A 'queen' called King

“Don’t call her a ‘he’,” the lady named Noel Burton, scriptwriter of a foreign-produced indie titled Hello Forever, reminded me before I interviewed Isis King. “She will get upset.”

So it’s a “she” and a “her,” all right since you couldn’t and shouldn’t address her any other way.

“I am a woman and I’ve always felt like one since I was a kid because I was born a woman trapped in a man’s body,” confirmed Isis, a transvestite/transsexual who is playing a woman forced into prostitution in the indie that has been shooting here for three weeks now. “Three years ago,” said Isis, “I decided to undergo a sex-change operation and I’ve never been happier.”

A native of Prince George County, Maryland, USA, Isis is a graduate of the Arts Institute of Philadelphia, major in Fashion Design. She moved to New York to start a career in modeling. In 2007, she was introduced to the world via the MSNBC documentary titled Born In The Wrong Body: On The Edge which tackled the cases of transgendered individuals.

Tyra Banks, star-producer of America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), was impressed when she saw Isis at a Cycle 10 photo shoot for ANTM. Isis passed an audition for the show’s Cycle 11 and was soon competing with other mostly female Supermodel hopefuls. The first woman of transgender experience to compete in ANTM, Isis proved to be a head-turner from the start.

“There was no deception at all,” clarified Isis who is as willowy as you can get, looking even more a woman than those born women, from the way she walked to the way she talked, swing her curly tresses away from her made-up face and sit with her shapely legs daintily crossed. “Miss Tyra and the other people involved in the show knew about my background. I was already a complete woman when I joined the show and I loved it,” and so did ANTM followers as shown by their vote of approval.

Born a man, Isis King is now every inch a woman after undergoing a sex change. A contestant on Tyra Bank’s America’s Next Top Model, she stars with (from left) Jennifer Blair-Bianco, Sam Booc and Rebecca Khoo in Hello Forever, a low-budget indie which tackles prostitution and human trafficking.

Produced on a shoestring budget of $60,000, Hello Forever is produced by an American married to a Filipina who plays the main character. It’s directed by Peter Kirk. Isis, who said she has done stage plays and short films, is making her “full-length” debut as a transvestite who visits the Philippines to trace her roots (in the story, her mother is a Filipina) and ends up in prostitution.

Told that the movie is dealing with a delicate and therefore controversial subject, scriptwriter Burton said yes, it does.

“Did you know that the Philippines has the highest number of prostitutes and cases of human trafficking?” she disclosed. “The record is even worse than that of Thailand.”

That’s why they decided to shoot   vital scenes here.

“I love this country,” said Isis. “It’s my first visit here and I find it gender-friendly, unlike America which has a prejudice against transgenders.”

By this time, Hello Forever must have been put to can. Scriptwriter Burton said that it will be shown here in July next year simultaneously with Australia and the US. 

“We’re also planning to show it in international film festivals,” she added.

With a controversial subject and a transvestite/transsexual cast in a major role, the movie just might make people sit up and take notice.

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Help Isabella win slot in Tourism Queen tilt

Help 2011 Bb. Pilipinas-Tourism Isabella Manjon win in the Internet popularity contest that will qualify her to advance to the semi-final round by casting your online vote through the Miss Tourism Queen International online-voting engine http://www.misstqi.com/vote.php. Now in Xian, China, Isabella is competing with 104 delegates for the crown at grand finals set for Dec. 27 at the Quijang International Exhibition Center.  — Reported by Celso  DE Guzman Caparas

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