TV beauty show America's Next Top Model's first ever transgender contestant Isis King was eliminated in the episode screened yesterday on TV3, but the hit show's host Tyra Banks says she'll make sure there's a happy ending for her after all. Trans top model contestant: Isis King Banks surprised the 22-year-old by announcing that she's arranged free sex reassignment surgery for her. King - who was born Darrell Walls - had yet to have the surgery because she was unable to afford the US$20,000 to $35,000 (NZ$29,000 to $50,000) price tag. "This is not happening!" she cried when Banks told her the news. "[I feel] like I'm about to wake up." She's scheduled to have the surgery performed and paid for by Dr. Marci Bowers, a gender reassignment surgeon who has experienced the surgery herself. The first transgendered contestant in the show's history, King was the fifth girl eliminated from the eleventh series of America's Next Top Model, broadcast last year in the States. "I look at it like yes, I'm the first transgender contestant, but okay, let's move past it now," she later told Us magazine. "I'm just a woman trying to compete just like everyone else." King had previously stated she felt like she was "born physically male" but "everything else was female" - a sentiment she reiterated over her America's Next Top Model journey. "It's hard. I try not to think about it because it is something I'm really passionate about. I feel like I really was born in the wrong body, and it's just the one thing that makes me feel uncomfortable," she explains. America's Next Top Model continues on TV3 each Friday at 7:30pm.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Saturday, 5th September 2009 - 5:43pm