Hey there! Erin here, officially signing in as Miss MO 2016. So excited to serve this amazing state 💕 pic.twitter.com/MRlYYYLqsC
— Miss Missouri (@MissAmericaMO) June 23, 2016
History will be made at this year’s Miss America pageant and we have Erin O’Flaherty to thank for that. (Thanks!) The freshly minted Miss Missouri will enter September’s competition as its first ever openly gay contestant.
O’Flaherty earned the crown on Saturday in Mexico, Mo. The 23-year-old pageant winner was understandably thrilled by the win and not just for its trailblazing status.
“I’m on cloud nine really just to be Miss Missouri,” she said. “I don’t know that I intended to be the first [gay contestant] but I am. So I’m very excited about it.”
The University of Central Florida graduate, who also owns her own boutique, told Cosmopolitan that she performed better in pageants after coming out because she was presenting who she really was. O’Flaherty believes she can serve as a role model for LGBT youth.
I hope so — that’s really my goal here. Growing up, I was very feminine. Knowing I might be gay but also being very feminine was kind of confusing for me because I didn’t fit into the stereotypical category I had in my head for a woman in the LGBT community. It took many years of struggle to figure out who I was. Femme lesbians are underrepresented in the LGBT community. They certainly exist, but many find it very hard to be accepted. Often, they are confused with being heterosexual. This was my experience — one of my best friends, actually, that I met my freshman year of college, we came out around the same time and we’ve had the same struggle. But I absolutely feel a part of the LGBT community now that I am older. I have been able to connect with other femme lesbians and I am so proud to be a part of this community. I hope that I can just reach someone that needs the help that I could have used back then.
The desire to provide help is something that is intertwined in O’Flaherty’s work in the pageant game. Her platform is suicide prevention, a subject O’Flaherty has had to deal with firsthand when a friend took their life at age 13.
ABC will broadcast the 2017 Miss America pageant on September 11. With 20 contestants still to be determined, there’s the possibility that Erin O’Flaherty might not be the only lesbian competitor at this year’s event.
(Via New York Daily News)