Welcome Miss America's First Openly Lesbian Contestant
LatestErin O’Flaherty is 2016’s Miss Missouri, and she’s on her way to Atlantic City for the Miss America pageant on Sunday. And she’s gay! Hurray!
The Miss America pageant needs all the press it can get about diversity and opening up space for different concepts of womanhood, but O’Flaherty seems a bit conflicted about being caught up in the media attention. She is for sure Out and Proud, and actively supports and volunteers with the Trevor Project, which works on suicide prevention amongst LGBTQ youth. She also doesn’t want to be reduced to her sexual orientation. The New York Times interviewed O’Flaherty about her being the first open lesbian at the pageant, and she wants to let everyone know she has plenty of other things going on:
“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.”
She certainly isn’t, but most of the coverage about her has been focused on the one thing. Here are a few more facts about Miss Missouri.