Givenchy transgender ads and stories

I try very hard to try not to be  "to gay" for my readers, that there is more to me and my thinking and my life than my sexual prefernce.  With that said there are times that I feel when the right story comes along, that story needs to be told.  G-d bless Givenchy for what they are doing with the transgender/sexually ambigious ads, in my opinion its about time somebody does!  I love the ads and love Givenchy and Riccardo Tisci for doing it.

Fashion is so very often criticized for its non-inclusive nature, especially when it comes to models who walk the runway. They are so often one type: white and impossibly skinny. So much so that the modeling arena is bashed and very often for promoting unattainable ideals to women.  Though plus-size and non-white models may be getting more exposure lately, Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci calls attention to another group of society oft overlooked by fashion with his current fall campaign, in which he cast his longtime transgender personal assistant Lea T. Lea T. used to be "Leo" and is transitioning careers into veterinary medicine.
She appears alongside nine other models in the ad campaign.  WWD reports:
“She’s always been very feminine: superfragile, very aristocratic,” Tisci enthused of the former Mr. T. “She’s part of the family,” he said... Tisci explained that including a transgender person exemplifies the masculine-feminine dichotomy that has become one of his design signatures and follows co-ed casting for his Paris runway last March.

Progress that the masses weren't even clamoring for! Progress I am sure that many will have much to say something about, including but not limited to radicals on both sides of the fence. However, Tisci is not the first person to embrace transgender models. Tyra Banks made a public show of it for a brief period, casting a transgender model for America's Next Top Model and then gifting gender-reassignment surgery on her talk show. If only that stuff had seemed more organic.

 The very current Fall's Givenchy campaign was made all the more buzzworthy when designer Riccardo Tisci cast his transgender personal assistant, Lea T., to appear in the ads alongside nine other models, and of all ten faces, French Vogue chose to highlight her with a nude portrait that appears in next month's issue (August Issue).
 
Prior to this shot breaking, Lea T. modeled in Givenchy's haute couture show this month and posed, privates covered, for last month's (June Issue) Italian Vanity Fair.  By the way if one of my readers has the Italian Vanity Fair Issue I am speaking of I would love to have it and would be MORE than willing to pay for it!
 
Below for those interested in seeing the story, be forewarned there is female upper nudity (exposed breasts) and her "lower" is partially covered with her hand.  So the photograph is not for everyone.