Originally published 2021-07-04.
On 27 June 2021, Kataluna Enriquez, a 27-year-old Filipina American from Las Vegas, won Miss Nevada USA, becoming the first transgender woman to hold that title and the first openly transgender contestant at Miss USA. At the national final in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 29 November 2021, she did not reach the top 16; the crown went to Elle Smith of Kentucky. Her run still marked a milestone in a pageant system that had only opened its doors to transgender women a decade earlier.
How she won the Nevada title
Enriquez's path began earlier in 2021. In March she won Miss Silver State USA, the largest preliminary competition feeding into the state title, and was the first transgender woman to do so. In June she competed against 21 other women at the South Point Hotel Casino in Las Vegas and took the Miss Nevada USA crown. The Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported the result, and national outlets including Fox News, CNN and NBC News followed.
Enriquez designs her own pageant clothing, a detail reporters noted in their coverage, and she has called Las Vegas her adopted hometown.
Celebrating on Instagram, she thanked her supporters and dedicated the moment to the transgender community, writing: "My win is our win."
A post shared by Kataluna Enriquez (@mskataluna)
What she said about representation
Speaking to reporters, Enriquez put inclusion and visibility at the centre of her message. She said representation was something she had lacked when she was growing up and that it was still missing in much of the world. She described herself as "a proud transgender woman of color" and said her differences had made her stronger rather than lesser.
Political leaders in Nevada joined the congratulations. Governor Steve Sisolak said she "represents the best of her community and our state", and Senator Jacky Rosen marked her as the first openly transgender woman to compete for Miss USA.
Support also came from the Philippines. Mela Habijan, who won Miss Trans Global 2020, celebrated the result on Twitter, calling Enriquez a trans Pinay sister who had made history. For many Filipino fans, the win carried a double meaning: visibility for transgender women and for Filipino Americans.
The Miss USA final in Tulsa
The 70th Miss USA pageant was held on 29 November 2021 at the River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa. Fifty-one delegates competed. Enriquez was eliminated in the first cut, before the top 16 were announced. Elle Smith, a television reporter from Louisville representing Kentucky, won and went on to represent the United States at Miss Universe 2021 in Eilat, Israel, the following month.
Not placing did not erase the significance of her participation. Enriquez was the first openly transgender woman to compete on the Miss USA stage and national coverage of the final reported on her alongside the winner.
Transgender women in the Miss Universe system
Miss USA is a national preliminary for Miss Universe, and both followed the same rules. The organisation began allowing transgender women to compete in 2012, after Jenna Talackova, a finalist for Miss Universe Canada, was first disqualified and then reinstated following public pressure.
Six years later, Angela Ponce became Miss Spain 2018 and the first openly transgender woman to compete at Miss Universe, at the final in Bangkok in December 2018. When Enriquez won in Nevada, commentators noted that a Miss USA victory would have made her only the second transgender contestant ever at Miss Universe.
The story did not stop there. In 2022 the Miss Universe Organization was bought by JKN Global Group of Thailand, led by Anne Jakrajutatip, herself a transgender woman. At Miss Universe 2023, two transgender contestants took part for the first time in the same year: Rikkie Kollé of the Netherlands and Marina Machete of Portugal.
Two separate debates
Coverage of Enriquez's win often mixed two different conversations, and it helps to separate them.
The first is about inclusion. For supporters, a transgender woman winning a state title within a long-established pageant was a visible sign of acceptance, especially for young transgender people who rarely see themselves in mainstream competitions. Critics of transgender participation, meanwhile, argued that pageants for women should be limited to women assigned female at birth; that argument has continued in other pageant systems and in sport.
The second debate is older and is about pageants themselves. Since the 1968 protest outside Miss America in Atlantic City, many feminists have argued that judging women largely on appearance is demeaning and sends a narrow message about worth. Pageant organisations respond that modern contests reward public speaking, community work and confidence, and that they provide scholarships and platforms. Miss USA itself, sold by Donald Trump in 2015 to a Hollywood talent agency, now uses the slogan "Pageantry Reimagined".
A reader can welcome a historic first for an under-represented group and still question whether beauty contests are a good way to measure achievement. The milestone also has clear limits: it belongs to Miss Nevada USA and Miss USA in 2021, not to every pageant worldwide, some of which had already admitted transgender contestants and some of which still do not.
Why the moment still matters
Surveys of transgender people in the United States report higher rates of harassment, unemployment and violence than the general population, and public visibility has been one of the ways advocates have tried to change attitudes. A single pageant contestant cannot shift those numbers, but Enriquez's 2021 run became a reference point: proof that a transgender woman of colour could win a state title in one of the country's best-known competitions and stand on its national stage.
For readers interested in the bigger picture, the more lasting questions are about how competitions write inclusive rules, how media cover transgender people fairly, and what pageants should reward at all.
Sources: Fox News: Trans woman wins Miss Nevada, will compete for Miss USA (June 2021) · NBC News: Transgender Miss USA contestant eliminated early (November 2021) · Wikipedia: Miss USA 2021 · Wikipedia: Angela Ponce · Kataluna Enriquez on Instagram
COMMENTS