This AP story really got my blood to boiling (of course, you all know what a low boiling point MY blood has:
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - From a pregnant contestant to an underage beauty queen, Miss Universe officials have had to deal with countless bombshells since the pageant started nearly 50 years ago. But questions over a contestant’s gender are something new. A French Internet site is claiming that Miss France, Elodie Gossuin, was born a man - a claim that’s sparking an international media storm despite vehement denials from pageant officials and from the 5-foot-11 contestant herself.
“They really had to look far and wide to come up with a story so grotesque,” Gossuin told reporters Wednesday, speaking through an interpreter and shaking her head “no” when asked if she was ever a man. One tabloid in Puerto Rico, where the contest takes place May 11, described Gossuin as having “large hands and a scar on her forehead” - implying she had had plastic surgery. New York’s Daily News ran a story Tuesday headlined “C’est what? Miss France’s gender questioned.” The Daily Mail of London ran the headline “I have never been a Mister, says Miss France.”
“So far, all signs point to the fact that she’s a female,” Mary Hilliard McMillan, pageant spokeswoman, said in San Juan. “She has a birth certificate that says she is a woman and she is one of the most stunning women I’ve ever seen. She’s very feminine.” Dismissing the allegation as a nasty rumor, Hilliard McMillan said if there was a problem it would have been detected in the swimsuit fitting. “It’s absolutely crazy,” Genevieve de Fontenay, president of the Miss France Committee, said in Paris. “It’s really a considerable prejudice that she’s going to suffer because of this.”
—Rarely have I seen a story so full of smirking bigotry and virulent prejudice! Can you imagine ANY other minority group being trated like this, or being described in a straightforward news story as “grotesque” or “nasty?” Absolutely disgusting, and I hope that “transphobia” will start to dissipate over the next decade or so as unreasoning hatred of blacks, gays and other groups has. Personally, I hope she DOES turn out to be transgendered, then spits in all their faces and throws the crown back at 'em!
She could do the 'ole 9[sup]th[/sup] grade biology epithelial cell lab (scrape skin cells from inside cheek) and look for the “dreaded” Y chromosome.
However, I would just love it if she mentioned the test to the media (or whomever) then refused to take it!!!
Not to get preachy or anything, but I assume she was selected as Miss France to represent the country (right, she was selected because she is a hottie.)
What really scared me about the article was the ignorance of those involved. To wit:
She’s a man because-
[li]She has big hands.[/li][li]She has a scar on her forehead.[/li]
She’s a woman because-
[li]She’s feminine.[/li][li]She’s stunning.[/li][li]She would have been “found out” at the swimsuit fitting :rolleyes:[/li][li]Her birth certificate says she’s female (let’s hear it for science!!).[/li]
If she was born a woman or had surgury, she’s a woman now. (besides, do you think any guy would stand this without punching somebody? )
Silly people. I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would feel threatened by the possibility someone might be transgendered. I guess the contest was to determine who has the prettiest XX chromosomes.
Shoulda posted this in the Pit, Eve…then I could have spewed vitriol onto these bozos without fear of recrimination. This story irritated the living hell out of me, too. “Large hands/Scar on forehead”…sounds like a description of Frankenstein’s Monster.
Moderator’s Notes: Eve, Uke may have the right idea. If you want this topic moved so we may all respond in the proper vein of bile, please let one of the MPSIMS mods, or any of the admins, know, and we’ll bounce it over there for you. What concerns me though, is the title. I wouldn’t wan’t anyone, upon seeing this in the Pit, to get the wrong idea. Which would likely happen if they don’t actually open and read this sucker. If we move it to the Pit perhaps it should also be retitled at that time. Anwyay, your choice, m’dear; let us know your wishes.
Hey, am I the only one who remembers that model “Tula” who was in a Bond movie and posed for Playboy? She was TS. And you absolutely could not tell. You could’ve fitted her for anything and not known.
And? So? So she might have been a man once, even if she was, she beat out a lot of women for the part. But it’s a load of horse manure. People will smear anyone if they think it’ll make them ms. universe. I know I’ve done some pretty nasty things to get the coveted title.
This sounds good in theory, but in practice it’s a bad precedent. There’s a fair amount of controversy both in the international sports community and thetransgendered community because of the fact that Olympic gender (for the purpose of placing an athlete in the Men’s or Women’s events) is based entirely on chromosomal testing- not only does the IOC refuse to simply make everyone simply take their shorts off, they absolutely refuse to make any consideration for body morphology, even though that’s the stated reason for sex-segregated events in the first place.
The end result is that a few athletes have been classified as “Male” despite the fact that their entire development, beginning prenatally, has been of the female body type (due to hormonal glitches, hermaphroditism, whatever).
The accusations against Miss France are 99% likely to be bullshit, and it would be a hell of a coincidence if she were chromosomally male, but testing for it is, first of all, unnecessary, second, an indignity, and third, Plain Wrong - It’s fairly easy for even an untrained person to discern a naturally developed vagina from a surgically created one (and the penis case is trivial). If she has a naturally occurring vagina, she is a woman, end of story. Chromosomal testing not only would cloud the issue, it would result in a lot of copycat accusations once the idea was taken seriously - and it would certainly mean testing everyone, just to be sure.
As far as the OP, damn right it’s prejudice that inflamed this whole thing. I’ve seen this often enough not to be at all surprised, though - lots of cultures, especially those with very strong gender-polarity roles (machismo, etc.) tend to treat TGs as something to ridicule, and even more enlightened areas, such as the US, tend to react either by giggling nervously or simply by saying “eew”.
Sigh. I can’t believe I’m this concerned about a second-rate beauty pageant.
What I have always wondered about that chromosone testing is, what do they do if the person has other than XX or XY.
She did actually refuse to take it. I doubt though that she could actually fool people that far, and the website that makes the accusation smacked of a joke to me.
I actually posted this in the great debates, but I could not think of a way of stating my position on the subject that was actually debatable.
Transphobia is, not surprisingly, an outgrowth of homophobia. Male bigots worry that the woman they’re attracted to could ‘really be a man’. They fear that this would make them gay.
Brandon Tina is a perfect example. When his situation became known, his former friends felt their reputations were in jeopardy. To prove to the world and themselves that they were straight, they raped and killed Brandon.
I don’t think XX or XY could, or rather should be a determining factor. A small percentage of humans who are born XY have a condition where their cells don’t recognize testosterone, or something like that (IANAExpert) Anyhoo they have XY but are women, grow up as women, marry as women and never know that she had XY. Although as I understand it they can’t have children. Determining sex can be a real tricky thing that may occasionally have more to do with ethics then with science.
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