CLOSE Ines Rau has posed for the magazine before. Time 
 
 Ines Rau is Playboy's first transgender Playmate. (Photo: Derek Kettela) 
 
 Playboy will feature a transgender Playmate in its November issue, the magazine announced Wednesday. 
 
 French model Ines Rau, 26, will be the centerfold in the first issue to publish since Playboy's founder Hugh Hefner died in September. 
 
 While many women pose nude in the magazine, there is only one Playmate each month, who is featured as the centerfold. Rau is no stranger to the magazine, and previously posed fully nude in a May 2014 issue. 
 
 In a statement, Rau said the 2014 spread was how she celebrated coming out as transgender. 
 
 “I lived a long time without saying I was transgender,” Rau said in a statement. “I dated a lot and almost forgot. I was scared of never finding a boyfriend and being seen as weird. Then I was like, 'you know, you should just be who you are. It’s a salvation to speak the truth about yourself, whether it’s your gender, sexuality, whatever.'" 
 
 And while Rau is the first transgender playmate, she is not the first transgender woman to appear in a pictorial in the magazine. In 1991, Bond Girl Caroline “Tula” Cossey, who is transgender, posed for the magazine. 
 
 Rau, who hopes to fight for a slew of issues ranging from LGBTQ rights to battling global warming, said she had a feeling someday she would be able to achieve a better life. 
 
 “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,” she says. “I don’t know how to explain it. A little voice was telling me, ‘You’ll see. Patience.’ ” 
 
 Cooper Hefner, Playboy's chief creative officer, told the New York Times that choosing Rau as the Playmate "speaks to the brand's philosophy." 
 
 “It’s the right thing to do," Hefner told the Times. "We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving.” 
 
 While Hefner stands behind his decision, the reaction from fans on social media was mixed. Many praised Rau's beauty, but others accused the magazine of using the model as a marketing ploy and "pushing" their agenda down readers throats. 
 
 More: 'Playboy' founder Hugh Hefner dies at 91 
 
 More: With Hugh Hefner gone, here's the future for the Playboy Mansion 
 
 CLOSE Inside the historic Playboy Mansion, there are six lavish bedrooms, a pool, a tennis court and even zoo facilities. Even after Hugh Hefner's death, it's clear, the property will continue to be a prominent Los Angeles location. USA TODAY 
 
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 For the first time in its 64-year history, Playboy magazine will feature a transgender Playmate, a decision that Cooper Hefner, a top executive at the magazine, said on Thursday was in keeping with its founding mission of embracing changing attitudes about sex. 
 
 The French model Ines Rau, 26, will appear as the November centerfold in the first issue since the death of Hugh Hefner, Mr. Hefner’s father and the magazine’s founder. 
 
 Selecting Ms. Rau “very much speaks to the brand’s philosophy,” said Mr. Hefner, 26, Playboy’s chief creative officer. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving.” 
 
 Mr. Hefner said he selected Ms. Rau to be a Playmate two months ago because she’s “lovely” and has “a remarkable personality,” but also to resolidify the magazine’s voice. “This is really a moment for us to take a step back and say that so much of what the brand stood for in the early years is very much still alive in culture.” 

 LONDON — Men's magazine Playboy has featured its first ever transgender "playmate" centerfold in its November issue, a move which the model hopes will pave the way for “all women — trans or otherwise — in fashion and other sectors.” 
 
 Ines Rau, a French fashion model who was featured nude in a 2014 issue of Playboy and has previously worked with Balmain and Vogue Italia, is the first transgender model to appear as a centerfold 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 to the 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 less than nothing.” 
 
 The Playboy feature comes as transgender models are becoming increasingly visible in fashion brands and media. In March the French edition of Vogue featured a transgender model for the first time on its cover, as did Marie Claire Spain in 2016. 
 
 In August French cosmetics giant L‘Oreal hired is first transgender model, Munroe Bergdorf, to front an advertising campaign celebrating diversity. It sacked her days later after she described "all white people" as racist on Facebook. 
 
 Rau said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, an outspoken supporter of civil rights, had personally chosen her to be the magazine’s first transgender playmate before he died at the age of 91 in September, and “told me he was very proud of me.” 
 
 “The messages of encouragement I’ve received from people have been amazing, although I‘m still told by some that I'm ugly and should never be allowed in Playboy,” she said in a phone interview on Thursday. 
 
 Rights groups celebrated the feature as a positive step bringing LGBTQ 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 to speak out on the rights of trans people everywhere,” said a spokesman for LGBTQ 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, not 500 surgeries later.” 
 
 “There will always be trolls,” said Rau. “But if I can help others to love themselves then it’s worth it.” 
 
 While Rau is the first official transgender "playmate," she is not the first openly trans woman to pose for Playboy. That distinction belongs to Caroline "Tula" Cossey. 
 
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– The November issue of Playboy will be the first published since Hugh Hefner's death in September, but it's getting attention for an entirely different first: the magazine's first transgender playmate, USA Today reports. Ines Rau, 26, will appear nude as the November issue's centerfold. The French model told the New York Times that being named a Playboy playmate "was a compliment like I've never had." She says she "cried of happiness" posing for the magazine while "thinking of being this little lonely boy in the ghetto." Cooper Hefner says featuring a transgender playmate "very much speaks to the brand's philosophy," calling it "the right thing to do." "So much of what the brand stood for in the early years is very much still alive," the son of Hugh Hefner says. The online reaction to Rau being made a playmate has been mixed at best. She says she was caught off guard by some of the transphobic comments the news has gotten, with some people claiming Hugh Hefner would never have allowed a transgender model in the magazine. That's wrong on a number of counts. "Bond girl" Caroline Cossey posed nude for Playboy in 1991, becoming the magazine's first transgender model. And Rau actually posed nude in the magazine in 2014 before now becoming its first transgender playmate (there is just one playmate per issue, featured in the centerfold). She tells Reuters that Hugh Hefner chose her for the honor himself, telling her "he was very proud of me." Meanwhile, Playboy is comparing the negative reactions to Rau to the negative response it received in 1965 after featuring its first black playmate.