Leyna Bloom is finally getting her flowers.
The Pose guest star is the first trans model to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s legendary Swimsuit Issue. On the historic glossy, Bloom wears a white Gil Rodriguez one-piece and looks nothing short of radiant.
Bloom announced her history-making feat on Instagram, acknowledging how “powerful” her achievement is. ”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,” she wrote. “This moment is so powerful because it allows me to live forever even after my physical form is gone.”
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This year, SI released three separate covers, each featuring a history-making star. In addition to Bloom, Megan Thee Stallion became the first rapper to appear on a Swimsuit issue cover, just as Naomi Osaka became the first Black female athlete to also hold the throne.
Bloom’s feat comes as an ever greater surprise given she never expected to be on the cover even after agreeing to be in the issue. She tells PopSugar she showed up to celebrate the magazine’s release, expecting to be alongside the other models featured inside the issue. Except when Bloom showed up, Tyra Banks (who in 1996 became SI’s first solo black cover) was there to conduct an interview with her and SI’s Swimsuit editor MJ Day popped by to inform her she’d be on the cover.
Bloom called the experience surreal. “Everything I went through from the moment I was born — all the trials and tribulations up to this point — just flashed before my eyes,” she told PopSugar. “There are no words to [capture] how I feel or how anyone would feel — especially someone like me, because this has literally never happened to anyone like me on the face of the earth.”
Gracing the cover of SI is just one of Bloom’s many recent achievements; in 2019, she made history as the first trans woman of color to lead a film debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Martin Scorsese-produced feature Port Authority.
Her most recent film, Asking For It (which also stars Vanessa Hudgens, Keirsey Clemons, and Alexandra Shipp), debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in June She also just wrapped a multi-episode arc on the final season of Pose as Pretentia Khan. Entertainment Tonight reports the character was an homage to ballroom’s real-life House of Khan.
Bloom also got her start in the ballroom scene, so it’s only fitting that she dedicated her cover to her fellow femme queens. “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,” she continues on Instagram. “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.” Sounds like Bloom’s career is only just starting to, well, bloom.
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