Model Called Out For Transphobic Comments And Lying About Being Transgender

A model is facing backlash for lying about being transgender following transphobic comments she made.

Carissa Pinkston is well-known as one of #Rihanna’s Fenty models, but this past week she made headlines for lying about being transgender after being called out for saying Trans women aren’t real women.

On July 23, screenshots from a Facebook user named Rissa Danielle began circulating through social media. Eventually, it was revealed that the screenshots were from Pinkston’s own account. In the post, the model wrote, “Being Transgender does NOT make you a Woman. It makes you simply transgender.” She continued, “Being Transgender does not make you a woman in a Transgender context according to gender and sex. This is how they want to be perceived. In a biological context, there are Females and Males. This is the world in 2019.” 

According to Paper, Pinkston also compared Trans women to pedophiles.

Pinkston went Live on Instagram with the sound muted, and afterwards sent a statement detailing she’d been fired from her agency. She then claimed that she was transgender herself. “I wasn’t ready to come about it yet, but today I got fired, and I’ve been receiving hate mail and death threats ever since so I’m being forced to tell the truth,” she wrote. “I’m Transgender. I transitioned at a very young age, and I’ve lived my Life as a female ever since.” She continued, saying it was “very hard to keep this a secret” and what she said was a “direct reflection of my inner insecurities.” “I have since come to realize that I am a Woman. WE ALL ARE!” she concluded.

But Pinkston’s friend #AleeceWilson confronted the model by commenting that she didn’t believe Pinkston’s statement. “I’m not understanding how she got SRS [sex reassignment surgery] at a very young age or when she started hormone replacements,” Wilson said.  “I’ve seen baby pictures of Carissa, I’ve seen her fully naked, I’ve been around this woman long enough to fully know her,” Wilson mentioned that the two have several Trans friends so the conversation would have come up at some point. “But she’s lying about being transgender,” Wilson said with a shrug emoji.

Not too long after, Pinkston took to Instagram in another post apologizing for her hurtful remarks, in which she admitted to lying about being Trans gender. “I panicked and I thought if I came out as Trans that I could somehow make things better for myself but it appears I’ve only made things worse,” she wrote. “I’m truly sorry. I’m only 20 and I’m human. I make mistakes but I refuse to let them define me. I hope you all can forgive me and move on from this because I’m so much more than this incident and I’m not a coward.”

On July 30, Pinkston, once again, opened up about the incident. She said she felt “like a trans person in a way” because she was bullied in high school. “I’m taking full responsibility for what I said,” she told Buzzfeed, however, she denied that she said she was Trans to cover up the transphobic  comments. “It was never to avoid any backlash, but I did panic,” she said. “And I do know what it’s like to be bullied and picked on for being different. And I wanted to fit in a community. Just in that moment, I didn’t know what to do.” She said she was receiving “death threats,” and claimed saying she was Trans was her only option.