The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘You can’t be what you don’t see’
Shavana Clarke, the first openly lesbian Miss USA state titleholder, discusses the importance of representation
Shavana Clarke participated in her first beauty pageant at 2 years old. But the prospect of entering pageants as an adult didn’t dawn on her until 2019, when Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa was crowned Miss Universe. Before that moment, watching Miss Universe in her living room with her mom, Clarke had taken a long hiatus from pageants since her preteen years to explore other activities.
“I remember thinking ‘Oh my gosh, Miss Universe looks like me. She looks like me,’” Clarke said.
Clarke, a 29-year-old sales coordinator, model and entrepreneur from Bridgeport, was crowned Miss Connecticut USA 2024 on April 14, with Ava Celentano from New Haven winning the teen title. She is a first-generation Jamaican-American and the first openly lesbian Miss USA state titleholder, as well as the first openly queer Miss Connecticut USA.
Being a “first” is surreal for Clarke, who in the past had considered hiding her sexuality in pageants due to the lack of queer representation.
“I realized in this journey that my sexuality is just as much a part of who I am as anything else. So why shouldn’t I be open and talk about that?” she said.
As she embarks on her year of service and prepares for the Miss USA 2024 pageant in Los Angeles this summer, she hopes that her openness will encourage viewers to embrace all facets of their identity, something she learned from her past role models.
“You can’t be what you can’t see,” she said.
“It’s a really interesting dynamic, especially being queer and being a person of color. It’s a hard balance. But I think that is why it’s important that I am a Black queer woman in this position because it’s showing that we are breaking those boundaries,” she added.
What originally drew
her to pageants in her childhood was the performance and entertainment aspect. Through she took a break from pageantry starting in her preteens, she kept performing. Clarke signed with BMG Models, an agency based in New York City, and later got her bachelor’s in fine arts in acting from the University of Connecticut.
The competition in April marks her third time competing for the
Miss Connecticut title, she said.
Last Saturday, she attended the CT Voice Honors, an award ceremony hosted by the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. She’s also talking to organizations about attending pride events and volunteer opportunities.
Though she loves being on stage, being an advocate is where her “heart is at the end of the day” when it comes to pageantry,
she said.
A significant part of her platform as Miss Connecticut USA is mental health advocacy. Clarke created the blog #YourMentalHealthBestie to share her experiences with mental health, with aim of making readers feel less lonely.
Clarke said her struggles with mental health began in middle school and that she was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in
her 20s. Following her diagnosis, she was admitted to a mental health hospital for two months and afterwards went to a continuing day treatment program focused on Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a type of talk therapy that teaches people how to manage intense emotions. The program was “life changing,” she said.
Meeting other individuals with BPD helped her learn “the beauty of the diagnosis,” she said, and erased all the stigma around BPD that she had internalized in her childhood.
“When I met those people, they were the kindest, most empathetic and loving individuals that I had ever met. And being able to see that in them helped me see that in myself,” she said.
BPD makes her more loving, creative and passionate about her interests, she said. She took up crocheting to cope with her anxiety and the hobby turned into her own fashion line, Sour Candy Studio. Clarke crocheted her own bathing suit at the Miss Connecticut competition, her first time making that item of clothing.
She hopes her transparency about mental health will uplift others — especially reach middle schoolers as that’s where her mental health struggles began — and inspire them to seek help.
“It’s been really long journey to get to this place. I never imagined that I would be in this place today as Miss Connecticut USA,” she said through tears. “Because I had struggled with my mental health so much. And I thought to myself, ‘I cannot possibly be that girl. She’s untouchable. She’s perfect.’ And I think it’s important to be so open about my mental health journey and about my diagnosis. So people can see that a title holder isn’t perfect. A title holder is authentic.”
Clarke will represent Bridgeport and Connecticut at the Miss USA 2024 pageant in Los Angeles in August. She excited to represent the people of Bridgeport and the various communities that she identifies with.
“I’ve gotten so many messages from people that are just like ‘Thank you for being open about your borderline personality disorder. Thank you for being a Black queer woman in this community.’ And that is people seeing me and saying, “I never thought I could do this before ... Because I see you doing it, I feel like I can do it now.’ So it really is just that mirror and it’s been so beautiful so far,” she said.