Leticia Miranda

Leticia Miranda

Check Out the 2010 Miss Indian Transgender Arizona Pageant

Here is some good news to get through the rest of your hump day.

This December 13, Arizona’s Native community will be choosing this year’s Miss Indian Transgender Arizona.

Trudie Jackson, the director of the pageant, says the point of the pageant is to bring visibility to transgender people in the Native community and the issues they face. She said to NativeOut in an interview:

There are numerous issues that affect transgender people in their everyday life. One of the most challenging of these issues is gender identity. Some girls don’t know how to come out to their families, who reside on the reservations, about their lifestyles. When girls come to the city they are able to be themselves, instead of living in the closet. Another issue is employment. Since most girls are unable to be themselves in the work place, they have to find an alternate way of surviving in the city. Stigma is another issue affecting transgender women since the majority of the general population is not educated about transgenderism; they automatically assume they are “men in a dress.”

Check out the video below from 2007’s Miss Indian Transgender crowning.