Mela Habijan, or popularly known as Miss Mela, aims to fulfill her mission to always “live life with a purpose.” She joins us on this episode as she shares her journey of embracing being a Filipino transgender woman, fully celebrating her identiy and all of the LGTBQIA community as well. She acknowledges being empowered by other trans sisters, which she finds herself doing so now too in a place of having a powerful voice in her different advocacies and now being the first ever Miss Trans Global for the year 2020. We learn that while hers was a 3-year identity crisis where she was wrapped up in fear of not being able to fulfil her dreams, in hindsight she feels that with this fear came belittling and denying her identity (listen in on how this ended!). It may be shorter or longer for others, but she wisely encourages that “it is okay to go through that crisis, that pain, because it is part of the process.” In time, one would regain the journey and come out of it even stronger. Today, she is able to truly say that “her being trans is right, her being trans is a gift.” She is whole.
