Model Kai-Isaiah Jamal is dedicated to breaking down barriers and flinging open closed-door minds as a trans-visibility campaigner. The important voice in fashion world is styled by Julia Sarr-Jamois in ‘Call Me By My Name’, lensed by Alasdair McLellan [IG] ./ Hair by Anthony Turner; makeup by Hiromi Ueda

The British Vogue September 2021 issue online headline seemed a bit pretentious — “I’m So Adamant On Being That Visibility Now”: Kai-Isaiah Jamal On Becoming The Voice of A Generation.”

Seconds later, AOC remembered a late January Highsnobiety ‘Not in Paris’ fashion story that we adored deeply. It was days after Jamal [IG] made history by walking Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton runway show as the first Black trans model. Then #62 on the Dazed 100, the influential voice became London ICA’s (Institute of Contemporary Art) first poet in residence, using the platform to make poetry accessible for young POC and LGBTQI+ people

In fact, it’s Virgil Abloh, menswear artistic director of Louis Vuitton, who says “Kai is the voice of a generation.” So scratch the pretentious comment. Bad Anne.

Abloh explains further his decision to cast them in his shows and campaigns.

“They’re someone who grew up in a world that, at times, was not always welcoming or kind. Through all of the challenges they’ve faced, they’ve remained optimistic and have dedicated themself to making sure the status quo is different for those who follow them. They offer themself to us all as a conductor of change. To me, they are a living personification of our time – how far we’ve come, and how far we can still go.”

Abloh is referring to Kai-Isaiah Jamal’s decision to exist outside the gender binary confinement of being male or female. “I have no gender,” says Kai, who chooses to self-present as masculine one day and feminine the next.

Kai credits the 2005 documentary ‘The Aggressives’, depicting the lives of a group of masculine-presenting lesbians, as being very influential. “I saw this one guy, Marquise Vilsón, in the film and thought, ‘I feel represented by you.’ To see someone living in this masculine way but with this tenderness; without a fear of femininity. That felt really definitive… and that’s why I’m so adamant on being that visibility now, because there hasn’t been that representation.”

“Black liberation is nothing without trans liberation”. “It was incredible –a real full-circle moment,” they reflect. “Kai truly felt, ‘Now you see me.’”

At first, their parents struggled with Kai’s self-revelation. The greatest growth has come from their father — to such an extent that father joined child, walking alongside Kai at a Black Lives Matter 2020 march. holding a placard reading “Black liberation is nothing without trans liberation”. “It was incredible –a real full-circle moment,” they reflect. “Kai truly felt, ‘Now you see me.’”