Transgender model Isis King becomes a TV trailblazer

As a little boy in the Washington suburbs, Darrell Walls liked to pretend to be Lil’ Kim or a Pink Power Ranger.

He felt different – like a girl mistakenly born a boy.

But Walls eventually embraced that difference and today is living true, as Isis King.

Now 22, King was the first transgender contestant on “America’s Next Top Model,” the TV reality competition hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks, before being eliminated on Wednesday’s show.

“I’m just trying to be myself,” King said during a telephone interview before the episode aired. “If I inspire people, that’s a wonderful thing – whether you’re trans or not.”

While the number of transgender representations on television remains small, activists say in recent years they have seen a movement away from stereotypical roles such as sex workers or villains.

Last year, transgender actress Candis Cayne had a recurring role on ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” as Carmelita, the mistress of Patrick Darling, a New York attorney general played by William Baldwin.

And from 2003 to 2006, transgender actress Alexandra Billings guest-starred on three series, including ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Billings played a married transgender woman about to have sex reassignment surgery. However, doctors discover she has breast cancer, and she’s told she must stop her female hormone therapy to treat the disease.

“When audiences see real gay and transgender people facing many of the same ups and downs as everybody else, it helps to change perceptions and break down stereotypes,” Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said in an e-mail.

“The casting of Isis on such a popular show offers a groundbreaking opportunity for a community that is historically underrepresented on television.”

In the CW network show, audiences saw not only how the slender, long-legged King fared on photo shoots and before judges, but also behind-the-scenes comments from some of her fellow contestants – including one who made a “drag queen” reference.

Viewers also got glimpses of how she’s transitioning from man to woman. A recent episode, for example, showed her injecting female hormones. King began the treatments last year and wants to have the expensive surgery – not undertaken by all transgender people – by her 25th birthday.

“I don’t believe the surgery will make me any more of a woman,” said King, who has been living as a woman since early last year. “I’ve always been that woman. But … it’s something I feel will complete me.”

King said she had a “pretty normal childhood” in Prince George’s County, Md. She attended church, and hung out at malls her senior year.

In high school, she took honors art classes and studied interior design, sculpture and fashion design. In her senior year, she said, she designed and sewed 24 outfits for a fashion show – and taught the models how to strut.

King moved on to the Art Institute of Philadelphia, where she earned an associate’s degree in fashion design. While in college, she confided in some female friends that she wanted to dress like a woman.

Just before her 21st birthday in 2006, she did – in her own creation, a pencil skirt with an off-the-shoulder black blouse. And she decided to move to New York to pursue a fashion career and formally transition into living as a woman.

“Mentally, I was ready, and that was the most powerful thing,” King said.

She told her mother – whom she describes as her best friend – of her plans.

“She wasn’t for it,” King said. “But I was already doing it.”

Once in New York, she legally changed her name, selecting “King” to honor her mother’s side of the family. She chose Isis as her first name, after the powerful Egyptian goddess.

But her mother didn’t take to it. She instead called her daughter “D,” for Darrell,

King also ran into obstacles in New York. The $4,500 she had saved to move to the city had dried up, and she needed help getting back on her feet. She moved into an apartment provided by The Ali Forney Center, an organization that serves homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

“Technically, I was homeless,” King said. “I just wasn’t living literally on the street.”

In late 2007, “America’s Next Top Model” filmed an episode in New York to raise awareness about homeless youth. The contestants modeled in street clothes and a handful of homeless youth donned couture, serving as extras in the shoot. King was one of them.

When Banks later scrutinized models’ photos for judging, “she kept on noticing Isis,” executive producer Ken Mok says. “And she said, ‘Who is that girl?’ ”

Earlier this year, “Top Model” found King and invited her to audition for the new season.

“I think the one message we always try to get out there, that Tyra always expresses, is you want to widen the spectrum of what is considered beautiful,” Mok says.

King says her main challenge on the show was being so vulnerable in front of millions.

“For the world to see my issues and my struggles as a person, with my whole transition – I think that was probably the toughest thing I had to endure,” she said.

King, who now lives in New Jersey, believes she has a future in fashion. She’s hopeful, too, about her family’s acceptance of her life.

On a recent visit to Maryland, King was playing with her younger brother when her mother called out to her.

There was no hesitation – she was no longer “D.”

For the first time, her mother called her Isis.