Republican AG says women's beauty pageants "misled" contestants by letting some trans women competehttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/republican-ag-says-womens-beauty-pageants-misled-contestants-by-letting-some-trans-women-compete/ 🔗Molly Sprayregen (13 April 2026)
Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier has accused two pageant organizations of violating the state's Deceptive and Unfair Practices Act by calling themselves women's competitions while allowing trans women to compete.
On April 10th, Uthemeier posted a copy of his warning letter to the Miss America and Miss Florida organizations. He claimed the groups "misled" former contestant Kayleigh Bush, who was stripped of her Miss North Florida 2025 title and scholarship and banned from moving to the next stage of the competition after she would not sign a contract that included trans women in the competition (though Uthemeier wrote she wouldn't sign a contract that "would require her to compete against men").
Uthemeir said Bush entered the competitions based on claims on the websites of Miss America and Miss Florida that contestants are required to "be a female," described elsewhere on the sites as "girls and women."
Continuing to misgender trans women, he claimed "nothing in these public-facing representations defined" the terms "as anything other than biological females" and said there was no "public indication that males (or a subset of males) would be allowed to compete."
Uthemeir is essentially accusing the pageants of false advertising in claiming that only women can compete, despite the fact that trans women are women. He ordered them to take "corrective steps" by May 1 or face "enforcement action."
