The contestants were graceful, talented, sexy, and accomplished – this year they included an engineer, business owner, NGO worker and two popular YouTubers. They were as stunning as you would expect: swinging hips and hair, shining smiles, endless legs, and a staggering ability to prance in terrifying heels. They weren’t beautiful for trans women, they were beautiful women. Full stop.

One of the bigger questions the pageant begs is how beauty contests serve – or disserve – the trans community.

Traditional pageants can do a mighty job of reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards. While they may do the same in the trans world, they also provide positive visibility to an often marginalised population, making the deeper answer a more complicated conversation where benefit must be weighed against detriment.

Here, while the entrants appear in a way that only a tiny percentage of trans women could ever hope to look, they help their community in larger ways as visible totems of success and hope for their disenfranchised brothers and sisters that may not see a clear path to a successful life.

Veena Sendre, Miss India, grew up as an untouchable tribal village boy. “In India, people always see us as beggars or sex workers. Being a role model is important so that other people who think there are no avenues for them can see me and take strength.”

Before coming to Thailand to compete in Miss International Queen, she won Miss Trans Queen India 2018. “People used to discriminate against me. If I touched something, they wouldn’t use it and throw it away. When I returned to my village after winning, people came to my house banging drums to celebrate. Since then, many young people have come out and are being accepted because they have a role model. They can say, ‘I’m like Veena’. Beautiful or not doesn’t matter, but if me winning a pageant can start to change the mindset of my nation, I want to use it to change the mindset of the world about trans people.”

This is the true difference between cis and trans pageants, according to Tay Wongin, who has done PR for both Miss International Queen and cis pageants. “At a traditional pageant, if you ask the girls how they ended up there, they’ll say ‘Well, I was beautiful, so here I am’. For Miss International Queen, every girl has a story and they are often sad, difficult, and inspiring. They’ve gone through hard times to get here.”

Over three days, I heard endless tales of bullying, being turned away by their families, domestic abuse and worse. Miss Peru, Adriana Jaya, suffered knife wounds to her face in a hate crime. She began her pageant journey afterwards to show what can be overcome.

Yet, they made it. With smiles and waves as polished as Miss Universe.

Pageant winner Jazell sees some issues with beauty ideals and pageants but feels the benefits they provide in creating success stories for the community far outweigh the difficulties presented by high beauty standards, which exist far beyond the pageant’s realm via trans Instagram stars, models, and the like.

“A lot of trans women are dead because of beauty ideals, because they feel that they have to get this or that surgery to look right and things don’t go right. Sometimes, they can’t afford the real thing so they go for second-rate surgery. But slowly, I see that trans women are more free to be themselves, to look how they are. I think if the world can be as progressive as Thailand, that trans women can have their own identity and not feel that they have to have a certain image or be able to pass [as a biological woman] to fit in.”

Alisa Phanthusak is the managing director of Miss International Queen, which is an annual event for Tiffany’s Show Pattaya, a daily cabaret featuring more than 80 trans performers at the same theatre which hosted the pageant.

She said that, after 20 years in the business, she doesn’t see the contestants for Miss International Queen [or the domestic pageant that decides the Thailand contest, Miss Tiffany Universe] as beauties, but rather as catalysts for the community. “I look at what they can do with the platform. Look at Miss Vietnam [MIQ 2018 winner Huong Giang Nguyen], in one year she did many things that impressed me. The Vietnamese are very hard on trans people but she worked for acceptance and is now a spokesperson for [Chinese consumer electronics and mobile communications company] Oppo. It’s the first time for that. It starts from here.”

Dr Seri Wongmontha is an influential gay rights activist, university dean and founding judge at Miss International Queen. He said, “We provide a stage and the opportunity for trans women to show their capability and talent as well as beauty. It’s different for these contestants. They didn’t always have a place to show who they are and what they can do.”

Chinese contestant, and second runner-up, Yaya found success as a singer and model in her country – as long as she kept up the guise that she was a cis woman. She decided to forsake her safety and livelihood to tell the truth and provide a light for Chinese trans youth. “Every transgender person has many, many stories – sad stories, difficult stories. In my country, many, many young trans people choose suicide because they think they can’t have a good life. But I want to show them it’s possible.”

Miss Canada, Julie Vu, is famous for her no-holds-barred YouTube videos on transitioning and said she would love to see the parameters of the competition widened to be accessible to more trans women.

“But it does help the trans community to have a platform like this. A safe environment, a voice, a place to share our thoughts and feel accepted.”

What all of these contestants seemed to echo, is that the pageant is about far more than who has the poutiest lips or comeliest legs. It’s about the one who can use the sash to move the trans community forward.

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