Many local advocacy groups are now seeking to empower the transgender community to take advantage of those gains and continue to push for equal rights and recognition. The key to that effort, the groups say, is urging transgender women to speak up. Rocero points to her own experience coming out to the world as a transgender woman during a TED Talk in 2014 . So far, her speech has been viewed more than 2.7 million times."I wanted it big. I wanted it big and loud, because I knew as well as you know that I was risking something," Rocero said.Rocero used her TED Talk as a launching pad for her own advocacy efforts, speaking on LGBTQ rights throughout the world and forming the Gender Proud organization Earlier this year, Gender Proud teamed up with other organizations to host a series of workshops for transgender women and allies in the Philippines. They urged participants to share their stories to promote understanding of the community and the challenges its members face.“Nobody knows our stories like ourselves,” Rocero told one group gathered for a seminar on speaking to the media. And finding the courage to tell those stories could help inspire the change Rocero and others are seeking, giving the country's transgender women the recognition and rights they deserve.“We are already here,” Gingoyon said. “They just don’t know about who we really are, and how we want to be accepted and perceived in the community.”