For the first time in the pageant’s history, the title of Miss Nevada USA has been won by a transgender woman.
Kataluna Enriquez was crowned the winner Sunday at the South Point hotel-casino in Las Vegas.
The 27-year-old Enriquez won the Miss Silver State USA pageant in March, a preliminary competition for the Miss Nevada USA pageant.
Enriquez beat 21 female candidates to represent Nevada in the Miss USA pageant that will be held on Nov. 29.
“I didn’t have the easiest journey in life. It was a struggle for a moment. I struggled with physical and sexual abuse. I struggled with mental health. I didn’t have much growing up. I didn’t have support. But I’m still able to thrive, and I’m still able to survive and become a trailblazer for many,” Enriquez told KVVU-TV.
The television station reports if she wins the pageant in November, she would be the second transgender contestant to join the Miss Universe pageant after Spain’s Angela Ponce in 2018.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Enriquez first took part in transgender pageants in 2016 while working as a model.
The Miss Nevada USA Pageant posted a photo of the winner to its Instagram page.
As CBN News has reported, as popular culture treats transgenderism as the new “in” thing, the Bible clearly teaches there are no other gender categories besides male and female. The first two chapters of Genesis clearly show God’s design for humanity.
Three years ago, the World Health Organization declared that being transgender should no longer be considered a mental health disorder.
But other medical researchers and former LGBT people disagree with this finding.
Dr. Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, says it’s a big problem that the use of the term “gender” has been morphed overtime to invent more than 60 different “genders.”
“Our sex is binary,” Dr. Cretella previously told CBN News. “It’s an objective biological trait, and that’s what we need to get back to. Thoughts and how we perceive ourselves are not hardwired by biology and can be correct and incorrect.”
Meanwhile, people who have left LGBT lifestyles say the power of God can help heal sexual identity disorders. Many people who have voluntarily abandoned their LGBTQ identities have participated in events like The Freedom March or recently protested a bill by California lawmakers who have been trying to ban efforts to provide biblical counseling to those who are asking for help to overcome same-sex attraction.
“I am a living example that there is revival in the LGBT community,” MJ Nixon, an ex-lesbian and co-founder of the Freedom March, told CBN News. “When I came to Christ, He really showed me the truth of my real identity.”
Ken Williams and Elizabeth Woning minister at Bethel Church in Redding, California. They describe themselves as “once gay” and know personally that change is possible.
“I would never have made it without the ability to go find a counselor that was going to tell me, ‘Hey, Jesus cares about this issue,'” Williams previously told CBN News.