For the first time in the pageant’s history, the title of Miss Nevada USA has been won by a transgender woman.
Kataluna Enriquez was delegated the victor Sunday at the South Point inn club in Las Vegas.
“I’m the primary trans lady and trans lady of shading and it’s time that our voices are heard,” she said. “It’s stunning on the grounds that it’s Pride month and it’s the 52nd commemoration of Stonewall so it’s an extraordinary second for my local area.”
The 27-year-old Enriquez won the Miss Silver State USA pageant in March, a fundamental competition for the Miss Nevada USA pageant.
She beat 21 different candidates to address Nevada in the Miss USA exhibition that will be hung on Nov. 29. She will be the first openly transgender woman to contend in Miss USA.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Enriquez first partook in quite a while in 2016 when she was working as a model.
Enriquez said she hasn’t had the easiest journey in life.
“I’ve struggled with physical and sexual abuse. I’ve struggled with mental health. I didn’t have much growing up. I didn’t have support, but I am still able to thrive and I am still able to survive and become a trailblazer for many,” she said.
Representation of the trans community is something Enriquez feels unequivocally about – as of late having the option to contend in cisgender pageants herself.
“When I was young, I said that one day I hope to see someone like me on stage at Miss USA, and it just happened to be, I was the person I needed,” she said.
Enriquez hopes to reveal to her own story and offer her own experience to ensure that nobody out there feels alone.
“That’s something I felt growing up and that’s the last thing that I would want anyone to feel, so if I could have and give that to someone, I think it’s an amazing time of my life,” she said.