The Miss America Organization (MAO) has revised contract language after it was criticized for making room for biological men to compete. Issues with the contract language for participants was first brought into the public eye when Kayleigh Bush, who won Miss North Florida in 2024, was blocked from entering the Miss Florida pageant when she refused to sign the MAO contract based on language she felt violated her Christian beliefs about gender. The original language defined a female as “[A]n individual who has fully completed Sex Reassignment Surgery [sic] via Vaginoplasty (from male to female) [sic] with supporting medical documentation and records.” For Kayleigh and Liberty Counsel, her legal representatives, that sort of language could mean that a biological man who identifies as female could compete. “I was asked to sign a contract that was different than the first one that I had agreed to because they had changed it four weeks after I rightly won. So, I didn’t lose my crown because I broke a rule, I lost the crown because I was unwilling to rewrite the truth,” Bush previously told TMZ.

MAO has pushed back against Bush’s claims. Mallory Hudson, communications manager for Miss America HQ said, “To be clear, she was not stripped of any title, nor was any scholarship removed — those claims are false and appear to have been made to attract attention. She is no longer eligible to compete due to her defamatory statements about the organization.”

The new contract language states that a contestant must be “a naturally born Female” and defined female as “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.” Intersex individuals born with Disorder of Sexual Development known as 46,XX, are born with the XX chromosomes of a biological female but may have male genitalia or ambiguous genitalia that can be corrected with surgery and hormones. Mat Staver, President and Founder of Liberty Counsel, praised the new language, saying, “Miss America now knows what a woman is — a common sense understanding that Kayleigh Bush knew instinctually.” He then called on the organization to reinstate the scholarship that Bush should have received.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had sent a demand letter to MAO warning the organization that it might be violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. “Both organizations made statements advertising that only females can compete, when in fact men are apparently also permitted to compete,” Uthmeier wrote. “Nowhere on either organization’s websites are there any disclosures that men may compete.” MAO responded the same day by sending Uthmeier the updated contract language.

MAO attorney Stuart Moskovitz, however, framed the change as bringing more clarity and stated that MAO’s policy has always been that only biological females are eligible to participate. “To be clear, we have not altered our policy as the result of Kayleigh Bush’s claims. We have merely clarified the language so there can be no doubt as to the intent of the provision. Both the original language and the clarification were designed to prevent men from participating in the competition,” he wrote in a statement. He accused Uthmeier of “misrepresenting” the organization, adding, “you have unfairly maligned Miss America by deliberately publicizing your attack before learning the truth from us.”