Meet Victoria’s Secret’s First Openly Transgender Model

Transgender models are becoming increasingly prevalent

She's the first transgender model to be hired by Victoria’s Secret. Valentina Sampaio announced the news on Instagram. Never stop dreaming gentee. Sampaio was born in Aquiraz, Brazil, on December 10, 1996. In 2017, she made herself known by becoming the first transgender model to make the cover of Vogue Paris. “Where I grew up…I grew up in the northeast region of Brazil, in the State of Ceará. I was protected there, in that little place where everyone knows and respects each other,” Sampaio says.

Transgender models are becoming increasingly prevalent. After playing a young trans woman in the series Pose, Indya Moore was the first transgender woman to make the cover of Elle magazine in May 2019. She has also worked for Louis Vuitton and L’Oréal. There isn’t a lot of representation for gender variant or trans people, so anywhere I go, I’m always showing up in the best way that I can because visibility is important, and people need to be able to see people like them in these spaces.

Laverne Cox also plays a trans woman in the series Orange Is the New Black. In 2018, she was the first transgender woman to make the cover of Cosmopolitan. She is also an icon for defending sexual minorities. “I’m proud, I think we’re at an important stage, where fashion is an instrument that enables things to happen more easily. It’s a time when we’re debating, we’re talking about it, so that in the future, we can free ourselves from these labels, from these prejudices that control human beings. “This idea that gender is binary is really difficult for a lot of people. It’s really challenging for a lot of people, for trans people that are here, who’ve been here for a really long time. So, that requires a different kind of thinking to really acknowledge our existence,” concludes Cox.

Brut.