Miss America Changes Eligibility Rules to Clarify Transgender Stance Following Florida AG Letter
Tyler O'Neil /
The Miss America Organization has changed its rules to clarify that only females can compete. This comes after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned the organization that it might be violating the Sunshine State’s law by allowing men who identify as transgender.
Uthmeier sent Miss America a letter Friday, warning that its policies may violate Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. While Miss America’s public-facing documents state that a competitor must “be a female,” an aspiring contestant objected when she found language in the contract that seemed to permit men who undergo transgender surgery.
Kayleigh Bush won the title of Miss North Florida 2025 in the Miss Freedom USA Pageant, a required preliminary qualifier for Miss Florida. Miss America, which runs the Miss Florida Pageant but not the Miss Freedom USA Pageant, requires contestants to sign a contract that defines “female” to include “an individual who has fully completed sex reassignment surgery via vaginoplasty (from male to female) with supporting medical documentation and records.”
Bush hired the nonprofit law firm Liberty Counsel to represent her, and Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to Miss America, demanding that Bush be allowed to compete without signing a pro-transgender document. Liberty Counsel further claimed that Bush had been stripped of her Miss Florida title.
The concerns come a few years after a man who claimed to identify as a woman won the Miss Universe pageant in the Netherlands. In 2024, Miss Maryland crowned a man who identified as a woman.
Miss America’s Policy Change
On Monday, Liberty Counsel published a screenshot of the updated competition requirements, which clearly exclude men who identify as women, but preserve the surgery requirement for biological women born with male genitalia, one of the rare conditions described as “intersex.”
The previous language defined female this way:
“‘Female’ means a born female or an individual who has fully completed sex reassignment surgery via vaginoplasty (from male to female) with supporting medical documentation and records.”
The new language uses this definition:
“‘Female’ means a born female or born an intersex female individual (defined as one born with two X chromosomes with nonconforming genitalia) who has fully completed sex reassignment surgery via vaginoplasty with supporting medical documentation and records.”
Miss America’s Side of the Story
Mallory Hudson, communications manager for Miss America HQ, confirmed to The Washington Times that the language had indeed been changed.
“The current eligibility policy as to gender was formally updated in the second half of 2024 and was revised again in 2026 to ensure consistency, transparency, and respect for all individuals who meet the qualifications to compete,” she said. “Specifically, our participation policy affirms eligibility for Intersex females, which are those born with female chromosomes, but non-conforming genitalia.”
Stuart Moskovitz, Miss America’s attorney, denied any misrepresentation in a response to Uthmeier.
“At the time [Bush] entered the Miss Freedom USA contest, Miss America did not control local feeder competitions,” he wrote. “It did control its licensed competitions such as Miss Florida, which is why in attempting to compete for Miss Florida, [Bush] was then asked to sign the Miss America contract.”
“If a person has two X chromosomes, she is a biological woman, regardless of the rare circumstance in which she is born with unmatched genitalia,” Moskovitz wrote. “If the woman corrects that anomaly, she is permitted to compete.”
“Without the language to which Kayleigh objects, someone born with two X chromosomes, biologically a woman, could compete with male genitalia,” he argued. “Miss America has the absolute right to prevent that from happening.”
Liberty Counsel’s Response
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver celebrated the policy change away from transgender orthodoxy.
“We are pleased that Miss America has finally come to its senses and revised its contract to remove the ridiculous statement that a boy can be a girl,” he said in a statement Monday. “A boy cannot be a girl.”
“Miss America now knows what a woman is—a common-sense understanding that Kayleigh Bush knew instinctually,” Staver added. “Miss America should now reinstate the benefits of Bush’s crown, including the scholarship that she rightfully deserves.”