Miss Italy bans transgender contestants from beauty pageant

Patrizia Mirigliani (L) with a Miss Italy winner

The Miss Italy beauty pageant has banned transgender participants from competing, saying that every contestant must be a “woman from birth.” The announcement came just weeks after Rikkie Valerie Kolle, a transgender model, won the title of Miss Netherlands 2023.

According to various media reports, Miss Italy's official patron, Patrizia Mirigliani, said the beauty pageant would not jump onto the “glittery bandwagon of trans activism.” Mirigliani said she found the inclusion of trans activists in pageants “a bit absurd.”

“Lately, beauty pageants have been trying to make headlines by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd,” she told a local news outlet. “Ever since it was born, my contest has included in its regulations the specification that one must be a woman from birth,” added Mirigliani, who has been involved with Miss Italy since the 1980s.

"Probably because, even then, it was expected that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women," she added.

Miss Italy holds its contestants to strict standards. In 2012, the pageant banned any contestant who had undergone plastic surgery.

Mirigliani, however, also said that she is happy for Miss Netherlands if they want to include transgender women. Earlier this year, Rikkie Valerie Kolle became the first transgender woman to be crowned Miss Netherlands. Kolle said she had to contend with hate speech after winning the competition.