After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, Mr Gay World is back, this time amending its rules to allow all who identify as men.
This change came after Chiyo Gomes became the first trans man to participate in Mr Gay England 2020.
In a statement, Mr Gay World – an annual LGBTQIA beauty pageant – stated that it will now be “open to anyone who identifies as male, using him and his pronouns and who collectively identifies as male”. This is supposedly to ensure that the international competition will be more inclusive. This is actually backing up its policy amendment in June, when it stated that they now “encompass the male identifying spectrum within the LGBTQIA community”.
The new rule applies to all of its license holders globally when they hold contests.
The 2020-2021 iterations of the pageant moved online due to the still ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, with the competitions to be streamed via the Mr Gay World YouTube channel.
The finals for 2020 is slated on October 16.
Meanwhile, the 2021 competition starts on 23 October and ends on the 30th.
For the prelim competitions, Kodie Macayan from the Philippines earlier won the Personal Interview Award for Mr Gay World 2020, and National Costume Award for Mr Gay World 2020.