No way should male entrants be allowed into female pageants. That’s very elitist to say this instance doesn’t matter men can have this one because pageants are this or that. This isn’t about what anyone thinks of pageants and their effects on competitors or women in general. It’s about female places, spaces, opportunities, prizes, earnings and female careers being appropriated by men dressed as women.
Absolutely not ok.
Imagine the practicalities as well of the communal changing and dressing rooms, safeguarding and lack of regard for female safety, privacy, dignity and comfort and preference. Clearly some of the same sorts of arguments as preserving women-only competition in sport apply here- about training, career and earning potential, male natural physical advantage in this specific competition disadvantaging female competitors, female objection and safeguarding objections being silenced in favour of male validation.
The article shows ‘transgender pageants’ already exist. Why does this competitor need to compete in the ‘cisgender’ pageant then? (Not that it would matter if they didn’t exist, but they happen to) Why did the womens pageants’ organisers think it’s ok to let male people enter the women’s competitions? What happens next year when loads more male people enter these competitions?
Beauty Pageantry is just another example of why it’s not a level playing field for transmen compared to transwomen, nor for women compared to transwomen- because of deep structural gendered problems already affecting women in society. Gender non conforming women don’t benefit from gendered inequality and are disadvantaged by those structural problems, the vast majority of outwardly/cosmetically gender conforming women are similarly disadvantaged by them. And now even the tiny tiny fraction of the outwardly gender conforming women who do benefit (in a professional/material way) via success in beauty pageantry, are being ousted by pure male privilege from their own professional arena.
It would rightly be hugely frowned on if a woman attempted to enter a ‘transgender’ pageant because she would be appropriating the place of a transgender competitor. Same arguments apply against a transwoman entering a women’s competition however much it might be deeply important to a transwoman competitor to ‘feel like’ or ‘be seen as’ ‘a woman’, or as prize-winningly ‘beautiful’ or both of those things. It’s not fair on women.