MADRID — The first transgender woman to compete in the global Miss Universe pageant wants to make history as a role model for trans children around the globe – no matter whether or not she wins the top beauty title.
Twenty-six-year-old Angela Ponce beat 20 other contestants in the Miss Universe Spain gala on June 29, qualifying for the global round of the pageant, which has allowed transgender participation since 2012.
The location and dates for this year’s contest have yet to be announced. But Ponce is already planning to use it as a platform to draw attention toward high rates of suicides among trans teenagers, as well as legal codes that still discriminate against them around the world.
“If my going through all this contributes to the world moving a little step forward, then that’s a personal crown that will always accompany me,” Ponce said at the offices of the Miss Universe franchise in central Madrid.
The Spanish capital has just wrapped up its 2018 weeklong pride celebrations, whose main theme was a call for equality and greater visibility for people with nonbinary gender identity. Rights campaigners marching last Saturday welcomed the World Health Organization’s recent move to take trans identities off the official list of mental health disorders, but highlighted discrimination faced by transgender people of all ages, including employment discrimination.
A study published last year by the European transgender group TGEU found that 77.5 percent of 885 transgender people over 16 years old polled in Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Sweden had considered taking their own lives and that 24.5 percent of respondents had made at least one attempt.
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