I have been reading a lot about Jenna Talackova who was recently disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada competition. On their website it is written that she was disqualified "because she did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form." Many news articles/blog posts on the internet are making it sound as though she was disqualified because she is transgendered (although I can't find proof of that anywhere).
While you cannot see Jenna's profile anymore, I took a brief look at a few of the profiles on the Miss Universe Canada website. The majority of the girls come from supportive families, have university degrees or are in progress, travel the world, and seem to do little philanthropic work. To apply you have to submit a face photo, and a swimsuit photo.
So... what exactly is Miss Universe Canada looking for? What are these women judged on? Can't find the answers to these questions on the website.
In the spirit of what I am trying to promote with this blog, shouldn't inner beauty be way more important than outer beauty? DTowner wrote a comment on thestar.com in reply to their article about Jenna: "...Naturally born female? Fine. But, then, do we
exclude women who wear make-up? Wigs? False eyelashes, bras? None of
these are 'natural'. Shaving body hair? Not 'natural', and all very
cultural. So, what is natural and what is unnatural?"
Maybe I just don't understand the reasoning behind pageants. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that what people do makes them more beautiful than what they look like.
Stay Beautiful,
Lisa
UPDATE: April 6 2012
Jenna has been invited back to the competition and they will be changing their rules to include transgendered individuals "provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions"
Excellent! I was very happy to hear this :)
Lisa
UPDATE: April 6 2012
Jenna has been invited back to the competition and they will be changing their rules to include transgendered individuals "provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions"
Excellent! I was very happy to hear this :)
I'm not so sure if this person should be allowed to compete. I don't think it's wrong to have separate competitions for women and men and the pageant happened to define their parameters as "natural born" women only.
ReplyDeleteI was looking into it and couldn't find anywhere that said you had to be "natural born" and technically I'm not even positive that that was what she was disqualified for. I tried to stay away from giving my opinion about this topic because I just don't know enough about the pageant world.
DeleteWhy do you think she should not be allowed to compete? Just curious, if the pageant did not have this parameter would you still agree with the disqualification (assuming she was disqualified for being transgendered)?
No I wouldn't agree with the disqualification if these rules were not in place. I don't think it's necessarily discriminatory if they don't allow transgendered people. They don't allow men either so it's not a big deal to me. It's the same as the separation between sports leagues. Although, there really is no space for transgendered people in any leagues or such competitions so I think it's time we deal more with these issues. It's a complex issue though, but I think in this instance this person's disqualification is warranted if those were the rules. It just might be up to the pageant to revise its rules.
ReplyDelete