Çağla Akalın

Çağla Akalın — Biography

Çağla Akalın was born on 17 June 1990 in Istanbul and is a Turkish actress, model, singer and human rights advocate. She became Turkey's first transgender beauty-pageant titleholder at the 2013 Miss Queen contest and is regarded as the country's first transgender model; in a 2013 interview with Hürriyet she explained that she took her first name from model Çağla Şıkel and her surname from singer Demet Akalın.

With the leading role in the 2015 film Köpek, she became Turkey's first transgender actress to headline a film, and alongside acting she has also worked as a newspaper columnist and singer. In May 2021 it was reported that a program she had appeared in on the Exxen platform was pulled by Turkey's broadcasting watchdog RTÜK, which also fined the platform.

She has continued her career on stage as well, appearing in the new season of the Jemile Cabaret production in the autumn of 2025.