A Beauty Queen But you are a boy
[Music]
many girls dream
of entering a beauty pageant in their
life
having their makeup done wearing
beautiful dresses
and walking on a stage feeling like an
absolute queen
i know that this was my lifelong dream
for as long as i can remember
but not until recently didn’t actually
become
my reality thank you so much
perfect
my name is solange hi
i am a 24 year old beauty queen
i have won several titles
it always seemed so impossible
so out of my league
for a girl like me to actually be a
beauty queen
but here i am still today
wearing a beautiful dress a feeling
like my true self
i remember when i was younger
my mother asked me what do you want to
be
when you grow up what kind of profession
do you want to have
and at first i told her i want to be
a famous pop singer i want to be like
britney spears shakira beyonce
she loved and she said you don’t have a
voice for that
you need you need you need to pick
another profession
so i thought okay all right well uh
then i want to be an fbi agent
i want to be double seven style be a
bond girl be be be someone
special she lost again and she said
that’s not a real profession you need to
be a real
profession a real job so i thought okay
all right and my last answer was
i want to be a beauty queen
i want to be a famous model
famous beauty queen who wears beautiful
dresses
and who owns the stage
and she looked at me confused and she
said
how can you be a beauty queen we are a
boy
yeah a boy i mean
don’t get me wrong i am a woman
just look at me but to be more concrete
i am a transgender woman so that means
yeah
i was born in the body of a boy
are you already confused can you imagine
how i felt growing up
growing up with all these thoughts all
these
unfulfilled pieces in my
heart in my soul waking up
every day thinking what am i missing
what am i not getting
what’s what’s the problem
it made me and my family uneasy
that i was different you know when i
grew up
there were no openly famous
transgender people there was no one
who i could look up to who i could point
a finger to
who i could say this person
is who i want to be this person
is who i look up to there was no one
i knew what i wanted i knew my feelings
were real
i knew exactly how i saw myself in the
mirror
but i didn’t know how i could
point it out in the world
so eventually i got to school and i just
i just told everyone
i’m a gay boy just to just to make it
easy
i got vegan
i got i’ve been called names
uh people threw things at me
and you have to realize that in that
moment when you are in that age group
when you are 13 when you’re 14
your party is changing you you don’t
know who you like
there’s so many different things
happening
uh you you’re being bullied so severely
you have
no support from family you have no
friends you you’ve no one who you can
connect to it makes you
it makes you go a little bit crazy
and eventually at the age of 14
i saw no light at the end of the tunnel
and i have my first suicide attempt
can you imagine the age of 14
when you are supposed to care if that
boy likes you or not
you’re supposed to read a text
asking to go to prom or whatever
and here you are jumping off that bridge
because the world doesn’t want you
could you imagine how that felt it was
such a
painful painful moment in my life
and it didn’t got better
when i reached the age of 16 i
tried my second attempt
i had so much trouble with
trying to find my place trying to find
my spot
in the world trying to
try to stand up for myself trying to
just being me but i realized
that when i when i climbed out of that
water
when i had my second suicide attempt at
16
i climbed out of that water and i
thought
what am i doing why
why am i letting
people control my life
that i want to jump off a bridge
and it was in that moment when i thought
i am gonna live
i am gonna live for myself right now
i am going to get out of this water
and i am going to shine so hard
and be so happy with myself
and i think that
i really think that after that moment it
got me to realize
that you need to make yourself happy
you really need to make your own and
create your own happiness
when i got home
um my mother eventually she just
she just couldn’t take she just couldn’t
handle it taking care of me anymore
she just couldn’t she just could not
handle the burden anymore
so she told me that i had
one week one week and i had to grab
all my belongings all my stuff
and i have to be gone
can you imagine that your own
mother wants to have you out of the
house
at 17
my heart was shattered i was in so much
pain
within three days i packed all my stuff
and i went i went to a big city
and i thought i’m gonna make it
i’m gonna be proud of myself
and i’m gonna make it work and
i did for the remaining years
my personal life went actually
pretty great i’ve made friends
i actually made friends friends who took
care of me friends who
saw me for who i was
who i wanted to be and not for what i
was
not for my past not for
all the challenging things that have
happened to me
but it also got me realized that
even though you’re in such a big city so
many
cultures so many different aspects
when employers find out you are a
trans person you’re off the list
they do not want to hire you
because they think it’s so much work
it’s too much effort supposedly we would
draw all the attention we would have so
many sick days off we would not be great
workers
so one of my friends victoria who i’ve
known for a few years now
she is the creative director of this
pageant and she told me she she saw
she saw how i was suffering
so she just told me just apply
just apply for this patient and
we’ll see what happens so i thought i
have nothing to lose
i can do this so i
com i i feel like the form
um i thought i am not gonna be chosen
for this patient
so many girls who
are so much better than me who are so
much older than me or so many more
who have so many more experience than me
but it was still within one week that i
i got the email congratulations
you are miss netherlands for miss
transtar international
can you imagine how i felt
i knew that finally
i was gonna be a pillar
i i got the chance to be
exactly who i wanted to be when i was so
young and i didn’t have that person
i got the chance to be that person
for people like me
so in december we uh we went to
barcelona
we went for the beauty pageant um
it was amazing it was absolutely
amazing to have met so many girls
who you could just grab your mind to
so many girls who experience the same
things like you have
who could laugh with you could cry with
you
you are truly one all one family because
you have been through so many similar
things
from the 28 countries representing
i reached top 10.
i was so proud of myself this
small girl from a small village
having no experience in paige whatsoever
reached top 10 in an international
beauty pageant
and most of all i got to make myself
proud
i got to make i got to make that little
boy
from so many years back out thinking
like
you actually did it you’re a beauty
queen
i remember when the winner was chosen
on the last day of after the finale and
the girls were packing up their suitcase
and i remember
i sat down and i
was looking myself in the mirror
and i was bawling my eyes or just
bawling my eyes up because i was just
such an intense moment i was so proud of
myself
and one thing that just crossed my mind
was you see mom
i am a beauty queen
and i did it
i’ve reached what i wanted
and this is the proudest i’ve ever been
of myself
the point of this title
was to make you realize that transgender
people
are people too
we don’t want special treatment we don’t
want
to be seen as something different
we are just the same like you like you
and like you
we breathe the same we love the same
even though we have different lies we
are one
by the way if you are an employer
do not be afraid to have a conversation
with a transgender person just sit down
sit down and have a chat
we have had to face so many challenging
issues
that we can definitely take on your
professional issues
so give us a chance
thank you