Transgender women may be welcomed… but no help to make them actually welcomed?
Explaining why Miss Universe Philippines (MUP) will continue to discriminate against transgender women, the pageant’s national director – former beauty queen Shamcey Supsup – said that for remaining “male” in their official documents, transgender women in the Philippines do not qualify for the pageant.
For Supsup, while the Miss Universe Organization allows trans women to join the international competition, one of the requirements is “they have to be female in their legal documents, including passport”, she was quoted as saying by ABS-CBN News.
She added that since “the Philippines, right now, does not allow a change in your gender in your legal documents”, and so “until it becomes legal in the Philippines, we can’t accept (them).”
Asked why MUP does not just change its policy considering that it can actually do this to be more accepting of transgender women sans the current existing requirements, Supsup put the onus on transgender people. She cited the transgender Thai owner of the beauty pageant (Kuhn Anne Jakrajutatip), who was said to have made the supposedly pro-transgender decision to create noise about the need for gender recognition in countries. And so the half-baked move should instead push transgender people to push for legal changes that will then allow them to join a beauty pageant that used to be only for those who were assigned female at birth.
