GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A local radio host is in the national spotlight after being named the new Mrs. America. 

Jackie Green won the crown at the pageant in Las Vegas, Nevada over the weekend. She’s back home in Michigan now, reflecting on her big win and what it means to her.

Green is most proud of her platform and being able to speak to a national audience about what it means to be intersex. Green explains that she was born with XY chromosomes, along with internal testes instead of a uterus and ovaries, but externally, she looks like a typical “female.”  

For years, Green didn’t share her condition and in fact lived in fear that people would find out about it. She says being able to talk about it on stage and help other intersex people makes her emotional because of how far she has come. 

“(The testes) were removed when I was 15, but I wasn’t given all the information at the time. I felt like a lot was held from me, and it was something that I wasn’t vocal about because I was really scared how people would treat me and react if they knew,” Green said. “When I went from talking about it locally to talking on it as my final question in the top three of Mrs. America, it definitely was very emotional for me. And then for them to take my answer there and make me the winner just felt really good.”

Green will represent the United States in the Mrs. World Pageant in January 2022.