PLAYB-O-Y: Playboy To Feature Transgender Centerfold

Playboy is making some major waves... 

For the first time in its 64-year history, Playboy magazine will feature a transgender centerfold. Cooper Hefner, the son of founder Hugh Hefner and a top executive at the magazine, said on Thursday this decision is keeping with its founding mission of embracing changing attitudes about sex.

French model, Ines Rau, will appear as the November centerfold in the first issue since the death of Hugh Hefner, Cooper Hefner’s father and the magazine’s founder. Selecting Ms. Rau “very much speaks to the brand’s philosophy,” said Mr. Hefner. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving.”

Although Rau has graced the pages of Vogue learning she was going to have the Playboy cover brought her to tears. “It was a compliment like I’ve never had,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of beautiful compliments from gentlemen before, but this one really made me feel very special, beautiful and feminine. I was speechless.”

Of course, there was some resistance to the decision… 

“I’ve seen a lot of hateful comments,” Ms. Rau said. “I would have never thought about people being so transphobic. I knew we still had a lot of work to do to get to a point where people see trans women as women, but I would have never thought of that.”

  

Some commenters on social media insisted that Hugh Hefner would never have allowed a transgender woman to appear in his magazine. But in addition to the fact that Ms. Rau was selected months before his death, her appearance is not the first time Playboy has featured a transgender woman in its pages — nor is it even her furst appearance in the magazine. The May 2014 issue came with a special section called Playboy A-Z that featured her fully nude for a spread titled Evolution.

The girl is absolutely stunning ...I'm sure she is going to slay! The Playboy brand has always about tastefully displaying the evolution of sexuality and making a statement that sexy transcends past the "politically correct norms".