Playboy's 1st transgender Playmate hopes to 'pave way for all women'

Ines Rau, a French fashion model who was featured nude in a2014 issue of Playboy and has previously worked with Balmain andVogue Italia, is the first transgender model to appear as acenterfold in the magazine's 64-year history.

"Every woman's beauty deserves to be celebrated," Rau, 26,told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in her first interview tothe media about the feature.

"No one deserves to be a woman more than those [trans women]who routinely suffer abuse and are treated like they're lessthan nothing."

The Playboy feature comes as transgendermodels are becoming increasingly visible in fashion brands and media. In March theFrench edition of Vogue featured a transgender model for thefirst time on its cover, as did Marie Claire Spain in 2016.

In August French cosmetics giant L'Oreal hired is firsttransgender model, Munroe Bergdorf, to front an advertisingcampaign celebrating diversity. It sacked her days later aftershe described all white people as racist on Facebook.

Rau said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, an outspoken supporterof civil rights, had personally chosen her to be the magazine'sfirst transgender playmate before he died at the age of 91 inSeptember, and "told me he was very proud of me."

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"The messages of encouragement I've received from peoplehave been amazing, although I'm still told by some that I'm uglyand should never be allowed in Playboy," she said in a phoneinterview on Thursday.

Rights groups celebrated the feature as a positive stepbringing LGBT rights into the spotlight.

"Trans women are women. That is not up for debate, by media commentators or anyone else. We applaud Ines for continuing tospeak out on the rights of trans people everywhere," said aspokesman for LGBT charity Stonewall.

The decision to feature Rau sparked debate on social media,with one man commenting on the magazine's Facebook page that"this was the last straw, sorry but I like my women real, not500 surgeries later."

"There will always be trolls," said Rau. "But if I can helpothers to love themselves then it's worth it."

While Rau's Playmate status is a milestone moment, Caroline (Tula) Cossey, who had a bit part in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only, was the first trans woman to ever appear in any Playboy pictorial, having done so in 1981 and 1991.