Tatler becomes first Russian glossy to feature trans cover star
11 March 2020
Text:
Paula Erizanu
Tatler has become Russia’s first major glossy magazine to feature a transgender woman on its cover.
Natasha Maximova appears in an elegant khaki dress on the cover of the magazine’s April issue, together with the headline: “My name is Natasha. This is how to change your gender, country, and life.”
Born in Kazakhstan, Maximova says that she identified as a girl from an early age, wearing her sister’s dresses, playing with dolls, and telling others: “I’m sorry, but you’ve got it wrong, my name is Natasha.”
Maximova came out on social media in December last year, posting black-and-white pictures of herself as a child with the caption, “Hi, my name is Natasha [...] as a child, I was wildly perplexed after suddenly being faced with the fact that not all children or adults were ready to agree that I was Natasha.” The post ends with Maximova’s arrival in Paris, where she now works in the fashion industry. “Here, everything fell into place,” she writes. “I became Natasha in my birth certificate, in my passport. And simply in life.”
Posting the Tatler cover on Instagram, Maximova wrote: “Being the first transgender woman on a Tatler cover, I want to dedicate [my shoot] to those who fight, to those who love and to those who made their choices or are on their way to make a decision. You are all different, you are all beautiful, and you are all you! Thank you for believing!”
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