Elia Bonci, who also spoke to la Repubblica, said: “I took courage, used my deadname and signed up for Miss Italy because fighting transphobia is intersectional and even though I’m not a trans woman, I’ve decided to fight for their rights.”
“Transphobia” idk I just think they don’t want certain ideologies in their shows. Makes sense to me but you guys will probably start spamming slurs at me if I keep speaking so…
Edit: I agree the rules are dumb and contradictory but calling it transphobia is just hilarious to me
Most uses of the misnomer "transphobia" are actually incorrect, because the people involved aren't actually suffering from an irrational medical or psychological fear of transgender people.
What they actually are doing is more accurately called "transmisia", because they are transmisic. This means they are heavily prejudiced against transgender women and believe that they shouldn't be involved in the competitions.
Their reason for this are not because the transgender women don't meet the beauty standards, or aren't passing the judging categories, but because they just don't want them there purely due to their trans-mysogynistic preconceptions.
In the vein of words like homophobia, these words' definitions are not strictly in line with their etymology. Per every dictionary (but quoting Webster), transphobia is defined as:
irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people
And this might create some linguistic ambiguity, but I cannot seem to find actual documentation on a medical or psychological fear of transgender people at all. It seems this behavior is entirely (or almost entirely) a learned bigotry.
The other word, "transmisia", has not really been officially adopted in any circle I can find. The only place I could find it with any prominance is a site called the "Trans Language Primer", and I know nothing about it (except that it looks like geocities) so I won't be linking it directly. Suffice to say, they speak negatively of the term (despite defending it as having a good intention) and favor "transphobia" for reasons of clarity.
So like, according to the organizers, if they were born with a penis, it doesn't matter if they transitioned, they are considered men.
This trans man (a person born with a vagina who transitioned ) is entering the contest, because if trans women are considered men, trans men are considered women.
So this dude is entering a "female" beauty contest to show how dumb the rules are. He is allowed to do so because said dumb rules make him a woman in the eyes of the organization.
I went to high school with a Ruth. She decided to change her name to Elizabeth when she went to college. She still goes by Elizabeth. Is she mentally ill because she doesn't want anyone to call her Ruth?