Playboy Features its First Transgender Playmate

In the upcoming November/December issue of Playboy, the magazine will feature it’s first transgender playmate, Ines Rau.  The publication featured the 26-year-old French model back in 2014, but this time around she received the playmate treatment, with a pictorial and centerfold.

“Being a woman is just being a woman,” Rau told Playboy in her interview.  She admitted that she did not identify as transgender for quite some time, but now that she does, she feels at peace. “It’s a salvation to speak the truth about yourself, whether it’s your gender, sexuality, whatever,” Rau continued. “The people who reject you aren’t worth it. It’s not about being loved by others; it’s about loving yourself. I always knew from within, when I was a little kid in my room in the ghetto, that a beautiful destiny was waiting for me,” Rau added. “I don’t know how to explain it. A little voice was telling me, ‘You’ll see. Patience.’” 

Don’t get it twisted; Rau may be the first transgender Playboy playmate, but the magazine featured a transgender model for the first time back in the 80’s.  In 1981, Caroline “Tula” Cossey posed for Playboy.  She also had a role in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only in the same year, but both of these appearances happened before Cossey came out publicly as transgender. She was outed without her consent in1982, but nevertheless posed for and appeared in Playboy again almost a decade later in 1991.

In addition, the issue will also feature a special tribute to Hugh Hefner, who dies a few weeks ago.