Transgender Beauty Will Likely Compete in Pageant

Trump organization backs down on Jenna Talackova controversy
Posted Apr 3, 2012 12:28 AM CDT
Transgender Beauty Will Likely Compete in Pageant
Jenna Talackova, of Vancouver, British Columbia, speaks during a video interview at the 2010 Miss International Queen Competition in Thailand.    (AP Photo/Miss International Queen via YouTube, via The Canadian Press)

The Trump organization appears to have had a change of heart about a Canadian beauty who had a change of sex. Jenna Talackova—a transgender contestant booted from the Miss Universe Canada pageant—will be allowed to take part "provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada and the standards established by other international competitions," according to a lawyer for Donald Trump, who owns the competition.

Talackova, 23, had sexual reassignment surgery when she was 19 and was selected as one of the competition's 65 finalists before being disqualified. Her lawyer says that while the Trump statement seems like "gobbledygook," he hopes it means his client can compete, the Globe and Mail reports. Human rights laws in Ontario, where the final is being held, prohibit discrimination based on being transgendered, he notes, so "one would think that she therefore meets the legal gender requirements in Canada." (More Miss Universe stories.)

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