A transgender contestant, faced with a flurry of violent outcry after announcing her participation in the Miss Belgium beauty pageant, has decided to denounce transphobia, which is still rampant in 2023.
• Also read: Rikkie Kollé, first transgender Miss Netherlands
“I hope they beat trans people like you one by one to make them typhoid and burn them alive. “You are and will always be a man,” wrote a surfer to candidate Lennie Blockmans on Wednesday, Belgian media 7sur7 reported.
News site, social networks, under article, via personal message: The trans woman, who began her transition seven years ago, on Wednesday denounced the spate of violence that has dogged her across social platforms since it was announced four days earlier.
“I think it’s important to share this because I want my followers to see how people are behaving. […] I want to show that maybe it’s not such a great time after all and that transphobia still exists in 2023. Any reaction like that is one reaction too many,” she said.
In fact, this excitement comes just days after a first transgender woman, Rikkie Kolle, won the relevant competition in the Netherlands and won the title of Miss Netherlands.
The Dutch transgender woman, who has also been a victim of hate on social media, reportedly responded to her critics by thanking them for giving her a bigger platform to talk about their story through their hatred, which gave visibility to their concerns.
“I’m really not going to waste my time on this. […] There is no value in worrying about keyboard knights trying to judge me on social media. [Mais] Thanks to them, I can share my story with even more people. That’s why I’m grateful to them. I feel sorry for these people,” she said, according to 7sur7, after her win.