Transgender woman challenges societal norms by applying to participate in Miss Venezuela pageant

The influencer and Instagram model has signed up to compete in this year’s Miss Venezuela contest.

Caracas, Venezuela: Venezuelan enthusiasm for beauty pageants is unparalleled, and Miss Venezuela – the crown jewel of them all – may be the only event that can unite the deeply divided country. Once a year, class, race and politics are pushed aside as the South American nation tunes in to see who will represent Venezuela on the world stage.

Behind the cheers and claps for the women vying for the coveted title is a deeply conservative society that has little to no tolerance for challenging heteronormative norms. Sofia Salomón is ready to challenge that.

The influencer and Instagram model has signed up to compete in this year’s Miss Venezuela contest. If accepted, she would be the first transgender woman to compete.

“I think it’s a great platform to make my community visible, show the positives and show people the reality of transgender women,” said Salomón.

With no end in sight to the ongoing crisis that has pushed millions of Venezuelans into poverty and 7.3 million to migrate, LGBTQ+ rights are hardly a topic at the table for families or a dominant campaign issue in the race to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. 2024 to overthrow.

Sunday’s planned Pride march in the capital Caracas may draw hundreds of people, but there is almost no acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community across the country, unlike some other Latin American countries with conservative, Roman Catholic values. And Venezuelans who often idolize the European lifestyle have largely resisted the broad integration of that continent’s community and rejection of homophobia and transphobia.

Venezuela’s top court in May repealed a law punishing consensual behavior by same-sex military personnel, but waited seven years to rule on a case that aims to give same-sex couples the right to marry.

It also did not rule on Tamara Adrian’s case, which she brought to court in 2004. The transgender woman legally wants to change her name and gender on her birth certificate and in public records. The government says the law already allows it, but Adrian and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which investigates human rights violations in the hemisphere, disagree. She has requested hearings and filed more than 30 pleas in her case with no response.

Nevertheless, in 2015 Adrian became the country’s first transgender legislator, representing a district in Caracas, and in June this year she ran in the opposition presidential primary, hoping to oust Maduro.

“To see changes in social affairs, the state has to implement public policies, and in that sense there is undoubtedly a breakthrough of changes (in other Latin American countries) that you cannot see in Venezuela,” Adrian said. “There’s often not even an awareness here that a particular sentence is racist or homophobic or transphobic or misogynistic.”

Last year, Salomón finished in the top six of Miss International Queen, the world’s largest beauty pageant for transgender women. At the event, she mentioned the law Adrian is fighting against.

“I would like that law to be changed so that transgender women can be accepted by whatever name they feel more secure,” she said.

In February, a transgender woman was selected to compete in Miss Universe in Puerto Rico – a first for the Caribbean island – boosting Salomón’s hopes for her participation in the contest in Venezuela. She said her parents, siblings and boyfriend are supportive of her decision to apply, and the comments and emojis on her Instagram posts have been overwhelmingly positive.

The Miss Venezuela Organization did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Miss Venezuela winners advance to Miss Universe, and the global contest was opened to transgender people in 2012. That decision led Osmel Sousa, then-head of Miss Venezuela, to declare that “the humble, Christian Venezuelan public will never accept that position. ”

Marcia Ochoa, an associate professor of feminist critical race and ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz, applauded Salomón’s efforts.

“She’s doing something that makes a lot of sense for a Venezuelan person,” Ochoa said, insisting that Venezuelan culture has room for a quirky gender identity: miss. “You can see someone and say whether or not they are in beauty pageants because they look like a beauty pageant contestant. You can say, ‘es toda una miss.’” The sentence sums up a true Venezuelan compliment that a perfectly composed woman is “definitely a Miss (Venezuela).”

In 2018, Angela Ponce of Spain became the first transgender woman to compete in Miss Universe, and last year a Thai business magnate and transgender woman purchased the Miss Universe Organization — once part-owned by former U.S. President Donald Trump — for $20 million.

Miss Venezuela winners earn instant fame that can lead to positions of influence. 1981 Miss Universe winner Irene Sáez later became mayor of a municipality in Caracas, and ran for president in 1998, losing to Hugo Chávez.

Josefina Mejia, a resident of Caracas, has been watching Miss Venezuela with family and friends for decades. They pick favorites and have a friendly competition over whose pick will win. Mejia, 65, said she is not against Salomón’s efforts, but would rather see transgender women stay out of the fight.

“This is a conservative society and sometimes we judge people even though we shouldn’t judge,” Mejia said. “I would like to have a separate contest for that gender.”

The activist-led Venezuelan Observatory on LGBTIQ+ Violence reported at least 97 cases of violence against community members across the country in 2022, including 11 murders. The numbers are probably an underestimate because so many cases go unreported. In at least 10% of cases a formal complaint was made to the authorities.

Salomón, who is interested in a career in real estate, received a confirmation email that the Miss Venezuela organization had received her application, but she still doesn’t know if she has been accepted. She said she thinks her modeling and pageant experience gives her an advantage over other contestants.

“I believe that experience is not improvised,” said Salomón. “That’s why people trust me to make history in the country.”