18 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | NEWS
Rachel Slawson is the first out contestant for Miss USA
Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 309 | March, 2020
Miss Utah USA talks about growing up bisexual, coming out, being bipolar and working as a suicide prevention advocate.
The first
LGBTQ contestant in the 68 years of the Miss USA pageant is Miss Utah USA’s Rachel Slawson. The 25-year-old, who competed as Miss Park City, won the title on her fifth try on Saturday, Jan. 19. On February 1, she took to her YouTube channel to discuss growing up bisexual, her coming out process, and her family. “As you have seen, I made national headlines …” she says with a grimace. “as the first openly queer woman who will ever compete at Miss USA, which is a huge honor, and I’m overwhelmed and super excited to represent both my home state in the pageant community and my LGBTQ+ community at large.” “I’m going to have a lot to learn, so we are going to figure this out together. And it’s going to be fun,” she said.
GROWING UP BISEXUAL “I was attracted to girls before I was attracted to boys,” she explained. “I remember this happened when I was really young. My first crush happened when I was six years old, and it was on another girl.” “I remember my first crush on a boy, I was actually relieved, because I felt like, ‘okay I can be normal,’” she said while doing “air quotes.” “And that would have been a great plan if that didn’t involve cutting off half my personality and interests and identity and shoving it in a little box and pretending like it didn’t exist.” “However, when you deny an entire aspect of yourself, that actually can have really damaging effects on your self worth and self esteem, and it ended up doing exactly that,” she continued. “I’ve had feelings for girlfriends as I was growing up. I typically had more relationships with guys, because that’s what I allowed myself. If I had feelings for a girl I would just pretend that didn’t exist.” “As I started working on my own self esteem and my relationship with myself, I realized that all of these pieces of myself that I’d packed up in boxes and stored away for later I was going to have to unpack because hiding it doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it impacting more.” PHOTO: RACHEL SLAWSON, INSTAGRAM
