Miss America pageant alters contract language to clarify definition of women
April 16, 2026
The Miss America Organization has notified Florida’s Attorney General that it has revised its contract language to clarify its definition of what constitutes a woman.
The Christian Post reports that clarification comes after a contestant claimed she lost her crown for declining to sign a contract that she believed suggested that trans-identified males can participate, an allegation the organization has denied.
Last Friday, Attorney General James Uthmeier received a letter informing him that the organization “altered” its contract language to clarify that “a person is a woman only if born with two X chromosomes.”
The letter arrived on the same day that Uthmeier warned the beauty pageant organization that it may have violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The controversy stems from a contestant who was asked to sign a contract asserting that the definition of the word “female” includes “an individual who has fully completed sex reassignment surgery via vaginoplasty … with supporting medical documentation and records.”
Kayleigh Bush, who was crowned Miss North Florida in 2025, declined to sign the contract because she felt it conflicted with her religious beliefs about gender and sexuality.
According to the Christian Post, because Bush declined to sign the contract, the Miss America Organization wouldn’t allow her to continue competing and blocked her from enjoying any of the benefits that came with her crown, including the scholarship she had won.
The Florida attorney general accused Miss America and Miss Florida of making “false and misleading representations about their beauty competitions.”
According to Liberty Counsel, which represented Bush, the revised contract language now states that an “applicant must be a naturally born female,” .
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