Pageant miss gay america

O nstage at the Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock, Dextaci and Charity Case trade commentary to fill time between pageant contestants. Tonight, there are eleven, and each is accompanied by intricate set pieces and dancers, the accoutrements required for a crown-worthy performance.

She is speaking from experience, having won the title of Miss Gay America in Charity Case won in Though the banner Miss Gay America pageant concluded on night four, this inaugural fifth-night showcase is devoted to Miss Gay America Femme, a distinct division for trans and cisgender women.

The audience applauds, whistles. This is a room filled with drag pageantry icons and their supporters, many of whom have long advocated for trans representation within the Miss Gay America pageant system, which has enforced strict rules against body modifications below the neck since its inception in Though competition in her division pageant miss gay america last night, she is here to support the women competing for the first-ever Femme title.

This is, in part, why they selected Arkansas as the destination for the annual pageant. Norma Kristie. Inthree years after winning the inaugural Miss Gay America crown in Nashville as Norma Kristie, Jones, a lifelong resident of Arkansas, purchased the pageant and established its home base in Little Rock.

These new gathering spaces expanded opportunities—and competition—for drag queens in the state, enabling top performers to compete locally in Miss Gay Arkansas America—the oldest preliminary to the parent competition—and on the Miss Gay America national stage.

Though LeMay left Arkansas in —first for Dallas and then DC, where she not only continued performing but also embarked on a twenty-five-year career as a legal administrator—she returned with a desire to help restore what she saw as a dwindling interest in the Miss Gay America system.

Since winning the Miss Gay Arkansas America crown, LeMay has been working with the pageant to recruit contestants and add three local preliminaries to the state competition. The pair met when LeMay was sixteen Fox was a youth minister at the timebut their friendship began years later at the Miss Gay Arkansas America pageant, which Fox won.

The central role of any state or national titleholder is to celebrate legacy performers and recruit new ones. It is also her job to forge a path for future queens, acting as mentor, friend, family. In Arkansas—where Miss Gay America has its longest lineage and where, as recently asthe government presented but ultimately did not pass anti-drag legislation—pageant winners have helped preserve the artform.

At age sixty, LeMay is aware that she is carving a legacy through her impact on up-and-coming local performers, providing the kind of mentorship that she received from Paige Fox, from Norma Kristie, pageant miss gay america others. F or the uninitiated, pageants are lengthy affairs.

Miss Gay America extends over four days and nights, with the top ten competing on night four, which can run as long as six hours.

Miss Gay Oklahoma America 2025

This year, New Orleans-based performer Ivy Dripp earned the Miss Gay America title after what both Mansman and Dutzer described as the closest scoring by judges in their history of ownership. She was crowned close to midnight before being ushered to the Arkansas drag institution Triniti Nightclub by Coppa LeMay in celebration.

Which is all to say that fatigue is unavoidable for these performers. And yet, at the first-ever Femme competition, as contestants showcase their talents and eveningwear and interview skills, participants from the parent pageant fill the audience. Tired as they are, they are here to support their expanding sisterhood.

So this means a lot to me, to be here for them. All eleven performances are distinct. An aerial acrobat spins on wide, white silks. One contestant, Hypoxia, blends spoken-word, video, song, and dance to tell her transition story. Later, during the interview portion, she reveals that on this very night she is celebrating three years of sobriety.

More than once, a contestant references the lifesaving impact of drag.