Class politics in beauty contest versus pride parade
I had this reflection when discussing the subject of trans people participating in mass media beauty contest, with in mind the Miss Universe contest. This question is your typical imperial core opinion divider : a useless debate between two tendencies of the bourgeoisie.
The truth is, there is no question whether or not trans women would be allowed to run because in fact this contest goes against everything the feminist and LGBT+ liberation movement is for.
Historically, beauty competition were used at the height of society to match the most desirable women (matching body standards, pretty, but also witty and talented, but always docile, just like in the Misses contest) with the most powerful men. There would be "seasons" organised with dances and other events for the young men and women to socialise. When a men desired a young woman he would ask her father if his rank was high enough for him, and if the father thought his daughter might get better he could refuse. The life of the daughter was being gambled for prestige. The daughter was a transactional resource.
The criterias of desirability haven't changed, objectification by quantifying their quality as individuals, physical and mental, is still the same. The ranking and comparaison, an assignment to an absolute, comparable and fungible value is still there. Miss Universe is in historical continuity of the practice, which explains why culturally no one cares about Mister Universe. Men don't have to be judged and standardized, men objectification exists but as a curiosity, something just for fun. For women it's part of their condition.
The LGBT+ and feminist liberation movement stand against this standardisation. The beauty contest ought to be replaced by something that actually already exists: the pride parade. The pride parade is massive, inclusive, doesn't rank anyone, it just shows forms of beauty without judgement. The beauty contest is the bourgeois way of celebrating human beauty, by transforming standardized individuals into commodities with an assigned value. The pride parade celebrates beauty in its diversity, and provides intrinsic, non-fungible and incomparable value to individuals while including them in the mass instead of putting them above.
Therefore the pride parade is proletarian, it is a manifestation of mass, a resistance against bourgeois historical values and practices. It is the proletarian way of celebrating beauty.