Power of the Sash: How a beauty pageant became a platform for change in South Africa
The entrance to the 2022 Miss Calendar Girl beauty pageant would be easy to miss — tucked away at the back of the Retreat Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa — were it not for the music being so loud you can hear it on the main road.
Keagan Martin is on door-duty, ready to welcome guests and collect their 70 rand ($3.50) entrance fee. Inside, Chedino Martin — the pageant's organizer and Keagan's wife — hurriedly checks the score sheets laid out in a neat row on the judges' table. Behind her, a set designer tries to attach a giant, ornate sash to a stage backdrop.
In an improvised changing room, 12 contestants — one for each month of the year — are putting the final touches on their first outfits for the evening. Tonight's theme: denim and diamonds.
We first reported on Chedino in an earlier , in which we shared her journey of being abandoned by her mother when she was just a few months old to winning the first ever Miss Trans Africa
