By Joseph Loftus

More than 100 trans men have entered a Miss Italy pageant after organisers said only “women from birth” are allowed to enter.

After an organiser of the Miss Italy beauty pageant declared that trans women could not enter the contest but only ‘women from birth’, over a hundred trans men have boycotted the competition by entering themselves. Miss Italy’s organiser, Patrizia Mirigliani, said earlier this month that she would not update the beauty pageants entry regulations which excludes trans women. Mirigliani also stated that Miss Italy contestants should be ‘women from birth’ and that she had no plans to jump onboard the ‘glittery bandwagon of trans activism’. https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1684111926874476545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1684111926874476545%7Ctwgr%5E35893cc4660ed02243cea4cd6b293ebf0539faad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joe.co.uk%2Flife%2Fover-100-trans-men-enter-miss-italy-pageant-after-organiser-says-only-women-from-birth-allowed-401043 When Mirigliani’s comments emerged, trans men in Italy decided to boycott the competition in a truly unique way: by entering themselves. As Yahoo report, the process to have your preferred name and gender recognised in Italy is a very difficult one, so while living as trans men, those who are boycotting the competition technically fit the criteria as they are Italian nationals, over 18 years old, and are recognised as ‘female’ on their documents. The campaign was initially launched by trans activist Federico Barbarossa, who explained to La Repubblica that the goal was to “trigger, through a joke, a reflection on the absurdity of some logics out of time and out of the world.”

Barbarossa added: “Someone imagines us as three-headed monsters who could never aspire to win a beauty contest, because 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’s move was followed by Elia Bonci who explained: “I took courage, used my deadname and signed up for Miss Italy. Because fighting transphobia is intersectional and even though I’m not a trans woman, I’ve decided to fight for their rights. “Miss Italy is not just a beauty contest, but it is part of the country’s cultural history. And excluding trans women automatically means excluding them from history. Pretend they don’t exist.”

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