Miss Puerto Rico and Miss Argentina who met at a beauty pageant, got married secretly

In a world where pageantry has been all about the celebration of women’s beauty through the male gaze, two women, representing their home countries in a beauty pageant, found love within each other and this comes as a refreshing breakthrough in the world of traditional pageantry. Miss Puerto Rico Fabiola Valentín and Miss Argentina Mariana Varela met at the 2020 Miss Grand International competition and kept their romance a secret because the queer romance was pretty much unheard of, specially in the glamourous pageantry world. They later announced that they had gotten married on October 28, 2022 with a post on Instagram that celebrated the very essence of queer romance. Having beauty pageants and LGBTQ+ love stories in the same sentence was an alien concept before these two gave millions the power to believe in love. The pageantry world is a traditional and niche standard of beauty that pertains to a very specific category of women—tall, petite and utterly glamorous. The ingrained idea of these women being a straight orientation has been there for years; but when these two beauties revealed their love to the entire world, they paved the way for queer love in a place where it was almost unimaginable. The power of representation shines through as these two Latinas have given every queer femme the inspiration to proudly say, “I am beautiful and gay.” While ‘beautiful’ and ‘gay’ have not always been connected in the same sentence, it is now, thanks to these two Latin beauties. With the announcement of their wedding, love, praise and support poured in from all across the world, especially their pageant sisters. Seeing so much love among pageant sisters makes the hearts so full, don’t you agree?