The first trans Miss USA contestant didn’t get the crown, but it was still a win for representation

The winner of the Miss USA competition was announced over the weekend, with Miss Michigan USA taking the title.

Alma Cooper, who won the Miss Michigan USA competition and went on to compete for Miss USA 2024 on Sunday (August 4), was crowned the overall winner of Miss USA and will now move on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.

Alma Cooper is a military intelligence officer in the U.S Army and previously studied at Stanford University.

Unfortunately, while Cooper won the title, that meant that 49 other women missed out on their dreams of winning the pageant – including Bailey Anne Kennedy, the first transgender woman to compete in Miss USA.

Kennedy made history in June by becoming the first Asian-American and transgender woman to be crowned Miss Maryland USA and moved on to competing for the Miss USA title.

Kennedy is Cambodian-American and felt that her win in Maryland was a positive step forward for representation.

She wrote on Instagram: “Not everyone has to agree with the spaces that you occupy, and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t worthy of these opportunities. The work that I will do for the remainder of my life is to make sure that children who feel like me will never have to worry about the consequences of being who they are by simply being myself and being a positive contribution to society.”

Kennedy also said that she knew her win would “mean a lot of all the LGBTQ+ kids out there who might feel they don’t belong in a box”.

Despite Kennedy not being able to claim the overall Miss USA crown, it is still a win for transgender representation in the pageant that she was able to compete at all.

Miss USA has made many rule changes in recent years that has allowed older contestants to compete as well as plus-sized contestants and people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community – including Kennedy.

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