I went into my first pageant weekend expecting to feel out of place. After all, seeing visible difference in beauty pageants is rare. If I’m honest, I had a very fixed idea of what pageant women were like. Polished. Superficial. A bit predictable. And me? I didn’t look like them. I didn’t feel like them. So I assumed I wouldn’t be accepted by them.
Living with a visible difference changes how you walk into spaces. You become aware of yourself before you’ve even said a word. You anticipate being noticed. Judged. Quietly excluded. That’s what I expected. But from the moment I arrived, something didn’t match that expectation.
We were given an induction talk at the start of the weekend. It was simple, but powerful: include everyone. If someone is standing alone, invite them in. If you’re taking a photo, make space. If someone is new, bring them into the conversation. It could have felt like a box-ticking exercise, but it wasn’t. It was real.
Within hours, I noticed something shift in me. Not because anyone made a big effort to include me, but because inclusion was just… normal. I remember sitting there thinking: “Oh wow. I’m part of this.” Not on the outside looking in. Not tolerated. Not “brave” for being there. Just, one of the women. And the women themselves completely challenged everything I thought I knew. There were young girls who already knew what they wanted from life and were actively giving back to their communities. Women with PhDs in psychology working to improve children’s mental health. Women training to be pilots. Running businesses. Leading. They weren’t stereotypes. They were ambitious, thoughtful, grounded, and incredibly supportive of each other.
The other women at the pageant made Vikki feel empowered and included
Going into the weekend, I expected to shrink myself, so I would take up less space. I thought I would feel like I needed to hide. Instead, I felt completely seen. There were no side glances. No awkward moments. No sense that I needed to explain myself. Even things I had worried about, like hair and makeup, became moments of care, not discomfort. I was asked what I wanted, how I felt, and what I was comfortable with. I wasn’t treated like something to be “fixed”. I was treated like anyone else who just wanted to feel their best.
Then there was the stage… When I walked out, something unexpected happened. I didn’t feel like I was pretending to be someone else. I felt like I had stepped into a version of myself that had always been there. Confident. Commanding. Completely at ease. That woman wasn’t new, she just hadn’t had the space to exist before.
The biggest thing I’ve taken from that weekend isn’t about pageantry. It’s about identity. So often, when you live with a visible difference, you make decisions about where you do and don’t belong before anyone else has the chance to. You assume the outcome and limit yourself. You stay smaller. I did that and I was wrong. The place I thought I wouldn’t belong became the place I felt most included. You might not need to change to belong. You might just need to walk in.
During Face Equality Week, we often talk about changing how the world sees visible difference, but this experience reminded me of something just as important: sometimes, we have to challenge the assumptions we’ve quietly made about ourselves too.
If there’s one thing I would say to someone else with a visible difference, it’s this: don’t decide where you belong based on what you think other people will see. You might be walking away from spaces that are ready to welcome you exactly as you are.
