Word: pageants
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...despite beginning to advertise the event on Tuesday, organizers have yet to hammer out key details such as when and where the pageant will take place, or who will pick the reigning campus queen...
Being a veteran competitor, I found special meaning in my high school’s annual cross-dressing pageant. Not because I was finally a sophomore or because I had just turned 16, but because a week earlier I had been dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the closet where I had hidden with my sexuality since the sixth grade. I was secretly dating a senior, Joseph Ragsdale, the desire of many wistful females and the target of endless gay-bashing. In the past, students had spray-painted slurs on his car and adorned it with pornography. The student body...
...night of the pageant, the other contestants deliberately mocked me in their interview segments. “I just want to add that only 10 of the 11 contestants are actually male,” one said. During the group dance number, “Choco Latté” ripped off my wig and “Anita Man” punched me in the stomach. I tried to maintain composure by making my smile bigger and my dance moves faster. During the talent competition I threw my baton so high it hit the auditorium?...
Ironically, the pageant that alerted me to the difficulties of being openly gay eventually taught me how to stave off harassment. I won the crown through flamboyance, by accentuating every detail of my femininity. While my fellow contestants despised me, the audience erupted with laughter and gave me standing ovations after both the talent and swimsuit competitions. For every person who mocked me, it seemed like three others admired how comfortable I appeared with myself. At school, girls loved to hear me talk about the latest guy I met on the Internet. One of my female classmates told...
...aversion to Cupid and his arbitrary holiday is rooted in the expectation that I participate in a nationwide romance-pageant, where my genetic desirability—or lack thereof—is shamelessly pitted against that of my fellow man when I have no say in the matter. I’m a sucker for romance, but no one asked if this particular Thursday works for me. No one cared that I lose my appetite when hundreds of couples giggle and coo on all sides and when the sexual tension at the neighboring table is enough to make me sweat...