On 9 July 2023, a man who identifies as a woman became the new Miss Netherlands and is set to compete in the Miss Universe 2023 beauty pageant. “Rikkie Valerie” Kolle, who thus became the first “transgender woman” to win this title, will in fact not be the first such gender confused individual at the Miss Universe contest, having been preceded there by a Spanish man “Angela” Ponce in 2018.
This comes as no surprise given that the Miss Universe franchise was purchased in 2022 by a Thai businessman “Anne” Jakkapong Jakrajutatip, another male posing as a woman. Jakrajutatip is a transgender activist and a businessman who vowed to “continue the pageant’s legacy of women empowerment and evolve the brand for the next generation.” Who knew that “women empowerment” meant letting men occupy women’s places and beat women in female competitions, whether beauty or athletic ones.
“Journalists who indulge this fantasy should be ashamed. Every use of ‘she’ or ‘her’ erases women, one word at a time. Absurd misogyny,” tweeted Martin Daubney, British journalist and former MEP.
The silence of feminists and leftist ideologues is deafening as yet another male encroaches on another women-only field.
As for this year’s winner, the 22-year- old Kolle said that becoming a woman was ‘not easy for everyone’ and that he has suffered greatly from it. The boy Rik believed he was “trapped in the wrong body”. According to his Instagram posts, he changed his name to Rikkie at 11 and started taking puberty blockers at 12, followed by female hormones at 16. In January 2023 he underwent the sex change surgery, “something that would make me 100% woman”, he wrote. After being crowned the most beautiful women in Netherlands, he said: “Victory! Because as a little boy I conquered all things that came through my path and look at me now. Standing here, as a strong, empowering and confident trans woman. Love is love. Be who you want to be and never forget always celebrate your pride.”
Is there anything more misogynous than a man taking up a woman’s place and showing the world that he can do anything he wants and not just be whoever he wants to be, but also be a better woman than biological women?
And one more question while we are at it. Newspaper headlines keep saying that this is “the first transgender woman to win the contest.” But if “transwomen are women”, then who has won the previous 94 contests?
I must say I’m neither a fan of beauty contests nor do I support them, as I believe women should not be valued by their outward appearance. Not to mention beauty contests for little girls which we can safely call abhorrent. That being said, it is nonetheless unacceptable to have biological men take women’s places, invade women’s spaces and even claim the less attractive aspects of being a woman – such as menstrual cramps. However, it is entirely predictable and expected in a post-Truth world we are living in.