Tales From Under the Maple Tree

Beauty pageants, especially child pageants, in the Deep South, are a big deal. Dressing their little girls in heels, makeup, and fancy dresses in order to be spitting image mini-versions of adult Miss America pageant contestants, then having them compete for a crown and a monetary prize, is actually a lot more normal than it is odd. So it shouldn't be too surprising that much of this enthusiasm and borderline fanaticism also spills over into the womanless pageant world.

It is believed that many of the mothers who go all-out for these womanless events are already established pageant Moms who have daughters who compete. So, when it’s Jimmy’s turn to be “prettied up,” they apply the same level of intensity and attention to detail to their sons as they have their daughters. 

Then there are others without daughters who are wannabes. Some Moms will freely admit they despair of never having had the fun of preparing a daughter of their own for a pageant, so once their son’s school or a community organization holds such an event they seize on the opportunity, finally able to extravagantly heap their previously unattainable desires onto him.

The two states of Mississippi and
Alabama are where the greatest concentration of womanless pageants are held each year. Over 75% of the counties in my home state of Alabama have their own version of a womanless pageant every year, held (on the surface) for the noble purpose of raising money for charity.

It's a Southern thing.

I've mentioned it to people in other parts of the country, and they have no idea what I'm talking about. While down south these pageants are major events, drawing the attention of the entire small town to the once a year ritual of feminizing their young sons and in the process raising a few dollars for some charity organization or to help a family in the community pay the hospital bills of a sick child.

In these contests young boys are encouraged to doll themselves up, as convincingly as possible, in pretty dresses, lipstick, heels, wigs, and nylon hosiery, and strut their stuff for the amusement of the community.

It's odd that this sort of thing takes place here. I mean, Alabama is a solidly conservative state full of ultra-conservative people. If one of these boys had told his parents he was transgender or even just caught trying to sneak a chance to try on an article of feminine finery, they would've been shocked and horrified. But when it's all for a few hours of fun, a year of bragging rights, a pittance for charity, and gives those moms an opportunity to live out their repressed desire to emasculate a member of the male species, their very own sons, in a public spectacle where their motives are not to be questioned, no one does, and no one has a problem with it.

For several years my parents, particularly my mom, pressured me to compete in the Tiffany Princess Womanless Pageant produced every September, by the local Women's Auxiliary Club, but I patently refused. When it came to any kind of public spotlight, I was a bit of a coward.

I begged them not to make me. I didn't think I could take everyone laughing at me, even if it was just good natured ribbing.

I knew if I won, the way my mom would have spent the whole year bragging about her only child, her son taking home the crown (meaning I had been the prettiest, least masculine, and most convincingly feminine of all the competitors), would be entirely too humiliating, too emasculating to handle, so I flatly refused to even consider it. But this particular year, my friend Joey, who relished being the center of attention, and was a master of self-depreciating humor, decided it might be loads of fun, so he signed up to compete for the first time.