A French model named Ines Rau will be the first transgender woman to become a Playboy Playmate, featured in the November/December issue of the men’s magazine hitting newsstands on Halloween, People reported Thursday.
Ms. Rau will get the customary pictorial and centerfold, but won’t grace the cover of the “Collector’s Edition,” the first to be published since the passing of founder Hugh Hefner.
A close-up, black-and-white profile shot of Hefner dominates the cover instead and marks the first time Playboy has not included a woman in the cover photo, People noted.
This is not Ms. Rau’s first time in the pages of Playboy. According to People, she was featured in a May 2014 pictorial, a pivotal moment in her decision to come out as transgender.
“It’s how I celebrated my coming out, actually. … I took that chance, and then I signed with an agency,” she said, People reported.
According to Playboy’s official Twitter account, English model Caroline “Tula” Cossey, was the first transgender woman to pose nude in the magazine, in September 1991. Ms. Cossey, however, was not officially a Playboy Playmate, and was born intersex, possessing the XXXY genotype rather than XX, according to the News of Australia.
The issue is available for download online at the magazine’s website, and will be available in print on Oct. 31.
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