Miss America Allows Castrated Boys to Compete in Pageant, Former Contestant Reveals
The Miss America organization has threatened to sue former contestant Kayleigh Bush after she revealed it allows castrated boys to compete in the prestigious pageant.
Bush was crowned Miss North Florida in November 2024. The Miss America organization barred her from moving to the next stage of competition when she refused to sign a participation contract defining “female” to include:
Bush described her experience in an interview with TMZ last week, revealing she spent weeks trying to renegotiate the language before accepting she would not be allowed to compete in the Miss Florida pageant.
“I lost the crown because I was unwilling to rewrite the truth,” she told TMZ, calling the experience “heartbreaking” and “confusing.”
“It was disappointing, because Miss America has been honoring women for over a hundred years and, now, they can’t even define what a woman is,” she concluded.
Liberty Counsel, which helped Bush dispute the contract, reports Miss America threatened Bush with legal action for “exposing its contract that says ‘male’ can be ‘female.’”
Miss America’s alleged treatment of Bush and the deeply troubling language in its secret participation contract paint a grim picture of an organization meant to celebrate the skills, social contributions and potential of women.
The public eligibility information for Miss Florida, which Bush took at face value, requires contestants be “female.” Four weeks after she won, Miss America and Miss Florida presented Bush with the new contract requiring Bush to effectively agree to compete against castrated men.
Bush, like Focus on the Family, believes male and female are immutable, binary biological categories.
Miss America evidently thinks differently. Page 26 of the contract Bush refused to sign includes a pre-printed certification for boys seeking to compete in the pageant. The form requires a surgeon attest the sex-rejecting procedure is “irreversible” and left the prospective contestant with “no male genitalia.”
Worse, the surgeon must also certify, “The purpose of the surgery was for gender transition from birth gender, male, to new gender, female, and the surgery was successful in that regard.”
The language indicates Miss America equates a man who undergoes surgery to obtain a cosmetic approximation of female genitalia with an actual woman. In essence, the Miss America organization feels comfortable reducing their distinguished female competitors, not even to their reproductive capabilities, but to the general appearance of their genitalia.
The contract violated Bush’s sincere religious and moral belief that men and women are not interchangeable. But, in its April letter demanding Miss America revise its contract and allow Kayleigh to compete, Liberty Counsel wrote:
Though Florida law prohibits doctors from performing sex-rejecting procedures on children 18 years old and younger, the Miss America pageant requires boys who want to participate be castrated.
Miss America contestants can enter as soon as they turn 18 years old. Miss America Teen, which operates under the same eligibility rules, accepts girls as young as 14.
Per Liberty Counsel, contracts which violate Florida law cannot be enforced.
Bush’s TMZ interview brought renewed attention to her case — and to Miss America’s suspect participation rules. The pageant’s threats of legal action have not silenced her.
Shortly after her interview hit the news, Bush posted a Deitrich Bonhoeffer quote to Instagram: “To not speak is to speak. To not act is to act.”
Though Bush gave up her Miss North Florida crown in defense of the truth, She Leads America has since honored her as its 2025 Young Christian Woman of Distinction.
Women’s rights activist Riley Gaines received the same award in 2023.
Michigan Representative Lisa McClain celebrated Bush in the House of Representatives in October, concluding:
The Daily Citizen thanks Bush for choosing to expose the rot in Miss America, despite the personal cost.
Click here to sign the Liberty Counsel petition for Miss America to stop allowing castrated boys to compete in the pageant.
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