[1] Each year, contestants compete at various city, state, and direct regional preliminaries for the opportunity to advance to the official Miss Gay America pageant.

Titleholders are often seen as the best in the industry and are frequently hired to entertain in a variety of venues, such as Las Vegas shows, cruise ships, and LGBT events.

Miss Gay America is unique in that it is the only national pageant that prohibits contestants from using female hormones or having undergone any feminizing plastic surgery, such as breast implants or liquid-silicone injections below the neck.

In 1971, Jerry Peek opened the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon in Nashville, Tennessee, the city's first gay dance and show bar.

In 2005, Norman Jones retired from the pageant's regular operations and sold the Miss Gay America pageantry system to Larry Tyger and Terry Eason of L&T Entertainment.

In 2021 following the Impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic, Prideland Productions, an entity formed by Simba Hall succeeded to maintain control and operations of the Mr division of the system, with a contest scheduled to be held in August 2021 in Las Vegas, NV.

[5] The 2022 Miss Gay America pageant ushers the 50th symbol of excellence in to the prestigious system and is scheduled to be held in early 2022 following return to safety guidelines surrounding the coronavirus pandemic affecting persons around the world.

Contestants for the national Miss Gay America pageant qualify through franchised state and direct regional preliminaries.

[citation needed] While some of the contestants perform live vocal, dance or comedy skits, the vast majority showcase their talent of lip syncing to prerecorded music.

Additionally, the televised special faced issues with copyright infringement associated with certain lip syncing performances, which required much of the talent portion of the show to be dubbed when it was aired.

Patti Le Plae Safe was crowned Miss Gay America 1995 in a special ceremony prior to the 1996 pageant in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[citation needed] In 2010, winner Alyssa Edwards had her title revoked due to scheduling conflicts with previous engagements and her Miss Gay America duties.

The title was passed to the 2010 first alternate, Coco Montrese, who was crowned in a special ceremony at The Grey Fox Nightclub in St. Louis, MO.

L&T Productions later released a statement about the dramatized events, explaining their reasons for revoking Alyssa's title and their lack of knowledge about how this issue would be portrayed in the television series.

They had been approached by the producers to provide copyright clearance for both Alyssa's and Coco's official Miss Gay America photos.

The film is an intimate portrait of three female impersonators participating in the events surrounding the Miss Gay Little Rock Arkansas America pageant.