The Miss Universe bosses welcome transgenders competing in their pageant, but those individuals must have undergone “gender-affirming surgery” to do so, the Daily Mail reported Thursday.
The news comes as a biologically male transgender model won the title of “Miss Netherlands” and will move on to compete for the title of Miss Universe, Breitbart News reported Sunday.
“Rikkie Kolle, a 22-year-old model, has been selected as Miss Netherlands 2023, the first biological male to win the historically female competition,” the outlet said.
Sitting casually around 💖1 van mijn foto’s voor de officiële Miss Nederland shoot met William Rutten. medemogelijk…
Posted by Rikkie Valerie Kolle on Sunday, June 18, 2023
According to the Mail, a major shift occurred when transgender billionaire Anne Jakrajutatip took the helm of the Miss Universe organization in October.
“Both Miss Universe and Miss America allow transgender competitors but stipulate that they must have had gender-affirming surgery,” the article read.
The organization will now be run by “women” and “owned by a trans woman for all women,” Jakrajutatip told an audience in a video posted in January.
“For all women, really, around the world to celebrate the power of feminism,” the boss said:
🙋♀️👉🏼✴️ TATA OBSERVE🔎 – 🇺🇸
En octobre 2022 Anne Jakkapong Jakrajutatip,
une femme d’affaires thaïlandaise transgenre,
a racheté pour 20 millions de dollars la société organisatrice du concours Miss Univers,
autrefois détenue par Donald Trump.1/2 pic.twitter.com/iTQgxN4XS2
— TATA CLEMENTINE (@tata_clem) January 15, 2023
The Mail report noted that Jakrajutatip transitioned from being a man to living as a woman when he was in his thirties.
Miss Universe has welcomed trans women for its competition for more than a decade, and a spokesperson recently told the Mail it was open to all women who wanted to participate:
Trans women are women, full stop. We are here to celebrate women, full stop. Our policy for more than a decade requires that trans women contestants have had gender-affirming surgery and, in fact, five years ago a trans woman delegate competed on the Miss Universe Stage.
The Miss Universe Organization is always evolving, and we are always updating our entry rules — in the last two years we have allowed married women, divorced women, pregnant women, and women with children to join.
The pageant’s website said, “The women who compete embody the modern, global aspiration for the potential within all women.”
Meanwhile, the Miss Universe competition claimed in June 2022 that “not all people who menstruate are women” while also pushing “inclusive language” rules in a social media post:
Inclusive language is important, especially when speaking about periods.
Thinking menstrual health is only a niche topic for woman excludes transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people who have periods from the conversation.#menstrualequity pic.twitter.com/b37JcUDxgQ
— Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) June 14, 2022
The Breitbart News report noted that “biological males are increasingly dominating spheres that once belonged to biological women.”