Former beauty queen Maxine Medina goes on a blocking spree after receiving backlash for posing for MEGA’s Equality campaign. Yikes!

In just a few hours after MEGA magazine posted their #MEGAEquality campaign, people began calling out Maxine Medina. Infamous for her transphobic comments last year, people found her participation hypocritical and opposing to the campaign itself.

MEGA magazine is known not only for their editorial sophistication but also for the values they uphold. Being an influencer themselves in terms of lifestyle, they have great sets of ideals and values. That’s why it was no brainer that they have something special cooking up for Independence Day. This time, they emphasized equality and pride in their special campaign.

“Regardless of gender, race, status, and beliefs—we are all equal. True freedom is about equality,” 

The #MEGAEquality #MEGAForAll campaign aims to bring together people regardless of their difference in identity, stature and such. These identifiers that chain and divide us has been a long-standing problem for everyone in society. It brings nothing but hate and discrimination. No wonder MEGA wanted to help spread awareness with the help of influential celebrities and icons in society.

So here’s the tea…

Amongst the people who posed for the said campaign is none other than Maxine Medina herself. The former Miss Philippines has been coined as a “transphobe” after expressing her disagreement of transgender women joining Miss Universe. Similar to Teresita Ssen “Winwyn” Marquez, she’s uncomfortable with the idea of a transgender joining such an exclusive and prestigious pageant for women. In an interview, she honestly and bluntly showed her opposition after Miss Spain Angela Ponce makes history as the first transgender contestant in Miss Universe.

“Well, kung gusto [nila] talaga sumali, may pageants naman for them, na right for them,” Medina answered when asked about transgender women competing in the pageant. “… Para naman din equal sa girls, ‘di ba? Syempre may gusto din tayong i-share. Lalo na sa mga women.”

However, she reiterated that she still respects the pageant and the organization’s wishes. But still, her opinion seems to have ingrained to a lot of people’s memory.

Maxine’s blocking spree

As soon as the #MEGAEquality campaign photoshoot was released, it spread like a virus. People began roasting her and calling her a hypocrite for joining the campaign. According to them, she can’t be posing for a campaign striving for gender equality and be opposed to transgenders in pageants. They believe that there’s a lot of people who deserve her spot. Someone who believes and supports the rights of the LGBT community. And for them, it certainly ain’t Maxine.

Hundreds of people began calling her out on Twitter and Facebook. Because you just can’t identify yourself as an ally if your belief clashes with the community’s goals. People were calling her stupid, hypocrite, and such. It was utter chaos in Twitterverse as it began to become viral in just a few hours. And according to some, Maxine blocked them for calling her out. No wonder she decided to go on a blocking spree. That’s just one pile of negativity in one day. Oof!

Is she transphobic?

However, it seems like people are being blindsided at some point. I mean, okay, Maxine did mention being uncomfortable with the idea of transgender people in Miss Universe. But does that make her transphobic? I think not. It doesn’t make her a transphobe.

Because in the first place, she never said being uncomfortable of the transpeople being in the community in general. True, it sounded like she discriminated transgenders for all-female beauty pageants. But hey, it wasn’t like she doesn’t accept them in the community. There’s a difference between being uncomfortable with transgenders joining natural-born women dominated pageant and with being discriminatory towards trans people in general. There is a fine line between those two concepts.

People can change

The thing is, people are warping her words against her. I get it, we want the LGBT community to be accepted as a norm, a convention, in the society. Sure. As an ally, I would love that. But I think it’s high time for us to stop being high strung about it. A lot can happen in a year. She might have had a change of heart.

You just can’t go on telling that her posing for MEGA’s campaign isn’t character development. Just because someone has a different opinion, you can go invalidate their beliefs. What does that make you? A hypocrite. Don’t blame Maxine for blocking you. The flak is too much on this one. Respect and equality is a two-way process. Think about it. Ponder on it instead of drawing flak in social media to show how woke you are. Doesn’t make you better than Maxine and her so-called “transphobia”, does it? (MIC. FUCKING. DROP.)

What can you say about Maxine Medina’s participation in #MEGAEquality campaign? Do you also think she’s transphobic? Share us your thoughts on the comments down below. Or hit us up on our Facebook or Twitter @UDoUPh.