Playboy magazine features first transgender playmate after founder Hugh Hefner's death

Playboy magazine's latest issue features a transgender playmate - a first in the magazine's history.

This magazine is the first to hit newstand following the death of the magazine’s founder, Hugh Hefner and it features Ines Rau, a transwoman. The November/December 2017 issue see the 26-year-old model posing fully nude. Ines has been shot for the magazine before but this time around marks her debut as the first official transgender playmate, which means she will appear in a full pictorial and the iconic centrefold.

Ines is from Paris and is a successful fashion model, fronting campaigns for Balmain, appearing in Vogue Italia and commanding the catwalk at fashion weeks across the globe. She appeared in Playboy’s May 2014 issue in a special A-Z edition, which championed a more progressive understanding of gender as non-binary. 

Rau told Playboy she didn’t identify as transgender for a long time, confessing that she was afraid of never finding a partner or being perceived as "weird."

She added: "Then I was like, you know, you should just be who you are."

She continued: "It’s a salvation to speak the truth about yourself, whether it’s your gender, sexuality, whatever. The people who reject you aren’t worth it. It’s not about being loved by others; it’s about loving yourself."

Though Rau is the first official transgender playmate, she is not the first transgender model to appear in the magazine. Caroline "Tula" Cossey posed for Playboy in 1981, shortly before she appeared in the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only. One year later, it was revealed that Cossey was born a man; she posed for the magazine a second time in 1991.