Ines Rau named first transgender Playmate

Ines Rau is Playboy magazine’s first transgender Playmate, appearing in the marquee spot of the magazine’s November/December issue, which will be available Oct. 31.

The 26-year-old French fashion model first appeared in the magazine’s May, 2014 issue in a feature exploring gender identity titled “Evolution.”

Playboy’s newest Playmate is not the first transgender woman to appear in the magazine. The model Caroline “Tula” Cossey was featured in the September, 1991 issue.

The forthcoming issue of Playboy will be a tribute to the magazine’s legendary founder Hugh Hefner, who died last month at age 91. In announcing Rau as the next issue’s Playmate, the 64-year-old magazine sought to counter any criticism by comparing the choice of Rau to other controversies it has faced in the past. The magazine issued a series of tweets about the reaction it received after choosing its first black Playmate in 1965. fled, police said. The suspected assailant, a local German already known to police for theft and other offenses, was arrested a few hours later.

No one was seriously hurt in the attack that started at about 8.30 a.m. in the Haidhausen area, east of downtown Munich. Police said they believe it was not a terror attack; they suspect instead that the assailant had psychological problems.

The lone attacker apparently went after passers-by indiscriminately with a knife, police said. He attacked eight people in all, including a 12-year-old child, at different sites. They mainly had superficial stab wounds and in at least one case had been hit.