ABSTRACT
The judges were given folders which contained a list of contestants according to the country they represented. There were three columns indicating the criteria on which judging was to be based and the percentage for each of the three criteria. The split was: poise and personality, 25%; facial beauty, 25%; and intelligence, 50%. Besides Heidi, the judges included a local headmistress, two former male fashion contestants and a female beauty contestant. The beauty contest quickly wound down, the crowd dispersed, and groups of gays, contestants and their supporters, both jubilant and disconsolate, gathered their things, half a dozen or more jumping into our van with Edward and Jamey. Transgenderally identified men have emerged as the creative producers of an image of beauty defined in terms of an imagined global American otherness. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
