The first transgender woman to compete for the Miss Maine USA title will soon be the first person to represent Maine at a national pageant for trans women.
Isabelle St. Cyr of Monson will be one of 27 trans women competing in Miss International Queen USA in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in March. The winner will represent the U.S. in Thailand as part of an international competition that has been cited as the largest and most prestigious transgender pageant in the world.
Her entrance into the pageant world has come as debates over trans rights have intensified across the country and in Maine, where some Republicans have embraced anti-trans messaging and endorsed a ballot initiative that would require trans students to abide by their sex assigned at birth when joining sports teams and using locker rooms and school bathrooms.
Despite these political tensions and the hatred she faced growing up in Howland, St. Cyr said she was surprised by the level of love and support she felt as a contestant for Miss Maine USA last year.
“I grew up completely surrounded by people that did not support me in any fashion. So when I started to do this, I figured it would be the same,” she said. “But I was proven wrong.”
St. Cyr made it to the semifinals of Maine’s competition and placed in the top 10. “I felt like I was treated really, really fairly. I was treated just like any other girl that was competing,” she said.
While she heard some chatter in the audience from parents who weren’t happy about her competing and doing well, she also said that several parents have reached out to thank her for speaking up about trans rights. These parents told her “that they had kids that were transgender that aspire to do things that weren’t always in the cards for people like us,” St. Cyr said.
A few months after competing in the pageant, she was recruited for Miss International Queen USA.
St. Cyr said she’s excited to be the first woman representing Maine in the competition, attributing the lack of contestants in the past to its small, rural population and relative lack of pageant culture compared with southern states.
“So many of the title holders have been from cities and have had opportunities that maybe people that live in rural areas don’t get,” she said. “I think it’s going to be really important because there are so many trans women that live in rural areas that feel like they’re surrounded by hate.”
As a kid, St. Cyr never imagined that she would be able to compete in a national beauty pageant, she said. “Growing up, I didn’t even understand the feelings that I was having and I didn’t know anyone that was feeling the same way. So I really thought I was the only person on the planet that felt this way,” she said. “If I could inspire other young trans individuals, I think that that would be a huge win, especially in those rural areas.”
She’s spent months getting ready for the pageant, including two months making her own costume from scratch and doing all the alterations for the gowns she’ll wear, she said.
St. Cyr’s costume will represent her Acadian heritage, and her platform will call out anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., she said, noting that her great-grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Canada.
“I think that a lot of people from up north have really separated themselves from immigrants, forgetting that we were immigrants just a couple of generations ago, speaking French, not knowing the language,” she said.
From the start of her planning process, St. Cyr said she had planned to represent her heritage and her ancestors’ immigration to the US at the pageant, and that drive only intensified amid recent federal immigration activities, including an enforcement surge in Maine.
While St. Cyr is excited to compete in Miss International Queen USA, she also plans to compete in Miss Maine USA again this year.
“I’m going to be coming back every single year and doing Miss Maine USA until I have that crown,” she said.
Outside of the pageant world, St. Cyr is also signed with Port City Models based in Portland and said she wants to do more modeling and acting work and travel more for auditions.
“It can obviously be hard to get jobs when you live in Monson, Maine, population 650,” she said.
While she’s open to moving elsewhere in New England, St. Cyr said she won’t sell her house and the farm she owns, which she started about three years ago after learning about factory farming and wanting to produce her own food.
St. Cyr has ducks, goats, chickens, sheep, pigs and a cow and sells eggs and other products at her own farm stand, she said.
“I think it’s important to remind these people that I’m not going anywhere, just because they think I don’t fit in, and that no matter how big I get, no matter where I go, these are where my roots are and I am a Mainer through and through,” she said.
