Ban on LGBTQ beauty pageant in Laos sparks culture war, criticism of ‘dinosaur’ government
- Miss Fabulous 2022 contest in Vientiane banned as ‘those who are not born as real men and women are not eligible to participate in pageants’
- Outpouring of public opinion in country with strict controls shows limits of power in digital age, observers say
The Communist leadership, virtually uncontested since taking control in 1975, is normally swift to smother flare-ups of public discontent over the corruption, resource extraction, rights abuses and inequality that have left Laos at the bottom of Southeast Asia’s development charts.
In an August 24 Facebook statement, an influential state body called the Lao People’s Revolutionary Youth Union banned the “Miss Fabulous 2022” pageant in Vientiane, which was due to be held on September 24.
Owned by Thais, the competition has tweaked the usual pageant recipe to pit a spectrum of contestants from cross-dressers and transgender entrants to biologically-born women against one another in the same event.
Seemingly unimpressed by a promotional bikini shoot, the Lao Youth Union doubled down with another Facebook post on September 9 stating “those who are not born as real men and women are not eligible to participate in pageants”.
Both were signed on official letter heading which was quickly interpreted as a bar on transgender Laotians from competing in pageants at home or abroad.
The backlash was unprecedented and amplified across the country by celebrities on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.