In a historic moment in the beauty pageant industry, a transgender model from the Netherlands bagged the title of Miss Universe Netherlands 2023.
Scripting history for the queer community across the globe, Rikkie Valerie Kollé has now become the first transgender woman to win this title. She will now represent the Netherlands at the Miss Universe Pagent.
Who is Rikkie Valerie Kollé?
Rikkie Valerie Kolle created a historic moment as she was crowned Miss Universe Netherlands 2023 on July 8, Saturday, at AFAS theatre, Luesden, Netherlands.
The 22-year-old trans model Rikkie Valerie Kolle is the first transgender model to secure the spot as the representative of the Netherlands for the prestigious 72nd Miss Universe 2023 pageant. Rikkie is a Dutch-Moluccan model and actress hailing from Beda who aspires to be the voice and a role model of the queer community and urge them to follow their dreams.
The pageant beauty shared pictures and videos on Instagram from her winning moment and posing with other models before she basked for the crown. She captioned the thread as "I DID IT!"
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Following Rikkie, 26-year-old Nathalie Mogbelzada from Amsterdam was titled as first runner-up, with Habiba Mostafa named Miss Congeniality and Lou Dirchs Miss Social Media in the national pageant beauty contest.
Rikkie scripted history as she became the first-ever transgender woman to win a national title and the second transgender model to participate in a beauty pageant after Angela Ponce from Spain, who was the first-ever transgender woman in the world to create history in 2018.
In an interview with World360News, Rikkie spoke about her aspirations of dedicating her win and career to uplift the lives of people in the queer community, speak about their struggles and challenges, and urge them to follow their dreams and passions. Rikkie talks about people from the queer community facing pressure and rejection from families to accept their true identities and embrace them. Rikkie envisions a world where nowhere faces rejection for just being themselves.
Rikkie also talked about her journey to become Miss Universe Netherlands 2023 was also full of challenges where she accepted her true identity, but she received immense support and acceptance from her family that could let her through it all.
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