I Read Queer Books

“That’s the thing about trans joy: It can never be fully extinguished.”

I have read 150+ queer books. And this was the first one I wanted to review on this blog.

From the publisher:

“As a young femme in 1990s Manila, Geena Rocero heard, “Bakla, bakla!,” a taunt aimed at her feminine sway, whenever she left the tiny universe of her eskinita. Eventually, she found her place in trans pageants, the Philippines’ informal national sport. When her competitors mocked her as a “horse Barbie” due to her statuesque physique, tumbling hair, long neck, and dark skin, she leaned into the epithet. By seventeen, she was the Philippines’ highest-earning trans pageant queen.

A year later, Geena moved to the United States where she could change her name and gender marker on her documents. But legal recognition didn’t mean safety. In order to survive, Geena went stealth and hid her trans identity, gaining one type of freedom at the expense of another. For a while, it worked. She became an in-demand model. But as her star rose, her sense of self eroded. She craved acceptance as her authentic self yet had to remain vigilant in order to protect her dream career. The high-stakes double life finally forced Geena to decide herself if she wanted to reclaim the power of Horse Barbie once and for all: radiant, head held high, and unabashedly herself.

A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.”

My Review

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I read this book over my last Christmas break in about a day and a half – which is why I was shocked to learn that the audiobook is over eleven hours long. (Not a shocking length, but above the median.)

As you can imagine, this was an immediate five stars for me. Geena writes in an honest and unguarded way. She is unafraid to own up to her past short falls and crack jokes at all the right moments. Many, many authors try to include humor and sass in their writings. Many of them come across as self absorbed and unnatural. Rocero manages to bring the reader in on the joke – you are laughing and crying (and everything in between) together.

Geena was born and raised in the Philippines, and by the age of 13 was beginning to embody the life of a Filipino “third gender” – that of the Bakla. Bakla, a Tagolog word which most directly translates to “queer” are males who engage in feminine behavior and style. It is an identity distinct from the western Binary. From a young age, Rocero became a star in the transfem / so-called “Miss Gay” pageant scene, quickly becoming a national star.

Following her success in the Miss Gay pageant scene, she immigrated to California to join her mother. In this process, she quickly became Macy’s counter girl and then model prospect. The latter pages of this memoir focus on Rocero’s meteoric rise to the New York model world in the early 2000s – and her new life having to hide her transness, something unimaginable in the Philippines. She takes the reader along for the adventure in every possible way – through love, her career, and coming out to the world. It was an honor to be captivated by this story, and embodies everything a memoir should be.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is looking for an eye-opening memoir that also manages to not drain the reader emotionally. This book is a wonderful lens for examining trans culture outside of the Western sphere, modeldom of the early aughts, and what it means to find the courage to be honest in your own being.

Further Resources

Read Geena Rocero’s profile in the New York times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/style/geena-rocero-horse-barbie.html

Watch Geena make history as the first person to come out in a TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/geena_rocero_why_i_must_come_out?language=en