Why a Transgender Model Recreated That Nude Adam Levine Portrait

Four years ago, Adam Levine bared (almost) everything in Cosmopolitan UK to raise awareness for prostrate and testicular cancer. The photograph has since left a lasting impression, and most recently inspired FTM, a transgender focused magazine, to recreate the same portrait.

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Publisher Jason Robert Ballard teamed up with trans model Aydian Dowling for the Levine-themed shoot. And just like the original image, this photograph was also created with a cause in mind: transgender visibility.

"Some areas of my body used to remind me of everything I'm not," Dowling said. "Now they represent everything I am."

Ballard added: "[W]e've received almost unanimous support for it and our attempts at creating visibility for the trans masculine spectrum...We by no means mean to say that this is what all transgender males look like, but this is what one of us looks like and it's no different from our cisgender counterparts."

There have been comments that Dowling doesn't "look trans," to which Ballard has responded: "What does trans even look like? Perhaps we're struggling so hard for our rights here because people have a false sense of who we are. So besides the entertainment factor of a sexy naked man, there is a element of positive visibility too."

Look out for Dowling on the April 2015 cover ofFTM magazine.