Vietnam’s Nguyen Huong Giang beat 26 contestants from around the world to be crowned the winner of Thailand’s transgender beauty pageant last week.

The competition has been running since 2004 and is heralded by LGBT rights groups as a powerful way to bring visibility to the community and create global bonds between transgender people.

“This is my first international experience of coming to pageant where it is really a big exposure to all my trans sisters all over the world,” Nitasha Biswas, from India, told AFP.

Joe Wong, who works with the advocacy group Asia-Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) told AFP: “I’ve learnt from others that contests like these create sisterhood and bonds.”