"Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum is participating in the 'Miss International Queen 2009' transvestite beauty contest by being one of the primary sponsors. This beauty pageant is an opportunity for people locally and internationally to be part of the contest by cheering for their favorite transvestite beauty who will represent different countries worldwide."
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[/floatr]In internet voting, Anne Marie from the Philippines (above left) leads Sunny Dee-Lite from America (above right) with no-one else currently in contention. However, there are three Japanese contestants in this year's line-up including TV tarento Ai Haruna (right). Haruna placed 4th in 2007 and has entered again this year at the behest of one of NTV's shows. To generate some interest, she's made a public appeal for support so it'll be interesting if she can ride the same Japanese netizen wave which propelled Ikuo Nushiro to the top of an internet vote for the next Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. A look at a selection of web comments suggest that support can't be taken for granted: while Haruna seems generally well liked, some ungracious souls are suggesting she might be about ten years too late in asking for their vote.(There was a gap of about half an hour between me starting this piece and finally posting it. During that time Haruna appears to have gone from absolutely nowhere to 2400 votes, which is nearly 14% of the total)
