Transgender models on magazine covers

A first for the German edition of Playboy: Reality television star and model Giuliana Farfalla made it to the cover of the magazine, published a week ahead of her appearance in the show "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!" The 21-year-old also appeared on "Germany's Next Top Model" in hopes to "encourage other transgender and transsexual people," she said.

Playboy's first-ever transgender model, Caroline "Tula" Cossey, starred in a pictorial feature in 1981 (the above picture shows her on a later cover, from the 1990s). She, too, was fighting for recognition transgender rights. Hugh Hefner's son Cooper, now the creative director of Playboy Enterprises, said featuring transgender models was "the right thing to do."

A trailblazer for the transgender community, Laverne Cox became the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine in 2014. Cox is known to a wider audience for her role as a trans woman prisoner, the hairdresser Sophia Burset, on the popular Netflix series "Orange is the New Black."

Featuring a nine-year-old transgender person on its cover, the January 2017 special issue looked at how young people from around the world, "old enough to have sage views on gender," are affected by gender issues. The issue also examined challenges for girls today — including anonymous bullying and body-shaming — and how "society makes a man."

Former Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner publicly announced the name change to Caitlyn and her identity as a trans woman in a July 2015 Vanity Fair cover story. She also starred in the docu-series "I Am Cait," which documented her gender transition and subsequent new life as a woman.

In July 2016, marathon runner Amelia Gapin was featured on the cover of Women's Running. "Being a transgender woman on the cover of a magazine dedicated to women says people like me are not just being seen, but being seen for who we are," she told the magazine in an interview. "It's a feeling of acceptance, inclusivity and being welcomed."

Featured on the cover of Elle UK in September 2016, US actor and model Hari Nef would rather not be defined by gender. "'In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to change my body," she told the magazine. "I wouldn't have to do all this stuff, I wouldn't have to be pretty, or 'feminine' and people would respect that."

Vogue Paris put a transgender model on its cover for the first time in March 2017: Brazil's Valentina Sampaio. "The day when a transsexual poses for a magazine cover and it will be no longer necessary to write an editorial on the subject, we will know that the fight has been won," said the fashion magazine's editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt.

Muscle-packed arms, a six-pack and a beard: Ben Melzer, the first openly male transgender model to star on the cover of Men's Health, also hopes he can change attitudes. He underwent the change from woman to man at age 23. He's now, he says, "the person I always wanted to be." He wants to be an example for others who feel they were "born in the wrong body," adding, "it is 100 percent worth it."