http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/missouri-woman-is-miss-america-pageants-first-openly-lesbian-contestant.html 2016-09-08 23:07:58 Missouri Woman Is Miss America Pageant’s First Openly Lesbian Contestant “It took many years of struggle to figure out who I was,” Erin O’Flaherty, Miss Missouri, has said. === Erin O’Flaherty, one of the contestants in this weekend’s Miss America pageant, wants fans to know a few things about her: She was raised on a farm; she is a trained livestock judge; and she supports suicide-prevention programs. But in the brief, get-to-know-me videos posted on Ms. O’Flaherty is the first openly lesbian contestant to compete in the pageant. In this way, the 23-year-old from Missouri is “She is changing the conversation and proving to people that you can be who you are,” said Steve Mendelsohn, the deputy executive director of the In a telephone interview on Thursday, Ms. O’Flaherty appeared to acknowledge the need for a gay role model, while also wishing it were not necessary. “I want to get the conversation away from my sexuality, and I hope that by the end of the year that will be the conversation we are having,” she said. “I think other people tend to focus on it, but it is one small part of who I am and the work that I do. It is just as important for people to realize I am not one dimensional.” Ms. O’Flaherty has chosen the serious issue of suicide among LGBTQ youth as the social platform part of the competition. But on her Facebook page, she writes about her clothes, her spa treatments and her trips to the beach. She poses in high heels and a bright pink cardigan as she takes a swing with a golf club. Ms. O’Flaherty is getting both support and ridicule for her sexual orientation. “As a young gay man living in a very rural town in Missouri I thought I was damaged, unlovable and couldn’t be successful,” a fan wrote on the Facebook page where she is posting updates about the Miss America contest. “No matter what the outcome of this contest, please remember that your courage to be visible has changed the outlook of so many.” But she has also been the target of slurs: “This contest is for women, not homo’s,” a reader wrote in the comments section. “Stop disgracing the pageant and drop out.” Ms. O’Flaherty says she focuses on the support she receives from her fans and fellow contestants. “I really don’t look at any of the negative comments,” she said. Since the 1920s, beauty contests have “Many girls grew up saying to themselves they wanted to be Miss America,” said Blain Roberts, a history professor at California State University Through the years, pageants have been slammed as sexist and racist. Changes have been made, such as adding current affairs questions, or renaming swimsuit parades as “fitness” segments. Women were credited with breaking barriers, as Vanessa Williams did when in 1983 she became the first black woman to be crowned Miss America. Ms. O’Flaherty’s place on the stage suggests a new message: that lesbians as participants and spectators have the same opportunities for enjoyment as heterosexuals. “Her participation does not change the fact that beauty contests still hold women to unreasonable beauty standards, so it does send a message that young lesbian women can have the same opportunities,” Dr. Roberts said. But Kate Kendell, executive director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said she thought Ms. O’Flaherty’s open inclusion in the pageant was a “terrific development.” “The critique of the Miss America pageant is a separate narrative from who gets included,” she said. “If it is going to exist at all, it should be representative of who is female.” Ms. O’Flaherty said she started entering pageants as a college student at University of Central Florida before she publicly spoke about being a lesbian. “It paid for my college education,” she said. “It is really the system that I have grown up in. It is a development program for leaders.” Asked how she saw the leadership training fit in with the bikini segment of the competition, she said: “I think we do that now because that is rooted in our tradition. And Americans love their traditions.” “We love being able to be confident and go out in a bikini,” she added. “And it is for less than 10 seconds.” Ms. O’Flaherty grew up in Ohio and South Carolina. After graduating from college in 2015 she moved to St. Louis, where she owns a clothing boutique with her aunt. As an adult, she counts her grandmother and Amal Clooney, the international human rights lawyer, as women who inspire her, according to some of her social media posts. She was named one of four finalists in the pageant’s Miss America Women in Business scholarship. She is also highlighting her volunteer work with the Trevor Project. In June, after being crowned Miss Missouri, she said she struggled with her sexuality growing up as a self-described “feminine girl” in Florence, S.C. “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,”