"Little Miss Gay” Beauty Pageants

By Starla Renee Trimm

I have previously discussed at some length the proliferation of elaborate womanless beauty pageants in the Deep South of the U.S. We’ve noted the irony of parents dressing their sons like beauty queens while openly condemning trans people. In a different culture halfway around the world, a similarly befuddling phenomenon exists in the form of “Little Miss Gay” pageants in the Philippines.

(Caveat: I am in no way an anthropologist. I do not speak, read or understand Tagalog. I am not offering any judgments or concluions in this brief overview, which is based solely on what I have obsrved on the Internet. I simply suggest that this is an area ripe for study by those better suited to the task than I am.)

Despite living in a society dominated religiously by Catholicism and facing widepread opposition, the LGBT community in the Phillippines is quite active. As in the U.S., there are circuits of “Miss Gay” pageants in which femulating men compete. But where the similarity ends is that while such pageants in America are strictly adult events, in the Phillippines they reach far down in age to include young boys competing for the title of “Little Miss Gay.” Such events are sometimes staged in conjunction with adult pageants, while other are unaffiliated affairs sometimes sponsored by schools or churches.

(Just as a note of annotation here: it should be pointed out that the English word “gay” as used in the Philippines isn’t strictly a term referencing sexual orientation. It is more generically applied to anyone in the LGBT community, even heterosexual crossdressers.)

As in the U.S. womanless pageants, the “Little Miss Gay” events can often be very elaborately staged affairs, even in impoverished communities. And the attention given to the femulations is even more intense and detailed. While U.S. schoolboys in womanless pageants are mostly doing it as a one-time lark, some of the Filipino boys regularly compete in pageants. Many of them adopt female names and personas and some even grow their own hair out to feminine lengths and have it cut, styled and colored like a girl. And the parents – the power behind the crown as in U.S. female child beauty pageants – will spend prolifically on their son’s pageant wardrobe.

Another difference from American womanless pageants is that while the U.S. affairs are strictly PG-rated, the Little Miss Gay events sometimes find children dressing, dancing, singing or acting in what we would consider a very inappropriate sexually provocative manner. It is very off-putting and creepy to Westerners (like me) to learn about this phenomenon.

Who are these boys? Are they gay and/or trans and embracing it at an early age? Are they being exploited by their parents or worse, is there some degree of coercion or abuse behind it all? As I said, I’m not academically equipped to find answers and only suggest that the phenomenon is one that merits further study and investigation by more qualified people.

(Editor's Note: Philippines is also the nation where very realistic womanless beauty pageants are conducted at the university level, for example, the Miss Eng'g pageant, which has been mentioned here numerous times in the past.)

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company)

Contestant Number 7 in the South Hill, Virginia, Relay for Life Womanless Beauty Pageant

Potential

Joann Roberts was one of the people who helped me discover my true self.

Jump on the wayback machine to the mid-1980s and you will find me religiously attending my support group meetings twice a month. Those meetings were my only opportunity to be en femme beyond my closet at home and I seldom missed a meeting.

I was still learning the art of femulation back then. My wigs looked like wigs, my makeup was all wrong, my heels were too high and my skirts were too short. (I guess some things never change.)

Besides giving me an opportunity to go out en femme, attending support group meetings helped educate me about the finer points of femulation. By chatting with the other girls in attendance and listening attentively to speakers who appeared at our meetings, I corrected the errors of my presentation.

Joann Roberts was one of our speakers. She spoke for about an hour and then hung back to chat with us as we perused the books she had for sale: her Art and Illusion: A Guide to Crossdressing and her Art & Illusion Companion, which was a supplement to the original Art and Illusion.

I bought a copy of both books. After I paid her, she thanked me for my purchase, then she added, "I could not help noticing you during my talk."

"Huh?" was my clever response.

"You are a natural and have a lot of potential."

I managed to squeak out a "Thank-you" and went on my way.

I will never forget what Joann said to me that night and thanks to her, I have been working on my "lot of potential" ever since.

Wearing Self Portrait dress and Sergio Rossi pumps (Source: Intermix)

Alan Coyne femulates on stage in Charley's Aunt '66.

Thursday Dinner

After shopping on Thursday, I met Shauna at the Westfarms Mall for dinner at 6.

We dined at BRIO Tuscan Grille, an Italian restaurant where I have dined en femme in the past, but always alone, so it was nice to have a dinner companion for a change.

Shauna and I go way back having met at a Connecticut Outreach Society (COS) meeting about 20 years ago. I was the first transwoman Shauna ever met in person and we hit it off from the start.

Shauna dropped out of sight while her children were growing up, but now she wants to get out en femme again and she reached out to me. I let her know that COS was still active, so she went to a recent meeting and then she asked me about a girls' night out and that is how our Thursday evening get together came about.

She said she was a little nervous about being out among the civilians, but she had nothing to fear but fear itself. Most of the civilians paid no attention to us and the handful who had to deal with us face-to-face (like the restaurant waitstaff) treated us like ladies.

After dinner, I remembered that I wanted to buy some makeup (Lancome mascara and eyeliner), so we went to Sephora, but they were out of stock. Then,we tried the Lancome counter in Macy's where I had better luck.

After my Macy's purchase, we decided to call it a night. We both had a great night out and plan to get together again real soon now.

Wearing Boston Proper (Source: Boston Proper)

Romain Duris femulates in the mall in the 2014 French film The New Girlfriend.

Thursday Shopper

As I wrote here, I met up with an old friend on Thursday who I have not seen in nearly 20 years. Shauna and I planned to meet at the Westfarms Mall for dinner at 6, but I was ready to go at 3:30, so I decided to do some shopping beforehand.

Fashionista Dept.

I wore a Muse black and white color block sheath that I purchased over five years ago and had never worn.

At the time of purchase, the dress was tight, but I liked it so much that I bought it anyway and hung it in the TBD area of my closet ("TBD" as in To Be worn after Diet). After losing 20 pounds, it now fits and I accessorized with black tights, black patent high heels, black bag and gold jewelry.

Going to the Dogs Dept.

First stop was Petco to buy dog food for our two pups.

At 4 PM, I was not overdressed for Petco; there were other customers in business attire probably shopping on their way home from work. I did notice a couple of women checking me out, but I like to think they were in awe of my fashion sense rather than my transiness.

Like I Need More Clothes Dept.

Our plan was to meet near the Macy's entrance to the mall. Problem is that there are three Macy's entrances to the mall.

I threw caution to the wind, parked my car near the middle entrance and entered the store. I had over an hour to kill, so I started perusing the racks. I really really did not need any more clothes and I really really did not want to try on anything because I was certain that I would stain my dress with makeup as I undressed/dressed in the fitting room.

Dress-wise, I did not see anything I had to have, but then I came upon a rack of pencil skirts in an array of colors and in a material (scuba) that I had seldom seen before. And they were marked down to $19.99! I realized that I could try on skirts over my dress and would not have to disrobe, so I started shopping more seriously.

I liked all the colors, but the blue ("Lazulite") was my favorite and they had my size. I grabbed an XL and a Large and sashayed to the dressing room to try them on. The XL looked too big, so I did not bother with it. The Large fit, but was a little roomy – do I dare try on a Medium?

I held onto the Large, returned to the rack, found a Medium and returned to the dressing room. The Medium fit like a glove clinging to my figure like a pencil skirt should. So I abandoned the Large and held onto the Medium.

Next, I began shopping for a white blouse to go with the skirt and I tried on a few, but did not find anything I liked.

By the way, the dressing room was busy. Women coming and going and none of them gave me a second look.

Looking for more white blouses, my iPhone rang. It was Shauna letting me know that she was on her way and would arrive at the mall shortly.

So I stopped shopping, paid for the skirt and proceeded to the parking lot to meet up with my friend.

Wearing Rocky Barnes sandals (Source: The Zoe Report)

In the 1970 film Dinah East, Jeremy Stockwell played a glamorous movie queen of the 1950s, who is revealed to be a man after her death. According to IMDB, Dinah East was Stockwell's only film. I wonder if he was a professional femulator. And whatever became of him?

SaveSave

Someday Funnies

Miss Pejic

Harvey Korman femulates in the "Both Mother and Father" situation comedy in the 1979 film Americathon.

Old Friends

Out of the blue, I received an e-mail asking me if I used to be the "Staci" who frequented meetings of the Connecticut Outreach Society 15 to 20 years ago. I acknowledged that fact and it turned out that the e-mail was from a girl who also attended those meetings way back when.

She stopped attending the meetings because life got in the way, but now she was trying to get out and about again and wondered if we could get together. After a few false starts, we finally managed to make a date for dinner and shopping. So this evening, I will meet up with my old friend and I am looking forward to getting reacquainted.

I was very active in Connecticut Outreach Society for about 20 years and it is amazing how many people I saw come and go through the doors of the society. They number in the hundreds... probably in the five hundreds... maybe more. 

Most were strangers, but would you believe that I knew two of the girls in boy mode long before they showed up in girl mode at our meetings. I knew both through ham radio. All three of us belonged to the same radio club, but none of us had an inkling about our transgenders.

It's a small world after all!

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

Kate

You're apt to be glamorous

Readers continue to send me their results using the "Your Face on a Glamorous Magazine Cover In Seconds!" app. So without further adieu, here is the third set of yours (and mine) glamorous images.

Wearing Venus (Source: Venus)

Professional femulator Hans Anton in Berlin circa 1930

Something is wrong

Something is wrong and I don't know why.

Normally, I get an email when someone leaves a comment on the blog informing me that I need to moderate the comment. Those emails stopped about a week ago. Now I have to go behind the curtain occasionally to check if there are any comments to moderate. So if you leave a comment, there may be a delay before it gets approved and posted.

Then I noticed that other blogs that have my blog on their blog lists are not getting updated when I publish a new post. The last post they have seen was three posts ago.

Blogger has had problems in the past that get fixed eventually. I say, "The sooner, the better!"

Wearing Show Me Your Mumu (Source: Rent the Runway)

Jeremy Stockwell femulates in the 1970 film Dinah East.

And now for something completely different

My wife received some gift cards from Dress Barn for her birthday, so I took her to the local Roz & ALI (nee Dress Barn) store to go shopping.

I went in boy mode and basically fetched items off the racks for my wife to try on in the dressing room. Her MS is such that she is in no condition to run around the store fetching stuff.

During the fetching, I saw some items I'd like to try on (what else is new?), but I would never do it while with my wife because I would not want to embarrass her. I would not be embarrassed at all, but I defer to my wife's feelings when she is in tow.

Anyway, I saw something I had never seen in Roz & ALI or Dress Barn before: a male salesperson! He was in his late 20's or early 30's (I'm terrible with estimating ages, so don't hold me to that) and he was dressed in male hipster mode. His outfit was androgynous and he was so thin that he could be mistaken as a female except for his closely trimmed beard and short hair.

And so it goes.

Wearing Ann Taylor (Source: Ann Taylor)

Alexandre Styker femulates in the 2004 television film Belinda Et Moi.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Stylewe (Source: Stylewe)

Three New Zealanders femulating in Christchurch in 1955.

Confidence

As long as I have been going out as a woman, I have had some trepidation before I took that first step out the door into the real world. After all, under that makeup, wig and female finery is a 6 foot 2, 199-pound cisgender male.

Will I pass? Will I get read? How will civilians react? If you have ever gone out in public as a woman, you have been there and done that. I believe I will never do that again.

Two week ago, I stood at a podium in Ohio as a woman and made a short presentation to approximately 150 of my ham radio peers. It was a positive experience and a personal accomplishment.

Tuesday morning, a video of my presentation was posted on YouTube. I hesitated before I clicked the play button to view it. For the first time, I would see my female presentation as others see it... not in a still photograph, but in a full motion "live" video. Would I see a cisgender male in a dress? Would the video shatter the notion that I pass?

I clicked on the play button and five seconds into my appearance I thought "Holy Cow!" Watch my body movement and mannerisms as I say, "I used to write for QST." That is not the body movement and mannerisms of a cisgender male; that is the body movement and mannerisms of a female. 

Watching the 2-1/2 minutes of video, I continued to see a female and I was absolutely floored how feminine I appeared. Yeah, "Holy Cow!"

Growing up, I was clueless about my feminine ways, but my peers were very aware of it and let me know about it in no uncertain terms. But I refused to change because my mannerisms were natural to me, a good fit and I really did not want to man-up and embrace some of the aspects of being "male" that I found unattractive and even abhorrent.

But until I viewed the video, I did not realize how really feminine I appeared. So feminine, that even my male voice worked.

As a result, I am very confident about my femulation and I will never again have any trepidation about experiencing the real world as a woman because under that makeup, wig and female finery is a 6 foot 2, 199-pound female.

Wearing Shoshanna (Source: Rent the Runway)

Krzysztof Szczepaniak femulates Lady Gaga on Polish television's Your Face Sounds Familiar.