Miss Gay America is a national pageant for female impersonators. Established in 1972, the pageant is based on the Miss America contest and follows a similar format.
Each year, contestants compete at various city, state, and direct regional preliminaries for the opportunity to advance to the official Miss Gay America pageant. Titleholders are often seen as the best in the industry and are frequently hired to entertain in a variety of venues, such as Las Vegas shows, cruise ships, and LGBT events.
The Miss Gay America pageant system is the longest running pageant system for female impersonators. It is one of the four major pageant systems for the art form, in addition to Continental Pageantry, Gay USofA Pageantry, and Entertainer of the Year. Miss Gay America is unique in that it is the only national pageant that prohibits contestants from using female hormones or having undergone any feminizing plastic surgery, such as breast implants or liquid-silicone injections below the neck.
Lady Gaga, on the 10th of September 2017, was crowned as the first Honorary Miss Gay America.
The current Miss Gay America titleholder is Tracy La Louisianne, the 54th titleholder, crowned on January 16, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
History
In 1971, Jerry Peek opened the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon in Nashville, Tennessee, the city's first gay dance and show bar. Having an understanding of the female illusionist state pageants occurring in various show bars in other states, Peek decided to establish a national level pageant to further recognize the best entertainers. On June 25, 1972, the first pageant was held at Peek's Nashville saloon. Norman Jones, performing as Norma Kristie, competed representing Arkansas and was crowned the winner of the 1973 pageant and emeritus titleholder of the Miss Gay America Pageant system. In 1975, Jones assumed ownership of the pageant and later formed Norma Kristie, Inc., operating and directing the Miss Gay America pageant and the Mr. Gay All-America Contest systems. In 2005, Norman Jones retired from the pageant's regular operations and sold the Miss Gay America pageantry system to Larry Tyger and Terry Eason of L&T Entertainment. On February 4, 2016, Michael Dutzer and Rob Mansman of Mad Angel Entertainment purchased the Miss Gay America pageant From L & T Entertainment.
At the 2016 pageant in Memphis, Mad Angel Entertainment announced they will be retiring the solo talent category. Starting in 2017 Presentation will be judged for the top 10 contestants in its place. Also starting in 2017 contestants are able to change their talent numbers on the final night of the competition.
Mad Angel Entertainment announced in January 2017 that they will be bringing back Mr. Gay All-American as Mr. Gay America. The pageant was held on July 2, 2017, in Dallas, Texas with the winner being Kyle Ean. The contest winners included Judas Elliot, and Simba Hall in 2018 and 2019. In 2021 following the coronavirus pandemic, Prideland Productions, an entity formed by Simba Hall succeeded to maintain control and operations of the Mr division of the system, with a contest scheduled to be held in August 2021 in Las Vegas, NV.
Qualification Contestants for the national Miss Gay America pageant qualify through franchised state and direct regional preliminaries. The winner and first alternate of the preliminary contests advance to the national pageant. Many states require contestants to first compete in franchised city preliminaries, where the winner and first alternate advance to the state pageant.
Competition Historically, pageant competition consisted of interview, evening gown and talent categories. Later a Contemporary Fashion category for sportswear was added. After about a decade it was changed to Creative Fashion, a category that was never fully understood by judges or contestants and was later changed to Creative Costume. It was eventually replaced with Solo Talent. While some of the contestants perform live vocal, dance or comedy skits, the vast majority showcase their talent of lip syncing to prerecorded music. Current categories are Personal Interview, Solo Talent, Evening Gown, On-Stage Interview, and Talent.
Currently, the national pageant consists of 3 nights of preliminary competition, where all contestants compete in male interview, solo talent, evening gown, and production talent. Awards for each night of these categories are presented on the 4th night of the pageant week during the official Miss Gay America Revue Show, where former titleholders return to entertain. The final competition night is held on the fifth night, typically at a larger and more formal venue, and the top 10 finalists are announced. These finalists then compete again in evening gown, stage interview, and production talent. At the end of the final pageant, the top four runners-up are announced and the winner is crowned.
List of winners