Kai-Isaiah Jamal: ‘The Conservative party is trans cleansing — if we lie down we let them win’
It’s a drizzly November morning in Primrose Hill when Kai-Isaiah Jamal, the 27 year-old Croydon-born model, poet and activist, saunters into Sam’s Café. Their slender 5ft 9½in stature is bundled into a hoodie, and their make-up free skin gleams as they remove a bucket hat and sink into a corner booth. “I love winter, because I can put a coat on and people finally stop questioning my gender,” they say, grinning gently.
Jamal, who came out as a trans man in 2014 and now eschews gender binaries, has enjoyed a fast rise to prominence. They secured their debut solo cover for i-D magazine in 2020 and became the first black trans model to walk for Louis Vuitton in 2021, when the late creative director Virgil Abloh lauded them as “the voice of their generation”.
They have since featured on covers for Vogue, Elle and ES Magazine, been a familiar face on the catwalks of Burberry, Mugler and Off White, and were nominated for Model of the Year — a title once bestowed upon fellow Croydon original Kate Moss, as well as Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid and Cara Delevingne.
