A student in Ho Chi Minh City was declared on Friday winner of Tiffany Vietnam 2018, the first ever transgender beauty pageant in the Southeast Asian country.
The Tiffany Vietnam, which follows a reality show’s format, held its finale night at the Cultural and Sporting Center of Tan Binh District in Ho Chi Minh City last night, according to news site VnExpress.
With sweet charm, an elegant shape and self-confident spirit when performing onstage, Do Nhat Ha, 23, a student at Hoa Sen University defeated 17 other contestants to win the highest title of the competition after eight episodes of the show. Ha was crowned by chairman of Miss International Queen.
In the presentation session for the top five finalists during the finale, Ha suggested transgender people be seen equally in terms of role and position in society.
With this victory, Ha also became the 2019 Miss International Queen Vietnam and will thus represent the Vietnamese transgender community to attend the Miss International Queen in Thailand – a global-scale transgender beauty pageant – this March.
Speaking at the crowning ceremony, Ha said that singer Huong Giang, the Vietnamese winner of the 2018 Miss International Queen in Thailand, was her motivation to sign up for Tiffany Vietnam.
“Maybe I cannot do what Giang did, but I want to prove that transgender people can do many good things to society,” Ha said after the competition.
“Besides, I want my parents to be more open and proud of their child,” she added.
Ha hoped that families, mothers and fathers who have children of LGBT community would also have a better view on the issue.
Do Nhat Ha’s birth name is Do Nhat Tan. Ha had raised long hairs and injected female hormones before going to Thailand to have sex reassignment surgery to return to her true self when she was 20.
Beside the feminine appearance, Ha is also good at English and Korean.
Huong Giang managed to purchase the copyright of Miss International Queen, which has been held annually in Thailand since 2004, to bring the contest to Vietnam, in search of a Vietnamese representative to the 2019 Miss International Queen.
However, for many reasons, the contest was eventually held in the form of a reality TV show for online broadcast only, according to VnExpress.