More than 100 transgender men have entered the Miss Italy pageant in protest after the event organiser said that transgender women would not be allowed to compete. Trans activist Federico Barbarossa, who lives in southern Italy, said the exclusion of trans women from competing in the Miss Italy pageant made him angry but he was also ‘kind of amused by it’, since he could enter because he was assigned female at birth but looks like a boy and would considered as one by the pageant. Previously, Patrizia Mirigliani, who is the official organiser of Miss Italy, told Italian news outlet Il Primato Nazionale: ‘Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news using strategies that I think are a bit absurd.’