Patricia Joy T. Samaniego
BSBA Marketing 3rd Year
Social Science
December 2023
Reflection on Advocacy: The Right Thing to Do
Media representation is such a major part of culture, society, and civilization. It’s natural to have many
varying feelings towards people, especially celebrities, and their representation/presentation on media.
However, these feelings can be distorted based on prejudice, judgement, stereotypes, and bigotry. The
media representatives then receive the brunt of unfair discrimination, judgement, and anger directed
towards things that they have no control over. This is exactly what happens with transwomen
representation in the media format of beauty pageants. Our advocacy on the Mix U aimed to advocate
for respect and rightful representation of transwomen as women in Miss Universe and other similar
beauty pageants. During this advocacy, the root issues were analyzed and dissected to aim for a better
future. The good news? We might already be there.
The problem associated with our advocacy is the issue of transwomen representation within beauty
pageants, specifically Miss Universe. Many people do not see transwomen as “real” women or valid
contestants. However, we wanted to advocate for the rightful acknowledgement of transwomen as valid
contestants and give them respect they deserve for the effort that they put in. We wanted to advocate
that transwomen are real women who deserve to be respected and acknowledged as such. This means
not only acknowledging them as women, but also treating them as women as well. Even just as people,
transwomen deserve respect and equity. In a study by Winter et al. (2008), transwomen were noted to
face significant difficulties in employment once the employer is made known of their orientation.
The reason why this advocacy was significant to our group was due to how impactful Miss Universe is
in the Philippines, and how Philippines is written as one of the most LGBTQ friendly communities, yet
many people still undergo discrimination. Despite how the Philippines is painted as a LGBTQ inclusive
community, the fact is that only the LGBTQ Filipinos tend to be fully accepting of LGBTQ culture. Many
Filipinos even look down upon and disagree with the inclusion of transgender women in Miss Universe
and the discussion is honestly disappointing to witness. As many Filipinos have backgrounds in
Catholicism, many utilize it as a form of justifiable harassment to those who deviate from the practices,
harassing especially members of the LGBTQ community.
The aim of our advocacy was to bring awareness and minimize stigmatism towards transgender
woman by explaining their validity as a woman and what truly is the problematic parts about
discriminating them. We included moments of discrimination, how people react and treat them, as well
as why they are valid women and participants. We wanted people to understand what transgender
women go through as well as showing them point-blank why they really do deserve respect and
acknowledgement and the growth that can stem from that.
Many people have shown support for the advocacy which warms my heart so much. The fact the
upcoming generation of young adults and our current generation of young adults can agree on such a
basic statement that women should be acknowledged as women is delightful to see. Some people even
shared how they feel as a transwoman and the joy that representation on the larger screen media has
brought them about their own identity and the affirmations that they are a woman. Many people now in
the Gen Z era are also LGBTQ+ in varying ways, but all carrying the same camaraderie of the struggles all
people who are “deviants” from the traditional society struggle with. These people are the people who
blessed and supported our advocacy.
We decided to link our advocacy project with current social realities, specifically the portrayal of
transgender woman in media. We utilized the popularity of Miss Universe to bring a more realistic aspect
of how bigotry affects the reputation and reception of transgender women. Miss Universe is a very
anticipated event especially in the Filipino sphere; therefore, the reactions of the public indicate much
about social realties. As noted by ABS-CBN (2022), over nearly 500,000 viewers were watching on their
YouTube channel streaming Miss Universe 2022 alone. Current social realities are changing, like how the
younger generation has grown more and more open to non-conventional norms of society, however many
people still hold conservative and traditional mindsets that undermine and obstruct the improvements of
society. For example, the allowance of transgender women to participate in Miss Universe was a huge
leap of improvement for many transgender women in terms of respect and representation.
However, the issue remains that many people spoke against their participation and even condemned
their participation and identity saying that they were bringing shame or forcing other “natural” women to
lose their opportunities by participating in their stead. Furthermore, many people did not even
acknowledge them as proper contestants, which was huge disrespect towards them. Some other
contestants did not treat them even as proper contestants, refusing to room or stay with them as well as
making comments of their disapproval of participation. One prime example being Miss Columbia (Hunter,
2018), who stated that “I believe that a beauty pageant like Miss Universe is for women who are born
women’”.
This is a continuous societal trend and pattern that shows the close-minded mentality of the current
world where people tend to force or aggressively promote their own beliefs and ideals at the cost of
another person’s dignity, respect, and humanity. This is a repeating pattern for LGBTQ+ community,
women, and people of color who struggle with their issues and person being taken seriously despite it
being a natural human right. People tend to fear change and as a result, hate differences in people as well.
After this project, my views on gender and sexuality have further strengthened, especially in terms of
respect and acknowledgement. Specifically, how gender is not limited to two binary options and shouldn’t
be limited to just biological differences but also the personal experiences, characteristics, personality, and
mentality of a person and if they choose to identify as a specific gender. The fact that many of our
generation is also in support of transgender women participating in beauty pageants also brings joy to me.
That is because I support more freedom in representation and acknowledge the amount of struggle
transgender women have suffered trying to be acknowledged as true women of beauty, not just as drag
queens or comedic relief. Having the reassurance and support of many through this advocacy project just
further reaffirmed my beliefs and strengthened my resolve.
References:
ABS-CBN News. (2022, May 1). More than 500,000 viewers watch miss Universe Ph on ABS-CBN
youtube. ABS. https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/04/30/22/more-than-500000-viewers-watchmiss-universe-ph-on-abs-cbn-youtube
Hunter, S. (2018, October 4). Miss colombia hits out at Spain’s transsexual miss Universe candidate. EL
PAÍS English. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/04/inenglish/1538660985_331335.html
Winter, S., Rogando-Sasot, S., & King, M. (2008). Transgendered women of the Philippines.
International Journal of Transgenderism, 10(2), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532730802182185