Many beauty queens wear the hat of a humanitarian, but few have been as visible and influential in the fight for LGBT rights as former Miss Kentucky Djuan Trent, who came out as queer earlier this year. Since coming out, Trent has not only raised awareness about the diverse faces of the LGBT community, she’s also raised eyebrows about her decision to call herself queer. Now, in a new cover piece with Story Magazine, Trent opens up about her journey to accepting herself as a queer black woman.
In the feature, Trent explains that labeling herself, though sometimes an uncomfortable act, is something she understands needs to happen for people to understand her as a person. But she explains that, though people may not understand her choice of label, queer is a word that resonates with her.
“There’s been a lot of hoopla about me using the word ‘queer,’ ” she says. “When I was going through the whole process of my journey, I went through the terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ and those were fine, but when I discovered the term ‘queer,’ it just kind of stuck with me.
“I like the term ‘queer’ because I think it’s one of those things that encompasses and embraces the fluidity of sexuality,” she adds.
Trent explains that she has no negative feelings toward the term lesbian, but says that it doesn’t describe her life experience, which includes a past of relationships with men.
“To me it’s understanding that we as human beings reserve the right to be attracted to a person, to a soul, and not necessarily the sex that’s attached to that,” she explained. “You could go through your whole life being attracted to only men or only women and then you meet that one person who’s not what you had been attracted to, but that’s OK because you have that connection and it works.”
But things weren’t always so clear for Trent. Growing up Christian in an African American household, she says that even though she knew she had an attraction to women, she spent many years struggling to reconcile her faith with her sexuality. Her repression was so great that she even began to project it on her lesbian friends.
“I said ‘I will continue to pray for you, too. Because you need to change your life,” she says. “And she looked at me like ‘Girl, I know about myself. You need to come out of the closet to yourself.’ So that was that.”
However, things changed when a former boyfriend of hers forced her to take a deeper look at her sexuality.
“So toward the end of my last relationship with a guy named Mike, I met a girl and I was obviously interested in her. He and I talked about it and he just told me, ‘I really think you need to stop denying yourself and this is something you need to open yourself up to and figure it out.’ So I was like OK? OK!”
Now, after finally finding her true identity, Trent explains that it’s enriching to know that her story is changing lives.
She says, “I’ve had people approach me and say ‘Hey, I really love your blog, and I’m so glad that you did that and thank you.’ And I’m just like …” [she clutches her heart]. “That melts my heart and that’s another sign that I’m doing the right thing.” –nicholas robinson
