Alejandra Gavidia, representative of El Salvador in Miss Universe, in a courtesy image.
Alejandra Gavidia says that hers is not a contradiction, although it may seem like that.
She was crowned Miss El Salvador and speaks openly about abortion, her asexuality and feminicidal violence in her country, under the Government of Nayib Bukele, for whom she works as a civil servant.
She says that being a queen, an activist and an official gives her the possibility to do something to change what she does not like about her country.
"I do not know him personally," he quickly clarifies about the president.
She joined an agency that manages projects for women and children almost as she became queen: because she was unemployed and wanted to do something - anything - that would allow her to talk about what concerns her.
When she recognized herself as an asexual person, she did not find anything on the internet that would make her believe that there was someone like her in her country.
"I felt very lonely and I thought I was a weirdo."
She opened a Facebook page to see if there was someone else like her and discovered that there were a lot of them.
Since last year, she has led the Asexuales El Salvador foundation, which brings together those who, like her, do not feel sexual desire.
"Asexuals are invisible, we are the ghosts of the LGBTIQ + community."
They are that + in the acronym that brings together pansexuals, genders and asexuals, of which almost never is spoken and little is known.
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The organization, which makes this minority visible within the minority, has given her a lot of satisfaction, has allowed her to meet with young people like her and she already knows that she still has a lot to contribute along this path. But she needed work and, although it never occurred to her to be a queen and she says that in her adolescence she suffered a lot from being overweight, she decided to send her resume when she saw that they were looking for someone to represent the women of her country. "Why not? A queen is not just a face and a body and I have a lot to say ”. She didn't think they called her, but they looked for her and she stayed. He did not know - it is still difficult for him - to wear false eyelashes or walk in heels, but in the interview he showed that he had a speech and several causes."I did not think of being a queen to be famous but to have a megaphone to talk about who we are who do not fit into the established," he says.
Alejandra Gavidia, in her teens.
Gavidia became queen while opening a space in the Government to work on what she always wanted.
She studied Public Administration, then did an internship at the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) in Costa Rica and then returned to El Salvador wanting to help those imprisoned for having abortions.
That is why he accepted a place in the social innovation secretariat where - he repeats - he does not have direct contact with the president, but with his wife, with whom he works on gender issues.
"While in my internship, far away, I began to hear the stories of women coming out of jail after being unjustly imprisoned for obstetric emergencies," she recalls.
Also of those that continued to enter because, despite calls from international bodies for the Government to soften the laws that make that country a hell for those who decide not to be mothers, little has changed and women continue to face a system judicial that persecutes them.
Alejandra Gavidia smiles while embroidering. COURTESY
Gavidia, 25 years old and with several professional titles on top, has shown in a short time that queens are not what they seem.
It has already launched a professionalization project for women, another for transgender people and, although not much happens in that country, every time a woman gets out of jail after having entered for an abortion she feels it like a victory.
“The debate is no longer whether abortion is yes or no.
That discussion is outdated.
The debate must be on guaranteeing it in a legal and safe way as long as there are still deaths from clandestine abortions ”, he says.
It also says that a law that allows the interruption of pregnancy is not enough, it is also necessary to strengthen the institutions so that they provide a service that guarantees that everyone, in any part of the country, can abort without risking their lives.
Alejandra Gavidia does not want to be called the “antireina”.
On the contrary, he wants to redeem the queens.
"Nobody knows how difficult it is to stand before a crowd that only looks at your physique to try to show that you also have something in your head," he says.
In the Miss Universe pageant, which has already had a transsexual participant and others who have used the microphone in the seconds they are given to denounce femicides, Gavidia will try to show that in El Salvador there are brave women who want change.
"If it is difficult for them to listen to you as a woman, much more difficult if the one who speaks is a queen," she says two months before her trip to Israel, where she does not pretend to be chosen "the most beautiful in the universe."
If your speech resonates you will be satisfied.
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