From Radar:
After years of media scrutiny, pageant people are press shy in the extreme. Parents have been known to go berserk at the sight of alien cameras, and ballroom doors like those at the Clarion are checkpoints impassable to all but registered contestants and their families. It is, of course, a form of show business, but unlike most in entertainment, pageant professionals fight their flashbulb-seeking impulses and tend to shun publicity. And though they are the most influential figures in this rarefied world of spray-tanned toddlers and sequined seven-year-olds, gay men are far and away pageantry's most elusive breed.
When veterans of the pageant process talk about its merits, they emphasize the gains to the young girls who compete: poise, confidence, and sociability are just some of the many dividends (not to mention wicked expertise with hair curlers and eyelash glue). But some gay Southern men have benefited in equal measure from child pageantry: It has offered them a livelihood, acceptance, and a venue in which to practice their considerable talents. It has also brought them excessive amounts of scorn.
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