For the first time in the history of the Playboy magazine, this year's November edition will feature a transgender playmate. The announcement was made by the official Playboy Twitter handle and was captioned "Being a woman is just being a woman," Meet November 2017 Playmate Ines Rau, the first transgender Playmate." The tweet introduced the model along with her picture. According to the New York Times, the decision - taken by Cooper Hefner - was in keeping with the founding mission of the magazine, which is "embracing changing attitudes about sex". The 26-year-old French model, who has appeared in Italian Vogue, American Vogue and a Balmain campaign, will feature on the November centrefold, the first edition of the magazine after Hugh Hefner's death. The moves comes just weeks after the death of founder, who died on September 27 and the November issue also pays a tribute to him. However, this isn't the first time the transgender model has appeared on the magazine. In May 2014, Rau featured fully nude for a spread titled 'Evolution', on a special section of called 'Playboy A-Z'. The magazine's move to introduce a transgender model as a playmate indicates a positive move towards an inclusive environment for all. However, the tweet received a series of mixed response. While, some understood the decision of the magazine and Hefner Jr, others felt that had the late founder been alive, such a feature would never have taken place. While, Rau is the first transgender playmate, the magazine has featured other transgender models like Caroline (Tula) Cossey before. Not every model, who features on the magazine, is considered a playmate. Only those, who appear on the centerfold, get that distinction. The founder Hugh Hefner died shortly ago, and based his company off of women. He named it Playboy for a reason. Not Gayboy — BEAST(XB1) (@XxCrazyBEAST2xX) October 18, 2017 Hugh would never let this bullshit happen — A Jev Fan (@yaboiitakota) October 18, 2017 So we pretend obvious biological inaccuracies are fundamental truths to satisfy individual desires to identify as a different sex? Er. No. — Rachel (@racybearhold) October 20, 2017 Gross how are y’all gonna disrespect Hugh like this — Joe Is slept on😴 (@JoeVersion2) October 18, 2017 Aaaaand goodbye irrelevant magazine. That was your last act?! Fool heterosexual males into gawking at a confused man? — My cat Justin (@achesondesign) October 19, 2017
