Geena Rocero, a model, activist, and transgender woman, spoke about her experience at TED 2014:
Rocero, poised in sky-high black patent heels, shows photos from throughout her modeling career: bold, bikini-ed, confident. Her career as a successful fashion model for the last nine years seemed to mean she had achieved her greatest dream: To the public, Rocero’s outer self finally matched her inner truth. All the while, she admits, she was keeping the truth of her past from neighbors, friends, colleagues, and until recently, even her agent: She was born assigned male. “All of us are put in boxes by our family, our religion, our society, our moment in history, even our own bodies,” says Rocero. But some people have the courage to defy those boxes — so she decided she would no longer hide within the status quo.