A 28-year-old flight attendant became the first transgender contestant to take home the title of Miss Portugal, adding to the number headed to the Miss Universe competition in El Salvador next month.
"Proud to be the first trans woman to compete for the Miss Universe Portugal title!" Marina Machete wrote in an Instagram post before the competition.
"For many years I wasn’t eligible to compete and now it’s such an honor to be a part of this incredible group of candidates!"
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Machete will be the second transgender contestant headed to the Miss Universe competition next month, competing against Rikkie Valerie Kollé, another transgender contestant who made history by becoming the first biological male to claim the crown in the Netherlands in July.
Machete celebrated the win in a separate post.
"We're counting down to @missuniverse 2023," the post read, translated from Portuguese. "El Salvador, see you soon!"
Contestant Rikkie Kolle poses after being crowned winner in the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant in Leusden, on July 8, 2023. A transgender woman won the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant for the first time in the history of the tournament. (Getty Images)
The win comes as discussions linger surrounding biological men allegedly infringing on women's spaces, a hot-button issue that elicited controversy after Kollé's win earlier this year.
"They [critics] see us as monsters, and my daily DMs are full of people wishing me dead," Kollé told Newsweek at the time, adding, "Wishing me dead and telling me to [commit] suicide, those things are terrible to write, but at the same it's only lifting me up because I get a bigger platform than I could ever dream of."
Kollé also said competing as a transgender contender offers a space to represent the LGBTQ+ community, adding, "Let's make my Queer community proud by doing this."
Contestant Rikkie Kolle (C) reacts after being crowned winner in the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant in Leusden, on July 8, 2023. (Evert Elzinga/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
The Miss Italy pageant, in contrast, responded to Kollé's historic win by banning biological males from competing in the event.
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"Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from birth," Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said during an interview with a local outlet and reported by Newsweek.
"Probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women," she added.
Both, Machete and Kollé were preceded by Spain’s Angela Ponce, who became the first transgender contender to compete in the global Miss Universe pageant in 2018.
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