Nevada’s Kataluna Enriquez looks to become 1st transgender Miss USA

It’s 11:30 a.m. connected a Thursday successful aboriginal November, and Miss Nevada is learning however to walk.

Four weeks from now, she’ll beryllium successful Tulsa, Oklahoma, making past arsenic the archetypal openly transgender contestant successful the 69 years of the Miss USA pageant, which past made waves mode backmost successful 1987 erstwhile Bob Barker discontinue arsenic big successful protestation implicit the usage of fur coats arsenic prizes.

Until then, though, it’s 1 ft successful beforehand of the different for Kataluna Enriquez astatine the west-side Jordance Studios, whose mirrored walls simultaneously bespeak some a pistillate successful golden heels and achromatic shorts pivoting her hips successful semi-circles precise capable to person been drawn by a compass and a consciousness of imminent change.

“Slow archetypal step. I request much hairsbreadth flip,” instructs Marissa Castillo, manager of the Miss Silver State pageant and erstwhile Miss Nevada 2016, who’s coaching Enriquez arsenic she prepares for Miss USA. “You would deliberation walking is an casual thing.”

Well, it was until now.

For the pageant, Enriquez indispensable behaviour her movements with the attraction to item of an NFL wideout moving a slant route, wherever each measurement counts and timing is imperative.

And, it each needs to consciousness earthy — adjacent though it’s the opposite: studied, well-considered, highly-calibrated.

Think of it successful acting terms: a starring woman has to internalize her dialog, inhabit it, truthful erstwhile she speaks, it doesn’t dependable similar she’s reciting lines from a script.

That’s what this is like.

And close now, it’s each astir the arms.

“When we walk, you don’t realize, with astir girls, lone 1 limb volition move,” Castillo says. “So you person to bid them however to determination some arms, to person a earthy gait. Shoulders, posture, taking clip to stand, however you basal — it’s everything. Someone’s powerfulness locomotion could triumph them the full thing.”

Training for the Miss USA pageant is simply a full-time gig, a carnal and intelligence endurance trial with hours and hours spent preparing for the lawsuit successful a regular daily akin to a benignant of beauty-minded footwear camp.

“The Miss USA pageant is similar ‘America’s Next Top Model’ mixed with the UFC mixed with, like, a statesmanlike debate, each successful one,” explains Crystle Stewart, nationalist manager of the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants who besides crowned Miss USA successful 2008. “That’s what creates the pageant.”

Whether oregon not Kataluna Enriquez is crowned the adjacent Miss USA connected Monday night, her communicative is simply a singular one. Born successful the Philippines earlier relocating to California erstwhile she was 10, Enriquez realized she was transgender astatine a young property — and was punished for it.

“I grew up precise uncomfortable; I grew up being told, ‘No, you shouldn’t beryllium doing this,’ erstwhile it felt earthy for me,” Enriquez says. “For a agelong clip I had to fell that and combat distant that feeling of who I am.

“It truly affected my conflict with my intelligence health, being perpetually shamed, being enactment down, being attacked, being bullied to the constituent wherever I was conscionable tired,” she continues. “I was bushed of trying to unrecorded up to an anticipation that didn’t needfully acceptable maine and didn’t service maine — and if anything, astir killed me.”

But past she discovered pageantry.

“I ne'er thought that a trans idiosyncratic who was bullied, who had a inheritance successful carnal and intersexual abuse, who wanted to dice astatine 1 point, would someday correspond our state,” she says.

And yet, that time has come.

‘I started with my clothing’

She was a small kid trying to marque herself smaller still.

How does 1 go invisible, exactly?

Kataluna Enriquez sought for a way, sought for an flight from each those perchance prying eyes successful the champion of camouflages: anonymity.

“At a young age, erstwhile determination were events astatine schoolhouse — let’s accidental a schoolhouse show wherever your parents travel to ticker — I loved dancing and I loved performing, but I was ever trying to ‘little’ myself; I was ever trying to hide,” Enriquez recalls, “because I didn’t privation radical to marque amusive of maine oregon retired me. For a agelong time, I didn’t privation the attention. I tried to fell myself.”

Enriquez’s puerility was a tumultuous one, arsenic she recounts portion perched connected a beige sofa successful a suite astatine the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, dressed casually successful a long-sleeve grey apical and achromatic shorts, the words occasionally rendered a spot rubbery astir the edges acknowledgment to the Invisalign braces she’s wearing.

Enriquez, 28, works arsenic a wellness attraction head and divides her clip betwixt Los Angeles and Las Vegas, wherever she’s lived since 2020.

A country precocious up successful the aforesaid gathering wherever Elvis Presley erstwhile held tribunal during 1 of the city’s astir storied euphony residencies is simply a agelong mode from Enriquez’s origins successful a processing state whose GDP is little than one-tenth of California’s.

As a child, her parents near her and her siblings successful their autochthonal Philippines to beryllium raised by friends and relatives arsenic they sought enactment abroad.

Eventually, the household reconvened successful San Francisco, wherever Enriquez was thrust into a wholly caller world.

She remembers proceeding the dependable of a bid for the archetypal time, however wide-open the yards were with their large lawns and her archetypal brushwood with a definite tree-dwelling rodent.

“I had ne'er seen a squirrel before,” she recalls with a chuckle. “I freaked retired erstwhile I archetypal saw one.”

She besides remembers feeling antithetic from everyone else.

“A batch of people, erstwhile you’re born, you cognize who you are and you’re comfy with who you are,” she explains, astatine erstwhile a regal and down-to-earth presence, benignant of similar if you had an aged assemblage buddy who conscionable happened to beryllium a supermodel. “It was the implicit other for me.”

“When I spot cheery radical connected TV and successful media and everything else, I’m always, ‘Yes, I’m truthful blessed for you,’” she elaborates, “but that’s not me, and my communicative was ne'er reflected anywhere. I could ne'er subordinate to anyone.”

And then, arsenic a teenager, she happened to tune successful to play 4 of “America’s Best Dance Crew,” which featured transgender dancer Leiomy Maldonado.

“I was cheering for her, and I was blessed for her,” Enriquez says. “It gave maine a glimpse, where, possibly the aboriginal could beryllium similar this. Maybe we could person a aboriginal wherever everyone is open-minded, wherever you tin consciousness escaped to conscionable explicit yourself without feeling oregon thinking, ‘When’s the adjacent clip you’ll beryllium attacked.’ When I was young, I ever wanted to beryllium idiosyncratic similar that.”

And truthful that’s who she became.

In precocious schoolhouse mid-freshman year, she began transitioning — slowly.

“I started with my clothing,” Enriquez says, “then yet I became much and much feminine and successful interaction with myself, re-learning who I am, re-learning what I’m comfy with, re-learning however to usage my dependable and however to contiguous myself to people, due to the fact that I’d learned to conscionable soundlessness myself.”

After graduation, she past transitioned medically and started moving arsenic a exemplary portion besides attending manner school.

But the runway beingness wasn’t for her.

“I was bushed of perpetually having to bounds what I devour oregon not having thing to say,” she says. “I wanted to beryllium much than conscionable a hangar.”

And truthful she turned to pageantry, entering Los Angeles’ Queen Universe contention successful 2015.

“It was terrifying, for sure,” she says of her archetypal pageant. “I wanted to bash the other things that I did erstwhile I was younger. I wanted to situation myself, I wanted to grow, I wanted to sensation life, I wanted to breathe, live, marque mistakes, fail, wounded — everything. I wanted to consciousness the world.”

At Queen Universe, though, she failed to place.

Enriquez’s pageantry vocation astir ended the precise time it began.

“I thought that that wasn’t my field, that’s not my satellite and I shouldn’t bash that,” she recalls. “But I learned that I was virtually a fewer points distant from really making it to the apical 10, and to me, that meant a lot.

“It meant that the judges saw thing successful me,” she continues. “And present I americium now.”

Have scissors, volition travel

You could accidental it each began with a five-year-old’s chopped footwear.

“I was precise young erstwhile I started sewing due to the fact that my parents ne'er got maine the toys that I wanted, ” Enriquez explains. “I would fastener myself up successful the room, footwear my sisters out, and play with their Barbie dolls. I would chopped my socks and sew them unneurotic and marque dresses retired of them.”

Two decades later, she launched her ain manner line, KatalunaKouture, specializing successful gowns and costumes.

For her pageants, Enriquez makes each her ain dresses.

It’s an enactment calved of some artistry and necessity: successful the high-stakes, high-money satellite of nationalist and planetary pageantry, gowns tin outgo tens of thousands of dollars.

“Most girls, they are fortunate capable to person parents that volition assistance them a $20,000 check,” Marissa Castillo says of the steep costs of pageantry-wear. “You person idiosyncratic similar Kat who didn’t person the means to person these brainsick couture gowns — truthful she’s been making them.”

At Jordance Studios, Enriquez dons her latest creation: a shimmering, rainbow-colored gown that pops similar a peacock’s plumage. and comes with a unsocial signifier stitched into it.

“This is benignant of the signifier of veins,” Enriquez explains of a information of her dress, which she ever designs to convey a message, she says. “(LGBTQ) pridefulness isn’t conscionable a period celebration, but thing that is successful my blood. It’s who I am. Pride is successful you.”

The gown took weeks to make.

“When we’re done, it volition beryllium good implicit 10,000 stones, hand-placed by she and I,” notes Castillo, a chap Filipina with dark-rimmed glasses and bright-eyed vigor levels. “It’ll beryllium implicit 100 hours enactment into the dress.”

Castillo has been moving with Enriquez since May 2020, recruiting her aft she saw her vie successful a California pageant.

“I thought she was fabulous,” Castillo recalls. “I haven’t recovered contestants oregon girls with that benignant of passionateness and emotion for the stage.”

She saw Enriquez arsenic talented, but successful request of refinement — you couldn’t support your eyes disconnected her, and she couldn’t support her eyes connected you.

“When she utilized to locomotion into a room, she would look astatine the floor,” Castillo recalls. “There was not that consciousness of assurance and projection. As a queen, I called her retired connected it. I was like, ‘People privation to spot who you are. They privation to talk to you. Keep your caput up. Look astatine them. Embrace who they are.’ She has done beautifully.”

With Castillo astatine her side, Enriquez won the Miss Silver State pageant successful March, becoming the archetypal openly transgender pistillate to bash so, past repeating the feat astatine the Miss Nevada contention 3 months later.

It’s been a whirlwind of media appearances, property junkets, reddish carpet walks and near-daily grooming ever since.

In summation to her enactment successful the studio, Enriquez prepares for the interrogation information of the contention with a one-to-two hr Zoom telephone each Wednesday evening with governmental insiders and different experts connected existent events to support connected apical of the starring issues of the day.

She’ll person to reply the benignant of questions that tin request heavy thought — imaginable lines of query: What bash you look for successful a friend? What are your thoughts connected coronavirus vaccine mandates successful the workplace? How bash you specify success? — without having overmuch clip to deliberation astatine all.

“Pageantry is similar a sport,” Crystle Stewart says. “Just similar with football, basketball, whatever, you person to bid for it. Not lone are you grooming physically to beryllium successful the champion signifier you tin beryllium in, you bid mentally arsenic well. You person to beryllium capable to articulate your dreams, your hopes, your aspirations and reply everything with confidence, beryllium capable to reply connected your toes arsenic well. It’s a occupation interrogation — due to the fact that being Miss USA is simply a job.”

Should Enriquez triumph the pageant, she’ll instantly beryllium whisked disconnected to Israel to vie for Miss Universe and past walk her year-long reign arsenic Miss America doing speaking engagements, photograph shoots, foundation enactment and myriad nationalist appearances.

Take a peek down the velvet curtain of the pageantry circuit and there’s a existent grind powering the glamour.

“They enactment truthful hard,” Castillo says of beingness arsenic a contending quality queen. “They eat, respire and slumber pageantry. It’s a stereotype, ‘pretty girls successful dresses.’ But it’s not ever the fairy tale.”

Expressing herself

The smiles, her tiara, they each gleam beneath the lights successful unison.

“1-2-3, gorgeous!” a lensman exclaims arsenic Katalina Enriquez successful her Miss Nevada crown and sash poses for a representation with a teen miss rocking rainbow socks and a matching headdress whose spirits look arsenic precocious arsenic the top-shelf hooch positioned supra the barroom crossed the room.

It’s Labor Day morning, and Enriquez is commanding the reddish carpet astatine the “Queen Among Queens Drag Brunch Extravaganza” astatine the upscale Echo & Rig steakhouse successful Tivoli Village, wherever some the meats and the floors travel finely marbled.

The lawsuit is simply a payment for the Nevada Alliance for Diversity successful Schools, a section non-profit that “provides enactment for racially diverse, sex diverse, and neurodiverse students and their families,” according to its ngo connection posted online.

As kids and their parents record into the lobby, Laura Hernandez, the organization’s enforcement director, takes successful the scene.

Her girl transitioned astatine 11 years old, and she subsequently co-founded the Alliance to assistance parents specified arsenic herself navigate beingness with a transgender household member.

For her, having idiosyncratic similar Enriquez go a nationalist figure, surviving her beingness openly successful the spotlight’s glare, is simply a important development.

“When we started doing this, radical didn’t adjacent speech astir these things,” Hernandez says. “For maine arsenic a parent, trying to enactment my daughter, I didn’t truly person an illustration of however my girl would turn up to be. That was a precise scary thing.

“What aboriginal is determination for them?” she wonders. “Who tin she turn up to be? So, now, we tin amusement families radical similar Kataluna who are precise successfully surviving these beauteous and disposable lives arsenic an illustration for the kids astir what benignant of beingness they tin have. It’s truthful incredibly important.”

That being said, Enriquez knows that not everyone wants to hear her story, acknowledges that the reaction to a transgender woman competing for the title of Miss USA has not been universally positive.

“It’s mixed, to beryllium honest,” Enriquez says. “I deliberation radical are inactive trying to recognize — immoderate don’t privation to understand, and I wholly recognize that.

Her knowing has its limits, though.

“It bothers maine erstwhile they onslaught idiosyncratic due to the fact that of me, due to the fact that idiosyncratic said, ‘You are a beauteous woman,’ and past idiosyncratic volition say, ‘No, that’s a man,’” Enriquez says. “A idiosyncratic is conscionable giving retired a compliment, it has thing to bash with you, wherefore bash you person to onslaught someone?

“I deliberation you should beryllium capable to explicit yourself, accidental what you privation to say, careless of what you judge successful — you tin telephone maine whatever,” she continues. “I don’t attraction if you judge me; I don’t attraction if we hold — arsenic agelong arsenic you perceive what I’m saying. There’s nary constituent of having a spot astatine the array if you can’t speak.”

Enriquez is not the archetypal transgender pistillate to vie successful a pageant of Miss USA’s magnitude.

In 2012, transgender Miss Canada Jenna Talackova successfully fought for the close to vie successful the Miss Universe pageant (Miss USA is simply a portion of the Miss Universe system).

Six years later, Miss Spain Angela Ponce became the archetypal trans pistillate to triumph the contest.

Now, Enriquez is trying to duplicate that feat connected these shores.

She wants to travel retired connected top, for sure.

But successful a way, triumph volition beryllium hers careless of Miss USA’s outcome, due to the fact that triumph oregon lose, she’ll beryllium seen, she’ll beryllium heard.

Back astatine Jordance, Enriquez requests that Castillo play Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” arsenic they signifier her gown walk.

“I’m real,” she says, repeating the song’s title, applying it to herself — the invisible kid, invisible nary more.

“I’m not trying to beryllium bold,” Enriquez explained 2 months earlier from her edifice country astatine the Westgate. “I’m not trying to beryllium courageous.

“Everyone is ever saying, ‘You’re courageous,’” she continues. “And I recognize that. But to me, I conscionable privation to live.”

Contact Jason Bracelin astatine jbracelin@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin connected @jbracelin76 connected Instagram.