square, Billboard or doing
a commercial. You want to do that, but there's risk, the bigger the job, the bigger the paranoia that I was going through, And honestly, right now, even speaking to you in this voice, in this tone, I used to always calculate the little tones of how I speak, how I talk to someone. Am I drinking enough, you know, water so that my voice is more fluid? You know?
Like these are the kind of things that was going through my head.
And you talked about like would someone see your Adams Sapple during the making of that John Legend video? And then when someone asked to talk to you, you were terrified that you had been found out.
Yeah, I felt like I was a spy. I felt like I was in a clandestine operation every day of my life. And I think now it makes sense why I like spy genres.
Because why I connect with them, because I really felt like I was. I have to put up this this cover.
We'll be right back.
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And we're back.
What made you finally say screw it? I am going to tell the world who I am and I'm going to tell my story.
There's so many moments, I guess because I was in that process, there were so many little hints that maybe I want to do it? When am I going to do it? Questioning and over analyzing what could happen in my career? It manifested in a physical condition I had. Certainly I was very depressed. I know that the anguish, emotional anguish, the mental anguish of having to always edit my story.
And always being on guard. That's stressful.
I had a very crazy moment of eczema that manifested in my body. Its just somehow it took over my body that I got to the point that I thought I'll never be able to wear somesuit. There's still some marks here and there, and it's now a present thing. When I get stressed, it comes up. And I listened to that. But that was the big outbreak where it was all over my body. And it took a woman dermatologists who sat me down and said, after giving me
all the steroids in everything, nothing was working. And she said, what is going on emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, you need to listen to whatever that's going on. Didn't tell her obviously that I'm transfer I knew exactly what she's talking about, Like my truth was quite literally coming out of my body wanting to come out.
So I listened to that.
My partner and I went to toulw, Mexico for my thirtieth birthday, and somehow, you know that magical moment when when he asked me what this s turning thirty means to me? Somehow it felt so pure in that moment to say it. You know, I was entering, you know, I was turning thirty. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to, you know, tell my story. And I somehow, once I made that decision, it was as if nothing could stop me. I wanted to share my story in
the biggest possible platform that I could think of. I went from the decision of again being so ashamed, to like, I'm gonna come out on a Ted stage.
Well does that what was the reaction?
You know, this is twenty fourteen.
I mean looking back and talk about timing in that moment, I mean, this was I gave the Ted Talk March twenty fourteen, and that June Laverne Cox on the cover of Time magazine and twenty fourteen was something in the zeitgeist.
In late twenty fourteen, after your Ted talk, you traveled to the Philippines to lobby in favor of trans rights in front of the legislature, but you learned that not much had change in the Philippines.
What happened, Gina, Oh my god, that was talking about, you know, humbling me in that moment. I was invited to speak at this conference advocating for antidiscrimination policies but also specifically transwrits, and you know, I was the guest of honor speaking my story coming from America walking into you know, the House of Representatives in the Philippines, and that was with my transpant tiger Lily, and we were
there together. And as we were walking to the security the security guard, I was looking self fabulous.
I felt like I was.
Having my Angelina Joly moment, you know, with my fabulous dress.
My friend made me feeling so confident.
And as I was walking in the security guard sir, sir, sir, you need to go to the male section of the security I was like just dumbfounded about that moment and couldn't help it. I went full on snappy trans one on one to that guy and just said, like, somebody that looks like a woman, who speaks like a woman, looks like a woman, she is a woman, you know, And I just like pushed through and didn't even like
just ignored him. You know, there was a moment of like, I need to follow through and like what he said. But this is why I was invited here to speak about these things. I felt that in as much as she has we're going to talk about trans writes, but in the most basic thing of the security doesn't even know how to communicate that in a space that should have been right. You know, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, so well, I was going to ask you about that.
It seems the best way for us to close out this conversation is to talk about where we are with trans issues today.
Gina.
It seems like a lot of progress was being made in twenty fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and now we're experiencing a major backlash. Laverne Cox recently said in twenty twenty three, we're at the height of the backlash against trans visibility. We have way more people who are educated about trans folks, but there's also been a rigorous misinformation media machine. Why do you think we are where we are today?
It's ongoing every day, you know, I'd say there's slayers. I think one is power. I think that people empower, particularly in the political right, sees the trans people does not have that you know, same, I guess power pool when it comes to organizing and you know, at least a perception. So there's that component that like, oh, we could attack this and easily demonize the people that is the most misunderstood in America. So there's a component of power.
The conversation that I'm having with my fellow trans folks is that freaking exhausted, you know, to feel that you're the only one fighting for this fighting in this moment. Why can we have the same support with marriage equality was happening. Why is that systematic approach when marriage equality was happening. Why can't we have that that kind of exhaustion that we're feeling and speaking to each other? We need more because we know this in history, have said it.
When they come for one group, they are coming for everybody.
I think another misunderstanding that I often hear and I'd love you to clear it up for people is people who are worried about children making big life choices. And I always want to say, well, kids are not getting gender affirming surgery when they're twelve thirteen, you know. But a constant refrain I hear and read as this dialogue continues is the concern that children are making permanent decisions when they don't have the maturity to make those decisions.
And I wondered if you could address that gena for people.
Sure, I think I'd say every respected prominent medical institutions have instituted these processes.
There was.
No resistance. It's been established for many many years. W passed to American Pediotic Association that deals with children and America. There's been well, well, well established for many many years. The reason why the demonization of that misinformation is again related to that power that I was talking about earlier,
because it's such an easy target. Kids, young kids. I would remember when I was growing up, is that just want to express right, there's nothing wrong in letting a kid, you know, put a little nail polished and play.
It's play. Why can we allow kids to play and express. It's all part of.
That, and it's been debunked many times that you know, a young kid does not have to go through any big medical decisions with the presence of their family, with the support and the systematic approach in medical establishments until they're ready to do it, which is you know, eighteen sixteen years old. You know, with the guidance of a family member and a medical professional.
How do you fight this backlash? Do you you talk about being tired of being an activist? I know that when I did my documentary, I talked to some transactivists who said, it's not really our job to educate you. You know, this is why God created Google. On the other hand, representation and conversation, I think can move the ball forward. So how do we get to a place of deeper understanding and acceptance.
I think the bigger conversation of equity. You know, I'm a storyteller. I'm a media producer. I'm a storyteller at heart. I think stories of trans people from so many different experiences, so many different point of views, has to be told by trans people, particularly even more powerful because it might seem like it's an easy cop out answer that because when you see yourself and represent it, it creates.
But they.
It is obviously very exhausting to always talking about this, to always to defend your humanity, to debate your existence.
It's almost as if I would have to defend being a cis gender. Imagine that heterosexual female.
Yeah, you know, point of comparison, right, I mean imagine that, you know, people would have a little bit more empathy to really see through beyond this demonization of you know.
We get tired of talking about it incessantly.
As an artist, as a storyteller, and in this book that I wrote, I dared myself to really unapologetically express who I am, my stories, my hopes, my dreams, my vulnerability, my playfulness, just like any other human being, just like any other the sameness of what a trans person is experiencing to a cist person is experiencing, as it should be.
So you did your ted talk in twenty fourteen, you have this beautiful memoir in twenty twenty three. What do you see yourself doing in the next decade?
You know, I think I want to honor the storyteller in me, the artist and me. I want to direct more. I directed, you know, a DOCU series with PBS about
Filipino America and frontline workers called Caretakers. They got Ammy nominated and Glad Media or nominated, and the baselines, I want to tell more story, whether it's I'm directing or acting in it or you know, there was a part of me for so long that because I was living stealth, I wasn't really living up to like who I am fully, and that's the anxiety filled person who just want to
achieve part of me. But now I looked at that as a sense of Okay, this is my purpose now is to tell more story, to create more story, to create more to persent more work worlds that people have not seen before.
Gina Rasero, it's been so fun talking to you and fascinating. I know this is your first interview for the book. How do you think it went? Were you happy?
You made me cry? That's for sure?
Then?
Ah, thank you so much, Thank you, Gina, thank you, thank you, thank you for honoring me in this moment to share this. I've been saying that I can't wait to talk about it. It's been a long process and here I am talking about it, crying, you know, laughing and going through it and I'm sure there would be more, and truly, truly, I appreciate you taking this time.
Thank you, love, I love the book, and I love talking to you. And I hope a lot of people not only love listening, but also love learning from your story.
Thank you.
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