Meet The Miss California USA Pageant’s First Out-And-Proud Lesbian Contestants
Mollie Thomas (top) is openly gay and competing in the Miss California USA pageant this weekend. Her tongue-in-cheek constituency? Miss Abbey West Hollywood.
In addition to being a stunner, Mollie’s a humanitarian who’s worked with disabled kids in Mongolia, at an elephant reserve in Thailand and built houses in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
And get this: she’s actually one of two out lesbians in the competition— hair stylist Janelle Hutcherson (bottom) is representing Long Beach.
Both these woman are pretty bad-ass: Janelle, who’s gonna rock a purple tux for the evening wear competition told the L.A. Times the pageant experience “very well may be the craziest, most insane, life experience I have put myself through yet!”
Mollie says on her website that she entered the competition, a prerequisite to the Miss USA contest, “not only to fulfill some of my own aspirations, but also to be a positive role model and inspiration for the LGBTQ community and for girls everywhere.”
You go, girls.