Thai Beauty Pageant Was Amazing!
- Miss Tiffany Universe, Thailand, is world’s most popular transgender pageant where all entries used to be male
- Every year, 100 wear heavy make up, do their hair and don tight-fitting sequin dresses to win the beauty contest
- Typical of other pageants, the women all battle it out and shimmy along the stage in swimsuit and ballgown rounds
- The winner is is awarded a year’s salary in Thailand, a car – and acceptance from wider community, says organiser
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Heavily made up, hair in place, all sequins and dresses – the women lined up on stage are some of the most beautiful you will ever see.
Thirty contestants all fighting it out to be named Miss Tiffany Universe – a title which comes with an impressive array of prizes, including 120,000 baht (£2,300) – more than the average salary in Thailand, and a car
But all is not quite as it seems: these beauties were all once men – and they are contestants in the world’s most popular transgender beauty pageant.
Stunning: Sopida Siriwattananookool (centre), last year’s winner of Miss Tiffany’s Universe, poses with the runners up. The contest has been going since 1998, and draws 100 entrants from across Thailand, all hoping to make the final of the pageant in Pattaya
Different: This is a pageant with a difference, however, as all the women taking part are transgender and used to be men and had operations to become female
Groundbreaking: Miss Tiffany was started to help promote Thailand’s transgender community to the mainstream. Although there are as many as 100,000 trans in the kingdom, there is still widespread prejudice against them
It is a competition which organisers began 18 years ago in the hope would help breakdown the stigma many of Thailand’s transgender community, face on a daily basis.
‘Society looks to us for a laugh,’ last year’s winner Sopida Siriwatananukul told the Bangkok Post.
‘We’re not a laughing stock or clowns. We are just people who want to make others happy.’
Sopida is proof of this: unlike the girls who first appeared in the pageant, who were mainly in the entertainment industry, she is a university student in her final year, studying health.
For Alisa Phanthusak, the chairman of Miss Tiffany’s Universe pageants, that is a success in itself.
‘At first, most of the contestants were in the show or in the sex business,’ she told MailOnline. ‘Some have big struggles in their life.
‘But now, since 18 years ago, when we began, we have mostly university students. More and more they want to try hard – not only beauty but also getting their degrees.’
A further 100 contestants are currently preening and pampering themselves, getting ready to strut their stuff in this year’s pageant, which begins in March, and will finish on May 8 in Pattaya Beach, 60 miles south-west of Bangkok.
The lucky 30 who make the final will take part in a three-hour extravaganza, including everything one would expect from a top-class pageant – with rounds including from ballgowns to bikinis.
But the cattiness which is said to present backstage at all-female pageants is certainly not present, says Alisa.
‘I heard that at beauty pageants with women there is so many problems. For the transgender pageant, maybe I have been doing it a long time, but I put rules and regulations in place, and they honour them.’
But there is another thing which makes this particular pageant apart from others across the world: the elegance of the make up, a deliberate choice on the part of the organizers.
‘We know the Thai people, they like beautiful people,’ said Alisa. ‘The contestants need to look natural, look like a lady.’
Success: When the pageant started 18 years ago, many worked in the entertainment or sex industries. But pageant chairwoman Alisa Phanthusak says the contest has helped, and many, like Sopida, pictured, are now university educated
Exist: Alisa believes many enter the contest, which whittles competitors down to 30 for the final, just so they can be ‘seen’ and accepted
Beauty: The entrants are encouraged to wear understated, elegant make up, to make sure they look as feminine as possible
Elegance: ‘The contestants need to look like a lady,’ Alisa told MailOnline. Alisa’s father runs Pattaya’s famous transgender cabaret
Alisa grew up around Thailand’s transgender. Her father ran Tiffany’s Show, which boasts of being the ‘Original Transvestite Cabaret Show in Pattaya, Thailand’, and has welcomed more than 30 million people through its doors since the first performance, on New Year’s Eve 1974.
WINNING CATEGORIES
As well as the winner and two runners-up, the women can also win a number of other awards, including:
- Miss Friendship Award
- Beauty Costume Award
- Miss Photogenic award and the media
- Miss Sexy Star
- Miss Silky Sexy Skin
- Miss Popular Vote
But the applause the performers won in the theatre was not always matched by what happened to them while they were out on the streets. Despite there being as many as 100,000 transgender women living in the south-east Asian country, acceptance is not always easy to find.
Many find themselves working in the sex industry, blocked from other jobs by the stigma surrounding transgender people – including an incorrect belief they have violent tempers.
‘There is a belief that transgender people find it hard to control their temper. But I have 100 transgender in the show – I couldn’t control them if that was the case. It’s not true,’ Alisa shrugged. ‘They are people. They can be whatever they want to be.’
Alisa started the pageant to help disprove false beliefs like this one. The idea was to create a show which would not only build participants confidence and pride – as well as attract more tourists – but also help with transgender acceptance in the wider community.
‘We started Miss Tiffany in 1998 because of the difficulties of being transgender,’ Alisa explained. ‘We had difficulty taking care of the staff in the city and local community.
‘When they were at the the theatre, they have a happy life. But when they are outside the theatre they are being treated differently.
‘We got a lot of complaints from staff. We had to support them all the time at night – they were even being harassed by policemen.’
Harassment: She decided to start the pageant because the performers in the cabaret needed protection when they left the theatre
Authorities: Even the police were harassing the girls, who felt safe within the confines of Tiffany’s, but not outside it
Acceptance: The pageant has grown so much, the final is now broadcast on national television each May
Recognition: A number of winners have gone on to find huge success in the public arena, including one who is a successful actress, and another who is a transgender rights campaigner. Pictured: A backup dancer watches as a contestant enters the backstage area
Calm: The cattiness of the traditional women’s pageants is not present during Miss Tiffany Universe, says Alisa – a fact which also helps to dispel the false belief that Thailand’s transgender community have violent tempers that they are unable to control
The first year 70 women applied to take part: it was a huge success, and became an annual event. Unsurprisingly, it has grown since then, with 100 contestants applying every year from across the country, and is broadcast on Thai television.
The rules are simple: applicants must be Thai transgender – the word the website uses – between the age of 18 and 25 – although those under 20 need parental permission to enter, not an easy task when many refuse to acknowledge their child’s new identity.
‘We find more than half are not supportive,’ said Alisa. ‘This year we are trying to do more like training, giving an understanding for the family.
‘In the contestants hearts and feelings, they are women. You cannot change them, you need to find a way to support them.’
Sopida was among the luckier half: her parents had supported her since she decided to begin living as a woman during her second year of college.
They sat in the crowd to support her last May, something the university student acknowledged as her ‘biggest blessing’, according to Hot Magazine.
Victory: ‘Society looks to us for a laugh,’ Sopida said. ‘We’re not a laughing stock or clowns. We just want to make people happy’
It has all worked, as far as Alisa is concerned: a number of past winners have gone on to be very successful. Treechada Petcharat, who won in 2004, was this year named one of the most beautiful women in the world, having become a successful actress in Hong Kong.
Nicha Rongram, named first runner up in the 2012 competition, is now the communications director of the Thai Transgender Alliance (Thai TGA).
And those are just the winners – there are dozens of girls every year who take part in the contest, which has expanded to include an international event in November.
‘I think they are themselves in public more. They got acceptance from Miss Tiffany Universe,’ Alisa said.
‘When they enter, I the goal is not to get the title, but to be seen – to show that they exist.’
