TWIBS: One Way or Another, Miss Italy is GOING to Be Trans
When an evil pageant organizer kicked trans women out, trans men stepped in.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Oh, gosh, we love to see solidarity between trans men and trans women.
In response to the first trans woman ever being crowned Miss Netherlands earlier this month, the organizer of the Miss Italy beauty pageant, which isn’t affiliated with the Italian Miss Universe competition, stated last week that she wouldn’t allow trans women to compete. In an absolutely fantastic display of solidarity with the trans women scorned by Miss Italy, over one hundred trans men have applied to enter the “AFAB only” pageant.
The tidal wave of trans masc support was started by an Italian transgender man, Federico Barbarossa, who posted his own registration to Miss Italy on Instagram and suggested other trans men do the same. He was later supported on Facebook by the non-profit organization he works with, Mixed LGBTQIA+.
Barbarossa, who has clearly had top surgery and really just looks like Some Italian Dude, theorized that he would be denied entry into the pageant because he passes for cis at a glance. This is, of course, the whole point: Patrizia Mirigliani wants only “women from birth” competing for the title of Miss Italy, but it’s a safe bet she won’t be happy to see a whole parade of trans dudes turning up to the pageant.
It’s a classic ‘be careful what you wish for’ scenario that you’ve probably seen a thousand times on Twitter: some angry conservative woman says she thinks trans people should have to use the bathroom that corresponds to their assigned gender at birth, somebody else replies with a picture of Buck Angel and asks if she wants to share a bathroom with him, hilarity ensues.
But will it lead to change?
It’s hard to say, considering Italy’s prime minister has previously spoken out against “gender ideology,” referenced the LGBT community as “the abyss of death,” and in March curbed the parental rights of same-sex couples by prohibiting anybody who isn’t “biologically related” to a child from being named on their birth certificate.
Barbarossa himself described Italy’s government as the farthest right it’s been since World War II, and while he hopes to inspire progress in his country, we all know what an uphill battle it’s been all over the world the last few years.
But it’s important to note that not everybody is taking the same approach to trans contestants in beauty pageants.
Trans woman Angela Ponce won Spain’s Miss Universe competition in 2018, going on to compete globally in Thailand. In 2021, Kataluna Enriquez was the first trans woman crowned Miss Nevada, and subsequently the first trans woman to compete for the title of Miss USA.
Beautiful, talented trans women have been out there competing in beauty pageants for over a decade. If you have a problem with that, you’re somehow more of a transphobe than Donald Trump, and I’m gonna need you to sit in the corner for a little bit and think about how you plan to fix your heart.
If you’ve been trans on Twitter any time in the last decade or more, you’re probably aware that trans folks of differing demographics don’t always get along. It’s a real shame, considering we have a lot of common enemies who explicitly want us dead. I’m always so happy to see people jump to unite our community, like Federico Barbarossa and every other trans man registering for Miss Italy.
So, if you’re a trans guy in Italy, consider throwing your hat in the ring for a chance to become Italy’s most misgendered man!
