Over 100 trans men enter Miss Italy pageant to protest ban on trans women
An organiser for Miss Italy said entrants must be "women from birth"
Over 100 men have retaliated against the Miss Italy pageant after organisers banned trans women from entering.
Patrizia Mirigliani, organiser of the Miss Italy event, stated earlier this month to Radio Cusano that contestants should be “women from birth.”
Furthnmore, she stood by her comment and noted she would not update the beauty pageant’s entry regulations, which currently exclude trans women.
Mirigliani stated that she had no intention of jumping on the “glittery bandwagon of trans activism.”
In response to her exclusionary remarks, trans activist Federico Barbarossa launched a campaign to oppose Mirigliani’s sentiment.
Barbarossa signed up for the pageant and encouraged others to follow suit, writing on Instagram: “What are you waiting for to sign up? The King of Kings is the King of Kings.”
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Barbarossa said the goal was “to trigger, through a joke, a reflection on the absurdity of some logics out of time and out of the world.
“They would reject me because I’m a boy and I look like a boy. While if a trans girl registers, she is rejected because she is not considered a woman. What’s the point, then?”
“Someone imagines us as three-headed monsters who could never aspire to win a beauty contest. Even the media representation often brings forward narratives that fetishize our bodies.”
“With this campaign, we are giving visibility to the truth of trans people”
Barbarossa also added: “We hope that the gesture will arouse the media clamour needed to put these issues back at the centre.”
“With this campaign, we are giving visibility to the truth of trans people,” Barbarossa noted. Furthermore, Barbarossa shared that the very point of registering en masse was to poke fun at the regulations.
Mirigliani’s comments followed a trans woman being crowned Miss Netherlands for the first time. Rikkie Valerie Kollé made history earlier this month winning the title.
Commenting on the news, Mirigliani said: “Lately, beauty pageants have been trying to make headlines by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd.”