News of the Italian pageant’s stance comes shortly after the Miss Netherlands competition crowned a transgender biological male as their winner — sending him to the 72nd Miss Universe pageant.

In an Italian interview with Radio Cusano, Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said, “lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd.”

“Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from birth. Probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women,” Mirigliani added, according to a Google translation of a report from Il Primato Nazionale.

Earlier this month, Rikkie Valerie Kolle, 22, won the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant, becoming the first transgender-identifying person to do so.

Kolle was crowned by predecessor Ona Moody and USA’s reigning Miss Universe R’Bonney Gabriel.

Kolle will now become the second transgender person to compete in Miss Universe, following Angela Ponce from Spain in 2018. Earlier this year, Daniela Arroyo González, who is also a transgender biological male, was chosen to compete in the Puerto Rico competition.

The pageant changed the rules in 2012, allowing biological males who identify as women to compete for titles.

The 72nd Miss Universe competition will be held in El Salvador in December.