Miss SA organisation asked to challenge the stigma against trans women entering pageants

“I am not asking you to perform inclusion, I am asking you to challenge exclusion,” Rhodes University student Asonele Phiri said in an open letter to the Miss SA organisation as young women enter to become the newly crowned Miss SA.

Identifying as a transgender woman, Phiri said it is time "for a new beauty paradigm" within beauty pageants in SA and globally.