Australia is about to be represented on the world stage by an impressive young woman who displayed rare courage at a critical juncture.
On Wednesday evening at Crown’s Palladium ballroom Caity Worthington became Miss Universe Australia after making the principled decision to answer a contentious question with honesty, when most in her position would’ve opted for a politically correct response.
Competing in the MUA final where contestants give typical beauty pageant answers about love, kindness and world peace, she made a brave stance.
While others got questions about personal growth and their greatest influences, she was presented with a politically fraught question about men identifying as women competing in women’s sport.
She was asked: “Do you believe banning biological males from women’s sport is common sense or discrimination and why?”
Worthington, who works as a radiographer in Brisbane, gave an answer that saw the crowd erupt in cheers, she said: “Coming from a medical background … human biology does not lie.”
She had to pause for the cheers to subside before continuing to say that “everyone playing sport at an elite level deserves the chance to be on a fair playing field … I would love to see in the future transgender people have their own (league).”
It was a thoughtful, compassionate and common sense response but above all it was supremely brave.
Right now WNBA star Sophie Cunningham is being smeared and attacked for daring to take a stand for women’s spaces and sports.
We’ve seen athletes, authors and women’s rights campaigners face hateful campaigns for taking similar positions.
This may be an 80/20 issue, or perhaps even a 90/10 issue, but that small minority are loud, disproportionately influential and over-represented in the media.
On Thursday, on my program on News24, Worthington refused to back down, saying, “Safety and fairness are of the utmost importance.”
It remains to be seen whether the stunning redhead will be crowned Miss Universe in November in Puerto Rico, but you can be sure she’s not going to give any intellectually vacuous answers.
Rita PanahiColumnist and Sky News host
Born in America, Rita spent much of her childhood in Iran before her family moved to Australia as refugees. She holds a Master of Business, with a career spanning more than two decades, first within the banking sector and the past ten years as a journalist and columnist.