Transgender Model Isis King Back For 'America's Next Top Model All-Stars'

What Lea T has done for high fashion's runways, Isis King did for "America's Next Top Model." And now she's back to do it again.

In 2008 King, the 25-year-old model from Maryland, became the first transgender model to participate on the Tyra Banks' reality show. This September she'll return for ANTM's "All-Stars" cycle, which features 14 former competitors from the show's 16 "cycles" (that's seasons to all you non-watchers).

Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive video previewing King's return. It's a short little clip, but it's nice to see that the show is willing to focus on other aspects of King's personality -- like her insane googly eyes, apparently -- and not simply her transgender status.

"America's Next Top Model"'s embrace of King as an all-star should come as no surprise. Banks herself paid for the model's sex reassignment surgery in 2009, reported Entertainment Weekly.

Between King's return, androgynous Andrej Pejic's appearance on the cover of New York's Fall Fashion issue and the frequent appearance of Lea T. on this year's runways (and in a bathing suit, no less), fashion is certainly embracing its gender-ambiguous moment.

Which is just one more reason we'll be watching "America's Next Top Model All-Stars" on Wednesday, September 14 on the CW. The first reason? Crazy, caffeine-fueled, newly-minted author Tyra. Girl is nuts and we just love to watch.

Comments

[JTyroler]

12:23 AM on 10/14/2011

I wish Isis the best of luck in her endeavors. Can she get Tyra to help out with some other people's surgeries?

[Ganji]

04:25 PM on 10/13/2011

OK...

[Knowledgeseeker]

02:00 PM on 10/06/2011

she is very beautiful

[Kali03]

05:44 PM on 08/21/2011

I wish her well.

Reading the comments written by the hateful and ignorant are saddening. We live in a large, large world. This individual is not hurting any one of you. If you want to be conservative, religious, dogmatic, and against science, then stay at home or stay with folks who agree with you. But don't force your narrow and cruel perceptions onto someone who is not hurting you. Live and let live! The world is a large place and there is room for all of us... and before anyone comments on the mote in someone else's eye, maybe a good look at the heavy log of hatred in one's own eye is in order.

I wish Isis all the best.

[toocutey]

05:21 PM on 08/21/2011

This is so ridiculous it is beyond description. Women have a hard enough time thinking they need to look like a runway model, and now they are supposed to look like a man who has none of the characteristics of a woman. As for me I will not buy any line that uses a man as a model. No, he is not a woman. He may like to think he is, but he is a man and if he decides to have his male parts cut off he will be a eunuch or a mutilated female; take your pick. This is the scientific truth and if you disagree with it you need to go back to sexual anatomy and the difference between men and women. But you won't, you will go into your hysteria and start calling me names. Sorry, but you are what you are and you should be happy and learn to live within the parameter of what you were physically born with.

[Kittyburger]

02:12 PM on 08/22/2011

I won't call you names.

I'll just call you wrong.

[eve mahar]

01:07 AM on 08/24/2011

You really shouldn't talk about "scientific truth." You sound ignorant and ridiculous. She is a woman, and you are the one needs to accept that and learn to live with it.

[iconico62]

11:42 PM on 08/20/2011

Live and let live. Has she bothered any of these hateful, disgusting commenters? Or has she asked for your approval? She is who she is.

[Mama56]

12:28 PM on 08/20/2011

We know that society is getting more and more evil, day by day. Women swearing up a storm, sleeping around. Men not taking responsibility for themselves or their families. Everything perverse is now becoming acceptable. It's sick. And unGodly. Now I understand that those of you who do not share my faith will disagree with me. But it's those of you who do call themselves "Christians" and accpt this type of behavior that baffle me. What do you do with thte parts of the Bible that say that homosexuality is wrong? Do you take a marker and black it out? White Out?
Women have always been known to be more kind and loving (sometimes to the point of stupidity)...but what is up with you men out there saying that this is OK? Too many feminine wimpy men out there. This country of ours is on a downward spiral. Sick and perverse.
This "man" mutilated his body and is no longer looks like a man but is still a man. Like I said before...nothing will change that. He made himself a freak. And that is sad.

[eve mahar]

07:21 PM on 08/20/2011

Wow. Where to even begin? With your blatant sexism, homophobia, or anti transgenderism? This woman isn't a freak, and it isn't perverse. She is simply becoming on the outside who she is in the inside. Unless you have lived in her shoes, you will never know what she has been through. The only freak I see here is you, and it is sad. Very sad.

[Mama56]

02:07 AM on 08/21/2011

He will never be happy trying to become someone he cannot be. God made him a man. He made himself a science experiment. You made yourself look like a fool.

[kf021]

11:03 AM on 08/22/2011

If I say being a homosexual is wrong that make me homophobic. If I say adultery is wrong am I adulteraphobic? If I say using the Lords name in vain do I have a fear of those who curse? Knowledge that something is wrong is not fear or hatred, it is just knowledge.

[GaryNMaine]

07:42 PM on 08/20/2011

"society is getting more and more evil, day by day"

Haven't you been paying attention to history? The human race is exceedingly violent and hateful. Why would you want to feed into the hateful side of the human condition?

[Marilyn Ramirez]

08:42 AM on 08/20/2011

I like that Tyra accepts them and hopefully will launch their careers abs people can begin to accept trannies.

[duncansdad]

11:54 AM on 08/19/2011

So many insecure straight men reading this article and posting here. Hmm.

[eve mahar]

07:21 PM on 08/20/2011

no kidding! I almost pity them.

[duncansdad]

08:13 PM on 08/20/2011

I do get a kick out of how upset they get, though.

[Always Conservative]

01:15 AM on 08/19/2011

As much as you like to think so, this is no female. It is a male that has had an amputation. Nothing more, nothing less...

[Ms Liann]

10:11 PM on 08/19/2011

The DOCTOR has spoken. All you non-medics can go jump in a lake. Sex is whatever the doctor says it is. Women and men have all kinds of surgeries.

[Always Conservative]

11:03 PM on 08/19/2011

Anatomy 101 disagrees with you....

[Ms Liann]

11:27 PM on 08/19/2011

Judges DO make the ultimate decision which gender a person is, but they traditionally defer to doctors. A transgender person presenting a letter from a medical doctor acknowledging irreversible gender re-assignment is generally sufficient. From that point onwards the home-schooled religious taliban trying to insert their version of Sharia religious law is normally rejected by thinking Americans.

Conservatives are not trustworthy to hold opinions on science matters, believing that the same laws of physics which make CO2 lasers amplify infrared energy suddenly ceases working in the Earth atmosphere, and believing the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. When I want your opinion on theology I'll let you know.

Evolution tells us that multiple genders have been present, not limited to merely two-by-two, since 500,000,000 ago, at least. I don't trust a conservative to understand anatomy based on principles of scientific disciplines which she has never studied.

[CrestedSparrow]

07:53 PM on 08/20/2011

No, nature makes that decision actually; anything else is called surgery. A man with female reassignment is NOT A WOMAN; but a transexual. The "woman" label needs to be dropped; it's already been taken and it is not for sale.

[Susan Shaffer]

11:02 PM on 08/18/2011

sorry

I don't get the point of this transgender model stuff

as a young woman the part of the models being attractive is that you want to be like them and so want the clothes/products. No way would I want to be transgender. I think the designers are only using these people for shock value. If their designs were good enough then they wouldn't need the shock value to get people to look at their work.

[Ms Liann]

10:26 PM on 08/19/2011

Actually, the models have different motivations from the art departments, clothiers, and advertisers. The clothing is supposed to sell itself on it's merits -- but monied alpha-females are threatened by nubile voluptuous young female models, so the androgynous look is preferred for selling to that market-slice. Magazines need buzz, as do designers, so anything that gets them columns and column-inches serves them.

None of them are "selling transgender" as the product.

The clothing is still the product in a very busy distracting environment with high-stakes competition for sales. The products worn are often in the multi-thousand dollar range, and there is not an unlimited pool of shoppers whom could be buying them. The average mall-rat is not the intended customer, and nobody is soliciting them to be "transgender".

It so happens that a somewhat rare birth defect produces XY-chromosome female-genitaled bdied birth which go on to become fashion models because of other facts of the birth defect. A good number of "covergirls" seen by you in supermarkets are XY-chromosome femaled-bodied persons with inverted testes. It never bothered you before -- why now?

It is time to get updated to ten-year-old science: Woman: An Intimate Geography [Paperback] Natalie Angier (Author) published 2000. How long are you going to be left behind?

[Zoe Brain]

11:25 PM on 08/20/2011

It's an open secret that some of the most feminine models are XY women with CAIS - complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. They're immune to testosterone, the male sex hormone, so look 100% female. Most women look more normal, as their bodies produce a little testosterone, so aren't as long-limbed and willowy, ultra-female, only 99%.

[cplKlyde]

09:59 PM on 08/18/2011

I lot of frightened guys posting here.

[eve mahar]

07:24 PM on 08/20/2011

I know, it's sad when ignorance and fear rears its ugly head.

[baccee]

07:05 PM on 08/18/2011

Whats happening here,She make borderline guy uncomfortable,and women that don`t look as good haters....simple

[yardarm]

06:27 PM on 08/18/2011

New Rule: What you see is not always what you get!

[Christian Howell]

04:55 PM on 08/18/2011

No comment other than to say I disagree.