Valentina Sampaio

Valentina Sampaio (born 10 December 1996) is a Brazilian model and actress. She became Victoria's Secret's first openly transgender model in August 2019, and became the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue's first openly transgender model in 2020. Valentina was born in a fishing village in Aquiraz, Ceará, which is in Northeastern Brazil. Her mother is a schoolteacher and her father is a fisherman. At eight years of age, her psychologist identified her as transgender, but she did not start calling herself Valentina until she was 12. She has said in many interviews that she was not bullied for her gender identification. A 2017 New York Times profile of Sampaio mentioned that her parents "were always supportive and are very proud" of her, and her classmates were also very accepting because she said that "they already saw me as a little girl." Sampaio initially studied architecture in Fortaleza, but she dropped out at 16 to study fashion. It was there that a makeup artist discovered her and signed her with a São Paulo modeling agency.