Jenna Talakova's story has become awkward for Trump as he plans another attack on the White House
It was 2012 when Jenna Talakova was expelled from the Miss Universe pageant because she hid a secret: she was born a man. But then Donald Trump came to her aid …
At that time, the 45th president was a co-owner of Miss Universe — and he wanted to take on her business. “It's a big, big story,” he said, “about Talakova's attempt to enter his Canadian beauty pageant.
In many ways, his defense of her looks and sounds like any old Donald Trump desktop video. There sits a future ex-president talking to a camera in Trump Tower — hair, skin, teeth, tie and shirt — somewhere between ivory and gold — chattering about topical issues with the syntax and gestures that we all now familiar. .
«The story of the contestant who wanted to be Miss Universe after traveling through Canada is very interesting,» he says. “We let her in, let's see what happens, maybe she will get better, maybe not … It will be very interesting to see what happens. If for some reason she should win, well, then she should win the Miss Universe pageant.
After a bit of an internet storm (it was 2012, things were milder), Talakova, who underwent sex reassignment surgery when she was 19, found fearless support in Gloria Allred, a well-known lawyer who has championed women's interests for decades. – usually wins.
“It's not just that she's competitive,” Allred said at the time. “Jenna not only protects herself, but also others. She doesn't want anyone else to face that kind of discrimination.»
Jenna Talakova became the first transgender Miss Universe contestant. Photo: Shutterstock
Trump, to the surprise of everyone who did not consider him LGBTQIA+ ally, ordered a change in the rules. From now on, Miss Universe will allow transgender participants. And if Talakova wins in Canada, she will qualify for the organization's premier global competition. “No one capitulates,” Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen insisted. «Mr. Trump wishes Talakova, as well as all the other contestants, good luck.»
More than a decade later, Jenna Talakova's story has become awkward for Trump as he plans another attack. at the White House. This week, news outlets around the world published the story of Ricky Valerie Kolle, the 22-year-old who became the first transgender woman to win Miss Netherlands, meaning she will continue to represent her country at Miss Universe in December.
While some celebrated her victory as a triumph for transgender rights and popularity, others wondered how Miss Universe allowed contestants who were born male to compete. That's just the kind of question Trump might be asking at his next rally, given his gender rhetoric this year. “We are going to defeat the cult of gender ideology and reaffirm that God created two genders, men and women,” he shouted to a crowd in South Carolina in January. Only, of course, he would not, because he knows exactly why the rules of Miss Universe are the way they are.
In fact, some argue that Trump has made trans rights mainstream, as his political rivals have recently realized. Last month, supporter Ron DeSantis' Twitter account posted a video depicting Trump as a trans rights icon. It was set to club music and showed the former president shaking hands with Caitlyn Jenner, who crossed over saying she could use any gender bathroom she liked in Trump Tower. Also included are clips of him talking about supporting trans women in the Miss Universe pageant. Jenner last year Photo: Getty
Others call him a «transgender trailblazer» for allowing Talakova to compete. This is in stark contrast to his record of supporting the appointment of anti-LGBTQ judges, advocating for it to be legal to fire people for being gay or transgender, and banning transgender people from serving in the military, among other things.
Kollet and Talakova are not the only transgender women who have taken advantage of Trump's rare moment of moral generosity. In 2018, trans model Angela Ponce won the Miss Spain pageant and later that year entered the Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador. However, at that time, the discussion about transgender women in women's spaces was not a hot campaign topic, as it is now.
Trump, who was the President of the United States, had not yet called it «transgender madness», as he did this year. “It's amazing how much people feel about it. I'm talking about tax cuts and people are acting like that,” he told an audience last month, feigning a lukewarm response. “I’m talking about transgender people, everyone is going crazy. Five years ago, you didn't know what the hell it was.»
Away from politics, in the world of beauty pageants, drama is part of the job. “They say if you go a year without scandals, pageants become boring,” says Sally-Anne Fawcett, a former beauty pageant contestant turned judge and author of the Misdemeanor trilogy about the history of pageants. . “Articles about [Coll] will create so much publicity and spark so much debate. All this is good for competition.”
Fawcett followed the beauty pageant world for decades, including competing in British pageants in the 1980s. She has just returned from Miss Surrey's trial. The winner was «a single mom, not your classic size 8, but she had such a nice stage presence.»
She laughs at the idea that pageants have just become political, noting that she doesn't and a year so that “Miss Turkey doesn’t get into trouble for being photographed with Miss Israel, or for protest posters being raised, or for accusations that it was rigged for political gain. .”
Donald Trump flies the flag in Colorado. Photo: Getty
This is a story that goes back to Miss World in 1970 when, under pressure from anti-apartheid groups, the committee admitted two South African entrants — a white woman representing South Africa and a black woman representing «South Africa». '.
“I used to be very traditional and thought that only born women could compete,” Fawcett says. “But I have changed and I think we need to welcome transgender women. We have plus size women, we have wheelchair users, we have older categories… I think if we want competitions to evolve, we have to let them change over time.”
This is different, she notes, from talking about sports. “Anyway, transgender women have a physical handicap because you, as a judge, scrutinize them so closely. And it's not just about looks. The interview makes up about 60 percent of the score.” Collet, she says, “I think it’s okay, you can’t say that she won only because of her story … Although in this case I suspect that she probably won because of her story.”
It is not known how much the Trump campaign regretted his temporary progressivism in 2012 (Fox News asked if he regretted the rule change in April but got no response), although we do know that he enjoyed owning Miss Universe a lot. He bought the company in 1996 for an undisclosed sum. “How could I miss the opportunity to become the owner of a world beauty pageant?” he later wrote.
In a way, he made competitions great again. “Trump is a divisive figure in [our] world,” Fawcett says. “When he bought Miss Universe, he saved it from its decline and brought it back to television, so we have a lot to be thankful for. On the other hand, he was a sleazy old man who barged into the dressing rooms and insisted on having a hand in picking the winners.» She pauses. «But I think he did great things.»
Both reviews may be true. After a lull in the 80s and 90s, Trump did bring back the glitz and glam to beauty pageants, but after he was forced to sell his stake in 2015 when comments about Mexican immigrants alienated advertisers and broadcasters, former contestants made troubling claims about his behavior as an owner.
Donald Trump with Miss USA 2012 Olivia Culpo in Las Vegas. Photo: Getty
In 1997, during the first year of his reign, he shamed Alicia Machado of Venezuela for gaining weight during her tenure as Miss Universe. He called her «Miss Piggy» and «Miss Housekeeping». Tracked by cameras, he followed Machado to the gym to watch her work out. «This is someone who loves to eat,» he told reporters in a suit and tie.
Later, former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told reporters that Trump entered the dressing room of Miss USA in 2001 when she was a contestant. “He just walked in,” Dixon said. “There wasn’t a second to put on a bathrobe or any clothes or anything. Some of the girls were topless. Other girls were naked. Our first contact with him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked dressed in our bikinis.
This hands-off attitude towards closed doors has been confirmed by many other women. And by the way, Trump himself. “You know, there are no men anywhere. And I'm allowed in because I'm the owner of the contest. And that's why I'm looking around… *Is everything all right?* You know, they're standing naked. And you see these incredible looking women. And so I kind of get away with it,” he told Howard Stern in 2005.
As usual, Trump got away with it. In 2015, he sold Miss Universe to IMG. Last year, IMG in turn sold it to Anna Jakkafong Jakrajutatip, a 44-year-old Thai billionaire and transgender woman. In her first speech on stage as an owner, she stated that Miss Universe will now «run women owned by a trans woman so that all women around the world celebrate the power of feminism!»
Trump probably didn't intend to make this part of his legacy, but alas. Recently, commentators have highlighted the change in his position since 2012 as evidence of his tendency to vacillate on major issues. But all these years, introducing Jenna Talakova, Gloria Allred changed his mind.
“I said something like: “Mr. Trump, we don’t care what your anatomy looked like when you were born, and you are not should care what her anatomy looked like when she was born.» Well, obviously, it upset him very much, ”she recalled of their confrontation in 2012.
At the time, Trump retorted with the words: “Oh, Gloria, I probably would like to see what I have under pants.» Allred objected that she did not have such a powerful magnifying glass. “Mr. Trump,” she continued to the reporter, “you have to understand that the world does not revolve around your penis or anyone else’s penis. If it ever was, it is no more. It's not about the genitals. It's about discrimination.”
But for many, including Republican voters in 2023, it's still about the genitals. «We'll see what happens,» he said in his Trump Tower video. On the campaign trail, he may well regret it.
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