Lo Colby of the United States was crowned Miss International Queen 2026 in Pattaya on September 19, with Thailand’s Theerachaya Pimkitidaj taking first runner-up and Japan’s Saki Iwai second runner-up — the same order the pageant’s own preliminary awards had already pointed to, after Colby won Best Talent outright and Iwai finished first runner-up in that same segment. It’s the second consecutive year the United States has taken the crown, following Midori Monét’s win in 2025 — a tough finish for the host country, whose own delegate came up one spot short on her country’s own stage. Red Spiegelman of the Philippines rounded out the Top 6, alongside Colombia and France.
It’s a finish the Philippines has now landed on four years running.
The Field, and Where It Landed
Twenty-seven delegates competed for the crown at this year’s 20th anniversary edition of Miss International Queen — the pageant Tiffany’s Show Pattaya Co. has run annually in Pattaya since 2004, built around transgender advocacy and LGBTQ awareness, with proceeds from the televised show benefiting the Royal Charity AIDS Foundation of Thailand. Colby’s win gives the United States its fourth title at the pageant, and came with more than the crown attached: Best Talent and the sponsor’s Wansiri Hospital award both went to her as well. Thailand’s Pimkitidaj and Japan’s Iwai had both been flagged as frontrunners heading into the finale, and both closed it out with hardware of their own: Pimkitidaj took the Preliminary Best Performance award on top of her host-country advantage, while Iwai won Best National Costume outright to go with her Best Talent runner-up finish.
Red Spiegelman and the Philippines’ Fourth Straight Top 6
Red Spiegelman of Pampanga earned the trip to Pattaya by winning Miss International Queen Philippines 2026 on May 16 at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Taguig City, over pageant veteran and runner-up Mikay Bautista — who went on to win Queen Universe Philippines that September, a reminder that a national runner-up finish rarely means the end of the road.
Her Top 6 finish extends a run that’s now specific enough to have its own shorthand among fans — the “Top 6 curse,” as it’s been called across Filipino pageant pages on Facebook. Lars Pacheco landed in the Top 6 in 2023, Sophia Nicole Arkanghel in 2024, and Anne Patricia Lorenzo in 2025 — three straight years of the Philippines reaching the pageant’s final six without ever cracking the podium. Spiegelman’s finish this year makes it four.
The streak sits against a real title history. The Philippines has won Miss International Queen three times — Kevin Balot in 2012, the country’s first titleholder; Trixie Maristela in 2015; and Fuschia Anne Ravena in 2022. It goes back further than that, too: Ma. Cristina Dandan finished 2nd runner-up in 2004, the pageant’s very first edition, giving the Philippines a podium finish before it had won anything at all. Four straight Top 6 results without a podium repeat since Ravena is, by that history, a genuine cold streak rather than the norm.
That history got its own moment on the 20th anniversary stage. Balot, Maristela, and Ravena — the Philippines’ three Miss International Queen titleholders — appeared together on stage as part of the anniversary program, part of a broader reunion of past winners from across the pageant’s two decades. In their individual speeches, each thanked the organization directly, crediting their wins with changing their lives for the better.
Lorenzo is already back in the pageant conversation herself — after being crowned at Reina Filipinas 2026, she’s set to compete at Miss Grand International All Stars later this year.
Not to Be Confused With: Miss Equality World
Miss International Queen isn’t the only major international pageant for transgender women that crowned a Filipina-adjacent result this year. In August, Jamie Casiño won Miss Equality World 2026, a separate Thailand-based pageant with a similar advocacy mission and an easy title to conflate with this one, run by a different organization on a different calendar. Between Casiño’s win and Spiegelman’s Top 6, it’s been a real year for Philippine representation across the two biggest stages in international transgender pageantry — even if only one of them ended in a crown.