Trans men enter Miss Italy pageant in droves after trans women excluded

More than 100 trans men have signed up to enter the Miss Italy pageant, the activist who started the protest said.

The Miss Italy pageant has come under fire this month after its official patron went on the radio to reiterate that trans women would not be allowed to enter the competition.

The comments came shortly after Rikkie Kollé became the first openly trans person to win the Miss Netherlands pageant earlier this month.

“Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news by … using strategies that in my opinion are a bit absurd,” Patrizia Mirigliani, the entrepreneur behind the Miss Italy pageant, said in a recent radio interview.

“Since it was founded, my contest has stipulated in its regulation (that contestants) … must be a woman from birth.”

After Mirigliani’s comment sparked backlash, she went back on the air to elaborate that she has “nothing against those who decide to admit transgender people to beauty contests,” but she would not be changing the rules for the Miss Italy pageant.

“I’m just saying that things have to go step by step, Italy is a delicate and particular country,” she said.

When a trans activist from Bari, a town in southern Italy, caught wind of the controversy, he decided to take matters into his own hands to mock the pageant’s restrictive rules.

As a trans man, Federico Barbarossa, a member of the Italian non-profit Mixed LGBTQIA, was assigned female at birth. He was able to successfully enter the pageant using his deadname, the female name he was given at birth that he no longer uses.