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https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2023/06/01/ [login to see] /transgender-lgbt-rights-south-africa
One of Chedino Martin's first memories is of a woman in red standing in the doorway of her grandmother's house in Heideveld, a suburb in the Athlone part of Cape Town, South Africa. It was 1986. Chedino, 39, was only 3 years old at the time but still remembers the moment clearly.
"It was raining. There was this red cloak. Then it fell away, and I saw a gorgeous, elegant woman standing in a silver foil dress with these long black curls and this broad smile," she recalls.
The woman in red was Chedino's aunt, Sharon. Sharon had just won that year's local chapter of the Spring Queen beauty pageant, a competition organized by textile workers. "I knew one day, someday, that was going to be me," Chedino continues.
Chedino might have grown up surrounded by the glamor of pageantry — her mother and her aunt were both successful beauty queens — but her early childhood was filled with turbulence and pain.
One of Chedino Martin's first memories is of a woman in red standing in the doorway of her grandmother's house in Heideveld, a suburb in the Athlone part of Cape Town, South Africa. It was 1986. Chedino, 39, was only 3 years old at the time but still remembers the moment clearly.
"It was raining. There was this red cloak. Then it fell away, and I saw a gorgeous, elegant woman standing in a silver foil dress with these long black curls and this broad smile," she recalls.
The woman in red was Chedino's aunt, Sharon. Sharon had just won that year's local chapter of the Spring Queen beauty pageant, a competition organized by textile workers. "I knew one day, someday, that was going to be me," Chedino continues.
Chedino might have grown up surrounded by the glamor of pageantry — her mother and her aunt were both successful beauty queens — but her early childhood was filled with turbulence and pain.
Miss Trans Africa's Long Wait for Freedom
Posted from npr.org
Transgender
LGBTQ+
Gender
Cape Town
Freedom
Posted 11 mo ago
Responses: 2
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Gradually, beauty pageants became an important platform for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities who used them to openly celebrate their identities, free from the fear of arrest or government persecution.
For as long as Chedino can remember, pageants have served as a form of therapy — and escape. "I don't talk about my issues or troubles. Not even when things get really bad," she explains. She followed every pageant she could find — Miss South Africa, Miss World, Miss Universe — as they allowed her to enter a world far removed from her own.
Chedino secretly accompanied her cousin, Kauthar — Sharon's daughter — to pageants, where Kauthar was often competing. After Sharon left for work in the morning, the two girls would run off to rent a dress, and then walk or take a bus to the venue. "By the time Sharon got home from work in the evening, Kauthar would be sitting there with a crown and a sash," she laughs."...
..."Gradually, beauty pageants became an important platform for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities who used them to openly celebrate their identities, free from the fear of arrest or government persecution.
For as long as Chedino can remember, pageants have served as a form of therapy — and escape. "I don't talk about my issues or troubles. Not even when things get really bad," she explains. She followed every pageant she could find — Miss South Africa, Miss World, Miss Universe — as they allowed her to enter a world far removed from her own.
Chedino secretly accompanied her cousin, Kauthar — Sharon's daughter — to pageants, where Kauthar was often competing. After Sharon left for work in the morning, the two girls would run off to rent a dress, and then walk or take a bus to the venue. "By the time Sharon got home from work in the evening, Kauthar would be sitting there with a crown and a sash," she laughs."...
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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