A male who became female is suing a national beauty pageant in Oregon for requiring that all contestants be “natural born” women.
Anita Noelle Green says that being born female is an “arbitrary” reason for not allowing her to compete in the Miss United States of America pageant system.
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She’s filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oregon alleging discrimination.
Green says her sister inspired her to become a beauty queen.
She began competing as a student at the University of Montana.
As other pageants shed such things as the swimsuit competition, Green embraced it:
The lawsuit states that because the pageant doesn’t preclude other women from surgically altering their bodies, for breast enhancements for example, that the “natural” woman requirement is arbitrary and meant only to exclude trans people:
Despite defendant’s stated policy that its pageants are “natural,” defendant does not strictly enforce this policy and has no rules against contestants altering their physical bodies in any manner. Thus, the “natural born female” rule is not targeted at preventing surgical enhancements. Rather, it is intended only to exclude, and is enforced only against, a specific class of individuals – transgender females.
Green told NPR that “transgender women are equal to cisgender women” and the objective is to give women a “voice” and project “body positivity”:
To me, pageantry isn’t just about the way a person looks. To me, it’s about giving people a voice. I think that it’s important to recognize that pageantry is oftentimes geared mostly towards women. And it’s important to have their voices heard.
I want to show that beauty doesn’t have to fit into a certain mold. I want to promote a message of body positivity. And I think it’s important to discuss the horrifying things transgender people oftentimes have to go through. There have been at least 27 transgender people who have been murdered in the U.S.
Green participated in the Miss Universe family of pageants and was the Oregon representative to the “Miss Earth United States” pageant system where she was “welcomed with arms wide open.” The Miss America pageant has let in transgender contestants since 2012.
Green counts as one of her accomplishments being the “first openly transgender national delegate” to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
The pageant seems to have foot-faulted into being the target of the lawsuit. Green’s lawsuit says a Miss United States of America staffer “friended” her on Facebook. Green asked for a copy of the rules and decided to sue when it excluded all but “natural born women.”
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