Self-Assured and Self-Reliant.
When she was young, Vanessa Maurer would sing. Often, it was the only way to escape the pressures of growing up. Because while growing up in Switzerland, she had a few friends as a child and was then bullied in middle school and high school. So music was a way to confront her troubles. But it was also a way to explore her creative impulses. Vanessa has always pursued her dreams. And she intends to continue to do so. Singing? Where it might once have been an outlet for loneliness and fear, it is now a conduit for affirming her life and the choices she has made. It is all fundamental to her outlook on life, the belief, she says, that “I can create my own happiness.”
Vanessa's decision to seek gender confirmation surgery comes from her sense of self-reliance and the understanding that you can and, sometimes must, do things on your own. Part of that is due to family influences. Her mother is a Filipina and has supported Vanessa through everything she has encountered. A woman from a humble background who nevertheless found reason to be optimistic after every setback, Vanessa's mom became her inspiration, everything that Vanessa would like to embody. Caring and self-sacrificing but also self-sustaining and firmly rooted in her own identity.
Her father has not been so supportive. And that has been one of the hardest challenges she continues to face. True to form, however, Vanessa still hopes that the passage of time will help change his attitude and bring him around to being more accepting of her.
For herself, Vanessa never intends to be a victim of circumstance. She doesn't forget her past. She uses it as a marker to understand how far she has come in life. She still remembers her first work selling cosmetics. Like her years at school, she was bullied while going through training for the job. This didn't stop her. She went on and received her diploma and moved into the marketing of cosmetics, all the while working to enhance the image and professional prospects of transsexuals in the workplace.
And now she is excited to undertake gender confirmation surgery and start living for the future. Vanessa, who speaks five languages, will continue to pursue music. But she also now works to advocate for human rights and, particularly, for LGBT rights. Already having won the Miss Europa Queen 2019 pageant, Vanessa intends to compete in the Miss International Queen pageant next year. Her participation in these pageants will allow her even more of an opportunity to advocate for LGBT education and rights.
