Mirigliani banned transgenders from competing at Miss Italy: ‘Must Be Woman ‘From Birth’

Mirigliani banned transgenders from competing at Miss Italy: ‘Must Be Woman ‘From Birth’.

This comes days after a transgender woman won Miss Netherlands. Model Rikkie Valerie Kollé, 22, won the title of Miss Netherlands 2023, for the first time in the competition’s history.

She wrote after winning: “I did it!.” 

Kollé maintained: “I made my community proud and showed it can be done.”

Last year competition, Italian model Lavinia Abate won the first place at Miss Italy, while Carolina Vinci Sardinia came in the second place and was followed by Virginia Cavalieri.

Mirigliani’s statement follows the victory of 22-year-old transgender model Rikkie Valerie Kolle at the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant earlier this month. Throughout the competition, Kolle used the platform to campaign for transgender rights and for easier access to gender-affirming healthcare options for people in her country.

Kolle will next represent the Netherlands at the Miss Universe contest in El Salvador in December, following on from Spaniard Angela Ponce, who became the first trans competitor at the event in 2018.

“Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd,” Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said this month during an interview with Radio Cusano, Il Primato Nazionale reported, according to a translation from Google.

“Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from birth. Probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women,” Mirigliani added, Il Primato Nazionale reported.