Sports Illustrated: The prettiest women are MEN

Everywhere you look these days, the transgender movement is sending the culture a message: Anything girls can do, biological men identifying as girls can do better. Trans athletes are killing it at track meets. They’re breaking heads in mixed martial arts. They’re destroying in wrestling matches. They’re winning beauty pageants. One of them even won Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year. 

Now, a transgender model has landed the cornerstone of the male soft-core porn industry: the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. One a lowbrow mag found largely in the lockers of teenage boys – this is before ubiquitous digital porn made the photo spreads seem quaint – Sports Illustrated, too, has gone woke. The swimsuit issue this year is titled “Opening Eyes, Speaking Truths and Changing Minds” and features three covers, one with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, one with tennis star Naomi Osaka, and one with transgender activist Leyna Bloom (a man). 

This isn’t the first time Sports Illustrated has featured a transgender person – that distinction belongs to Valentina Sampaio, a post-op Brazilian man identifying as female. Like Bloom, he very much looks female. Surgery, cosmetic alterations, and airbrushing have ensured that these men – unlike most men identifying as women – actually look quite female.  

These days, it seems like “trans women” break several new glass ceilings every week. Bloom posted the cover to Instagram, stating that: “This moment heals a lot of pain in the world. We deserve this moment and we have waited millions of years to show up as survivors and be seen as full humans filled with wonder.” Of course, nobody is saying trans people aren’t people – we’re saying men cannot become women and women cannot become men. As for “millions of years,” this movement is brand new. 

Bloom went on:  

"I’m so happy, honored, and humbled to share that I’m the first trans woman to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated! I have dreamt a million beautiful dreams but for girls like me, most dreams are just fanciful hopes in a world that often erases and omits our history and even existence. 

This moment is so powerful because it allows me to live forever even after my physical form is gone. Not a lot of people get to live in the future, so at this moment, I’m proudly choosing to live forever. I dedicate this cover to all ballroom femme queens past, present and future.

"This historical moment is important to girls like us because it allows us to live and be seen. Many girls like us don’t have the chance to live our dreams, or to live long at all. 

"I hope my cover empowers those, who are struggling to be seen, feel valued. Let me be a messenger guiding us to a future of respect and appreciation for all women in all forms and from all walks of life."

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