Watch: Busting the transgender barrier, one model at a time

New York (United States): Dusty Rose has spent an entire year trying to become a model. Thwarted at every turn, she finally got a lucky break in the form of Peche Di, founder of an exclusively transgender modeling agency.

The 19-year-old trans woman born and raised in the conservative southern state of Alabama jumped for joy when she discovered the agency, founded in March 2015, through Instagram.

“I thought, ‘oh my God, this is kind of why I came to New York, to meet people like this!’” says the six foot one (1.85 meter) wannabe model, dressed in jeans, pink sneakers and a strappy black vest top.

While some transgender models have found success, such as Brazil’s Valentina Sampaio, who graced the cover of French Vogue in February, or Andreja Pejic who walked this New York Fashion Week, they continue to face a wall of prejudice.

It’s a problem even in ultra liberal New York, where trans people are more widely accepted than elsewhere in the US, says Dusty, who started her transition at the age of 15 when still in high school.

“The first day me and my mom came up here, someone screamed ‘faggot’ at me and my mom was like ‘my gosh this is New York, this is not supposed to happen here.’ And I just said, ‘oh it happens everywhere’.”

Since moving to the Big Apple, she has been working in a hair salon.

‘Don’t want this one touching me’ 

“There are clients sometimes saying, ‘I don’t want this one doing my hair’, ‘I don’t want this one touching me’: Not even ‘her’ or ‘him’, just ’this one’ – that kind of bothers me,” she says.

Dusty says she once had to ask a client to leave.

Before meeting Peche, 27, she had sent her resume to modeling agencies each time introducing herself as a young trans woman from Alabama.

All to no avail.

“Expectations are definitely higher because you are battling a lot of physical attributes that go along with being trans,” she explains.

“You have to be smaller or you have to be skinnier. If you are trans you are typically bigger, you just can’t help it… and then being too masculine and not feminine.”

“I mean I’ve had photographers tell me ’no no no, we only need female models’ and I was just like ‘oh! ok!’”

President Donald Trump’s recent decision to ban transgenders from the military hasn’t helped.

“He’s showing the country, ‘I’m the president, I can treat people like this, so can you. So now there’s so much more aggression and just outward hatred,” she said. People “feel like it’s ok.”

Peche, a fellow trans woman, immediately put Dusty at ease when they first met, at a recent photo shoot in a Greenwich Village studio.

Peche, who migrated from Thailand, went through similarly difficult experiences in setting up Trans Models, one of the first modeling agencies in the world to specialize in the transgender market.

Today she represents 19 models, most of them women but some men, as well as clients who consider themselves neither male nor female.

“Of course I see the progress,” says Peche when assessing the 10 years since she first began modeling in Thailand. “Trans models have become a thing right now, but before it was not accepted.”

Trump outrage

She proudly reels off campaigns for big brands such as Nike, Mercedes-Benz, Smirnoff and L’Oreal Paris, which made Hari Nef a campaign spokeswoman in the United States.

But when she talks about the US president, she chokes up. “It is horrifying,” she says. “I felt the government is not accepting of us. How are we going to survive?”

Peche, who disguised her entire childhood her desire to be a woman, also set up dating app “Teadate” after Tinder blocked transgenders, and which already has 25,000 users.

For New York Fashion Week, which ends Wednesday, her aim is to get more castings and ultimately get her models on the runway.

In the longer term, she hopes to book trans men and women for campaigns advertising body lotion, shampoo and body wash, believing it would be “very inspiring” to see trans people on the screen.

“Not completely naked but partially,” she says, to show off their natural beauty.

And Dusty’s dream? One day being a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Only one of the most competitive, prestigious gigs in the US modeling firmament.