A real woman

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a huge fan of the Miss Universe pageant. Or any pageant.

Miss IU, Miss Greek IU, Miss Indiana . . . To me, they’re all pretty superficial competitions that play into stereotypes that women have been fighting for years to buck.

Women are rewarded for being the most beautiful and for being the most congenial and for doing the most community service. These pageants all smack of condescension.

You look pretty in a dress, and you can speak coherently and answer questions well? Here’s a crown! You’re a princess among women!

The Miss Universe pageant, however, has been the biggest offender of late.

Miss Universe, like most other pageants, operates under the pretense of “advanc[ing] and support[ing] opportunities for young women” who are “savvy, goal-oriented and aware.”

It usually just turns into one big, trashy, scantily-clad walk-off a la Derek Zoolander. From what I’ve seen, the prize usually seems to go to the woman with the best hair and the perkiest butt.

This year, Jenna Tacklova, a Canadian model, was in the running for the Canadian crown, hoping to advance to the international competition. Normally, I wouldn’t care.

But Tacklova was banned from the competition. Not because she had a sex tape or because she was caught snorting coke.

She was banned because she was born male-bodied.

Tacklova said she’s known since age four that she was actually female. She began taking hormone replacements at age 14 and had a sex-change operation at age 19.

However, there’s a small clause in the Miss Universe rules that stipulates contestants must be “naturally born female.”

Subsequently, the gorgeous Tacklova was banned.

What’s a woman gotta do to be called a woman nowadays?

Tacklova has quite literally taken every possible step to make herself into the woman she believes she was born to be. Under Canadian laws, she is now considered female.

How does the Miss Universe organization have the authority, much less the nerve, to tell her that she’s not what her federal government has decreed her to be?

As of Wednesday, facing heavy backlash and Tacklova’s lawyer Gloria Allred, Miss Universe owner Donald Trump himself stepped in and stipulated that Tacklova must be allowed to compete because she meets the “legal gender requirements of Canada” and because the Miss Universe organization is “respecting the laws of Canada.”

He wished Tacklova luck in the competition, although he later said in a phone call to TMZ that he refused to apologize to Tacklova for the actions of his organization.

Frankly, I think chances are slim that she’ll win and go on to represent her country. The stigma surrounding transgender people is such that a victory would come with much opposition and probably more who would contest it.

However, I laud Tacklova and Allred for their efforts. In the backward land of beauty pageants, a little progressive thinking can go a long way.

Pageants don’t represent the ideal woman, nor what it takes to be one. However, in my opinion, Tacklova is more of a woman than some of us will ever be.

For every hardship we’ve had to endure because of our gender, Tacklova has suffered tenfold. Although becoming a woman was presumably incredibly trying, Tacklova was so committed to her womanhood that she’s spent all 23 years of her life in a difficult quest to be one, facing painful surgeries and even more painful discrimination.

Being a naturally born woman is full of uncertainties and injustices. I can only imagine what being a transgender woman is like.

I don’t think there’s a woman out there who could better represent some of the obstacles that we as a gender have to overcome.

I wish Tacklova luck in the Miss Canada pageant. If anyone has proven to have the moral fiber that is supposedly prized in these competitors, it’s her.

So if you catch me watching the Miss Universe pageant this year, it will only be because I’m rooting for Canada. Jenna Tacklova has kind of become my hero.
Pageant queen or not, that’s some serious girl power.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu