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By SONYA PADGETT
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Tourists gathered in front of The Mirage volcano Thursday night expecting to see a one-of-a-kind show, but the eruption turned out to be only the opening act for a much more unique spectacle.
A group of 31 women sporting "Vegas chic" and trailed by a camera crew descended on the crowd, managing to steal the volcano's thunder mideruption by flashing flawless smiles and tossing perfect hair.
Granted, a group of glamorous, surgically enhanced women walking the Strip isn't that unique. But when those women are former men passing out invitations to the World's Most Beautiful Transsexual contest, they're bound to turn a few heads and stop some people in their tracks.
"No way," Frank, who refused to give his last name, said to his wife as he read about the Riviera event. It was billed by promoters as the first of its kind.
He and his wife, Annette, both visiting from Ohio, stood at the edge of the sidewalk on Las Vegas Boulevard South and Mirage Drive, staring unabashedly at the women who were surrounded by other disbelieving gawkers. They were having trouble reconciling what they saw with what they thought a transsexual woman looked like.
"We're just amazed, because they look so beautiful," Annette said, clutching the flyer in her hand. She admitted, reluctantly, that her interest was piqued enough to go check out the contest.
Their reaction was just the sort organizers hoped to capture for the cameras when they decided to take the contestants out to the Strip sidewalks and film the public's response to them. They were betting that those open-mouth looks of astonishment, the spontaneous outbursts from passers-by and the women's sometimes wild antics would make compelling television.
And they had yards of fertile footage to choose from, starting when the contestants piled into two...