Could reigning Miss France be a monsieur?
By Philip Delves Broughton in New York and Harry de Quetteville in Paris
THIS year’s Miss Universe contest has been thrown into chaos by allegations that Miss France is a man.
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| Elodie Gossuin is crowned Miss France 2001 in Monte Carlo last year |
Elodie Gossuin, previously assumed to be a 19-year-old woman from Picardy, arrived for the contest in Puerto Rico on Monday night to a barrage of impertinent questions.
The organisers demanded that she prove that she was neither a transvestite nor a transsexual, as a French internet site has claimed. Only natural-born females are allowed to compete.
“At the moment we’re treating her as a normal delegate,” said Mary Hilliard McMillan, a spokesman for Miss Universe, who said that a doctor was being called in to examine Mlle Gossuin. “If she does turn out to be a man, we’ll put her on the first plane back to France.”
A cursory glance at the 5ft 10in blonde arouses no suspicions but advances in plastic surgery have given organisers reason to be sceptical. In January, an internet news site called L’Examineur, claimed that Mlle Gossuin was a 27-year-old transvestite cabaret dancer called Nicolas Levanneur.
In France, however, the inquiry into Mlle Gossuin’s sex has been taken as an affront to French womanhood. Genevieve de Fontenay, who has organised the Miss France contest since the 1950s, said: “I am scandalised, shocked, outraged and profoundly upset.
“There’s no doubt that Miss France is a woman. Of course there’s no doubt. I’ve been running this competition for 45 years, do you think that men have never tried to enter before?”
10 January 2001: [UK News] I’ll be miss, says Charterhouse master
10 May 1998: Israeli transsexual wins Eurovision
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