LISBON, Portugal (LifeSiteNews) – A man who just became the new Miss Portugal will be advancing to compete with another man for the title of Miss Universe, a female beauty pageant now owned by a “transgender” businessman.
Euro Weekly reported that Marina Machete, a 28-year-old, biologically male flight attendant who “identifies” as female, was declared the winner of the Miss Portugal beauty contest on October 5 after years of unsuccessful attempts to enter the contest.
“Proud to be the first trans woman to compete for the title of Miss Universe Portugal,” Machete wrote on Instagram. “For years, it was not possible for me to participate and today I am proud to be part of this incredible group of finalists.”
He now moves on to the 72nd Miss Universe finals in El Salvador on November 18, when he will compete against 22-year-old model and actor Rikkie Kollé of Belgium, another gender-confused male who this summer won the title of Miss Netherlands. It will be the first time two “trans” contestants reached the finals since a 2012 rule change under the Miss Universe pageant’s previous owner, former U.S. President Donald Trump, allowed men to compete.
The Miss Universe pageant was acquired last year by Thai businessman “Anne” Jakkapong Jakrajutatip, a man “identifying” as a woman and trans activist. He has, paradoxically, vowed to “continue the pageant’s legacy of women empowerment” while “evolv[ing] the brand for the next generation.”
“The judges made a decision that was sure to make headlines around the world, accrue skads of accolades from LGBT activist groups, and allow them to transform a rather scummy event in which women are objectified and sexualized into a civil rights movement for ‘transgender women,’” LifeSite’s Jonathan Van Maren said in July of Kollé’s previous victory. “This is an instance in which I would be happy if everyone lost, and if the collateral damage of gender ideology ended up killing off these degrading displays everyone would be better off. But despite that, there is still cultural significance to a man beating women at their own game.”
According to modern biology, sex is not a subjective sense of self but an objective scientific reality, established by an individual’s chromosomes from their earliest moments of existence and reflected by hundreds of genetic characteristics. For years, however, LGBT activists have worked to promote “gender fluidity,” the idea that sexual identity is separate from biology and discernible only by personal perception, across public education, libraries, health care, and cultural traditions such as beauty contests, school homecomings, and athletic competitions.
Critics say their efforts have yielded a wide array of harms, both to the physical and mental health of gender-confused individuals themselves as well as to the rights, health, and safety of those who disagree, such as girls and women forced to share intimate facilities with males, female athletes forced to compete against biological males with natural physical advantages, and individuals forced to affirm false sexual identities in violation of their consciences, their understanding of scientific fact, and/or in the case of religious Americans, their belief in Genesis 1:27, which teaches that God created both sexes in His image.