Texas just didn’t see Averie Bishop coming. At 26, she was the first Asian woman to be crowned Miss Texas 2022 a year ago. Beauty queens are meant to look nice and play nice, but throughout her year-long reign Bishop resolutely refused to be a poster girl for Texan politicians enacting some of the most restrictive laws in the United States. In fact, she made a proper nuisance of herself with her doggone liberal views, holding forth about gun laws, LGBTQ+ rights, sex education and voting policies. “When you live in Texas and all you wanted was a hot girl summer, but now you have a ‘no reproductive rights’ summer,” she quipped on TikTok after the overturning of Roe v Wade. She’s also co-founded her own charity, The Tulong Foundation, which works to eradicate the gender education gap in developing countries. Her successor, Ellie Breaux, has some big, sparkly shoes to fill.
Photograph Averie Bishop/ Instagram