{"id":230032,"date":"2026-04-13T17:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/230032\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:34:07","slug":"fla-attorney-general-warns-miss-america-miss-florida-over-transgender-contestant-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/230032\/","title":{"rendered":"Fla. attorney general warns Miss America, Miss Florida over transgender contestant policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier <\/a>is accusing the Miss America organization, based in Wellington, and the Miss Florida organization of possibly breaking state law after a contestant says she lost her title for refusing to sign a policy allowing transgender women to compete.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent Friday, Uthmeier said the groups may have violated Florida\u2019s Deceptive and Unfair Practices Act by promoting the pageants as competitions for women while also allowing transgender women to enter.<\/p>\n

The dispute centers on Kayleigh Bush, who says her Miss North Florida 2025 title was revoked and she lost her scholarship after she declined to sign a contract stating contestants could be female or someone who had completed sex reassignment surgery from male to female and provided supporting medical records.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier argued that the organizations advertised the competitions as being for women only, while allegedly allowing what he described as men to compete.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Uthmeier wrote that Bush \u201cwas told to sign a contract that forced her to compete against men\u201d and called the pageants\u2019 advertising \u201cmisleading\u201d and potentially in violation of Florida law.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth organizations made statements advertising that only females can compete, when in fact men are apparently also permitted to compete,\u201d Uthmeier wrote.<\/p>\n

See also: $1.8 million in counterfeit luxury goods seized in West Palm Beach, CBP says<\/a><\/p>\n

He gave both groups until May 1 to \u201ctake corrective action\u201d or potentially face enforcement action.<\/p>\n

In the letter, Uthmeier said Miss America and Miss Florida misled Bush and other women in Florida and called on both organizations to bar transgender women from competing in their pageants.<\/p>\n

The letter argues the issue is not just about Bush, but about how the organizations market their competitions to women across Florida. Uthmeier said Miss America and Miss Florida \u201cmade false and misleading representations\u201d by promoting the pageants as women-only competitions while allegedly permitting transgender women to participate. He also said neither organization\u2019s public-facing websites disclosed that policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy misleading Kayleigh and other Florida women, Miss America and Miss Florida undermine the values they claim to advance \u2014 female well-being,\u201d Uthmeier wrote. \u201cBoth organizations should disallow men from competing in their pageants.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Miss America HQ fired back on X, demanding a retraction, and writing, “perhaps you should get your facts right before you defame our organization.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is accusing the Miss America organization, based in Wellington,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-230032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}