Story highlights Model Geena Rocero: I was not born a boy, I was assigned "boy" at birth

She says coming to the U.S. enabled her to change her name, gender marker

Rocero launching movement to change perceptions about transgender people

Geena Rocero is an activist, a model, and the Founder of Gender Proud, a movement that aims to change the global perception of and conversation about transgender individuals. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Monday is International Transgender Day of Visibility, and the day I have chosen to "come out" as transgender.

We are all assigned a gender at birth. Sometimes that assignment doesn't match our inner truth, and there needs to be a new place -- a place for self-identification.

I was not born a boy, I was assigned boy at birth. Understanding the difference between the two is crucial to our culture and society moving forward in in the way we treat -- and talk about -- transgender individuals.

One of my earliest memories is from 5 years old. I used to drape T-shirts on my head, and would delight in feeling the fabric on my back. My mom asked me, "why do you always wear a T-shirt on your head?" I responded, "It's not a T-shirt, Mom -- this is my hair."

Growing up the Philippines, I was involved in transgender beauty pageants from the age of 15. In Asian cultures, the fluidity of gender has been part of life for thousands of years, evidenced by the Buddhist Goddess of compassion, GuanYin and the Hindu hijra Goddess, Bahuchara Mata, who is sacred to men who want to be cured of impotence, and to women wanting to become pregnant.

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