Chrissy64_uk
11-03-2009, 08:51 PM
Finalist banned from university beauty contest - for being a man
By Emily Dugan and Clifford Coonan
Sunday, 8 March 2009
It was supposed to be a simple beauty pageant; then things turned ugly. On Tuesday, the finalists for the title of Miss University London will be on stage, ignoring howls of feminist protest in the background. But one of them will be missing. Jessica Sparkle has been banned on a technicality: she's a man.
Ms Sparkle, actually Christopher Hayden-Hayes, 20, a second-year philosophy, religious studies and ethics student, should have been taking his/her place alongside 11 other finalists after beating off stiff competition at Heythrop College, London, last December. But when Heythrop wrote to the pageant organisers, 121 Entertainment, confirming his success, they heard nothing until, last week, the firm contacted Mr Hayden-Hayes' s runner-up, Harper Marshall, inviting her to take part in the final.
Cue outrage. "The competition is supposed to be about entertainment and having fun, which is all I wanted to do," Mr Hayden-Hayes said. "There's nothing in the rules to say 'you have to be biologically a woman' and I won our event, fair and square."
Ms Marshall, 21, who will now represent Heythrop College, said she was surprised to be in the final."I support Jessica and think she had every right to be in the final, because everyone voted for her. She's a really good representative for the college, because she's fabulously glamorous."
Mr Hayden-Hayes says he will attend Tuesday's final in full drag with a protest group.....:eek:
By Emily Dugan and Clifford Coonan
Sunday, 8 March 2009
It was supposed to be a simple beauty pageant; then things turned ugly. On Tuesday, the finalists for the title of Miss University London will be on stage, ignoring howls of feminist protest in the background. But one of them will be missing. Jessica Sparkle has been banned on a technicality: she's a man.
Ms Sparkle, actually Christopher Hayden-Hayes, 20, a second-year philosophy, religious studies and ethics student, should have been taking his/her place alongside 11 other finalists after beating off stiff competition at Heythrop College, London, last December. But when Heythrop wrote to the pageant organisers, 121 Entertainment, confirming his success, they heard nothing until, last week, the firm contacted Mr Hayden-Hayes' s runner-up, Harper Marshall, inviting her to take part in the final.
Cue outrage. "The competition is supposed to be about entertainment and having fun, which is all I wanted to do," Mr Hayden-Hayes said. "There's nothing in the rules to say 'you have to be biologically a woman' and I won our event, fair and square."
Ms Marshall, 21, who will now represent Heythrop College, said she was surprised to be in the final."I support Jessica and think she had every right to be in the final, because everyone voted for her. She's a really good representative for the college, because she's fabulously glamorous."
Mr Hayden-Hayes says he will attend Tuesday's final in full drag with a protest group.....:eek: