For some gay men, beauty pageants are a special thing; the
pageantry, the gowns, the drag queeniness of some of the contestants. Me? Not
so much. Give me a good awards show and someone drunk on a Red Carpet and I’m
in; but, that may change since I heard this story.
The Miss South Carolina Pageant is next week, with the gowns
and the glitter and the gaffes during the question and answer portion of the
show—Caite Upton, anyone? See HERE—but this year there is a special contestant
like we’ve never seen before in the Palmetto State. For the first time in history, the pageant has an openly gay
contestant; and she’s multi-racial.
Her name is Analouisa Valencia and many are calling her the
new face of the south.
:::fingers crossed:::
The South could use a new face; just sayin'.
And while this is the second time Analouisa
has competed, this is the first year she's competing as an out lesbian.
"Last year, I did compete at state, but I wasn't as comfortable because of the fact I was hiding who I was. This is my first year coming out and saying, 'This is me, girls. Sorry, I'm going to be changing in the same dressing room as you. This is what's going to happen.'"— Analouisa Valencia
But, while it might seem
having an openly gay contestant is a first for South Carolina, she is also the
first bilingual contestant in pageant history.
Seriously? 2013? And she’s the first bilingual contestant? Oh yeah, South Carolina.
And, with three titles already under her belt, Valencia's
family says her success represents the changing face of the south, though it’s
a change which finds many folks unprepared as they focus on her sexual orientation and her ethnicity. But Valencia says it’s her passion for
coaching Special Olympic athletes that she wants judges to remember. She doesn’t want to be The Gay
Contestant, or The Multi-Ethnic Contestant, she wants to be Analouisa, and,
hopefully, that’s how people will see her.
And this particular gay might
just find himself sitting in front of a TV next week, rooting on one particular
pageant gal.
Good luck, Analouisa.
And, if you win, and collect the $25,000 scholarship,
there's also a Coming Out Toaster Oven, and copy of The Gay Agenda for you.
It’s a win-win, though, any way you look at it.
My high school choir teacher, Cruella DeVille, sooooo wanted one of the girls to compete in the Miss (County name) pageant. She had dreams of coaching us all the way to Miss America. We, wise beyond our years, knew that would be a Bad Idea.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to future Miss South Carolina!
Wait. Lesbian. Mult-racial. Bilingual. Are you sure this is in South Carolina? I hope she wins, that will ruffle some old southern birds.
ReplyDeleteWe have an agenda?! Why didn't I get the memo? Or the toaster oven?
ReplyDeleteGood for Analouisa, and I'm hoping she wins.
@Greg
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm relatively new at HOMO HQ and we do have quite a backlog of Gay Agenda copies and Toaster Ovens.
I'll look into it for you.... =)
I'm hoping she wins, too; we need a good dose of OMG-WTF just happened around here!
she is very pretty; YOU GO GIRL!
ReplyDeleteThanks for supporting my daughter!
ReplyDeleteShe's gorgeous. I hope she wins!
ReplyDeleteLeft out again! Where's my copy of the Gay Agenda? Count me in as one of those gay guys (in my youthful days) who fiercely followed beauty pageants even to the point of making scrapbook newspaper clipping of the winners (in the Fifties when I was a teenager, I still have the scrapbooks!) My brother John is a Bob Jones trained Southern Fundamentalist Baptist pastor in Greenville. I'll have to give him a call and ask him his thoughts on the first multi-racial, lesbian Miss South Carolina contestant. Poor John, I'm always doing this to him which is my right as his big brother. :)
ReplyDelete