Former beauty queen Patricia Yurena has unwittingly become a new face for the gay and lesbian community, not only in her native country of Spain, but also around the world after posting a photo of her and her girlfriend on Instagram.

Yurena is a two-time Miss Spain winner -- once in 2008 and 2013 -- and was also last year’s Miss Universe runner-up, which means her name has been pretty heavy on the pageant scene. It makes the photo -- which depicts Yurena kissing her girlfriend, house DJ Vanesa Cortes -- even more heavyweight. 

She's also the first Miss Spain winner to come out as gay, following in the footsteps of Miss Kentucky winner Djuan Trent who came out as gay earlier this year.

The photo, posted last week, was captioned, “Romeo and Juliet,” and clearly signals Yurena coming out of the closet.  She followed it up with a front shot of the duo's faces, which was posted shortly after the more intimate one. 

“I published the picture completely spontaneously and in an impulsive manner. Thank you for all your support and most importantly that you are happy with my happiness,” the 24-year-old said in a subsequent post.

Yurena seems happy with her decision to post the photo, according to reports. 

“I don’t regret what I did and I did it because I am happy about what’s going on in my life,” she told Spanish newspaper La Opinión de Tenerife.

Yurena competed in the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow, Russia, where she lost to Miss Venezuela Gabriela Isler. According to the NY Daily News, she might be the last national beauty queen for Spain as the company that runs the pageant, Certamen Miss España SL, filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

In a blog post written on February 20 she revealed her struggle to come to terms with her sexuality, saying she wondered why God had 'made me wrong'.

'Ideally, I would love to one day live in a society where coming out is no longer necessary because we don't make assumptions about one another's sexuality and homophobia is laid to rest,' she said.

'For now, that is more of an ideal than it is a reality. But if you want to see that ideal become a reality and you have the courage to change history.'