A Florida beauty queen has claimed that she was stripped of her title after declining to sign a contract that redefines female to include individuals who have undergone sex changes. Kayleigh Bush, winner of Miss North Florida 2025, was crowned in August of last year before she claims her title was taken away from her in November by organizers, who have denied her claims.

She said she had expressed concerns over her contract, which she claimed violated her own religious beliefs while also raising concerns about state law. The contract states that applicants must be female, adding that is either a biological female or ‘an individual who has fully completed Sex Reassignment Surgery’.

Represented by the Christian nonprofit group Liberty Counsel, they sent a letter advising both Miss Florida and Miss America to change the content of the contract and restore her title so she can compete in the competition, scheduled for this week. The letter says: ‘The word ‘female’ indeed ‘means a born female’ and that it is offensive to female dignity to require females to compete against males claiming to be the opposite sex.

According to Liberty Counsel, the two organizations refused twice to revise the contract, opting instead to strip Bush of her title. Legal counsel representing Miss America has shot down these claims as false, providing letters of correspondence between the two and saying they never stripped her of her crown.

The contract adds: ‘Supporting medical documentation must be in the form of the certification attached, signed by the surgeon who performed the surgery and notarized, along with a copy of board certification and a current medical license.

They said that at the time there was no mention that Bush ‘subscribed to this “false” definition of “female”.’

‘Thus, Miss Florida, Inc. is in apparent breach of its oral agreement with [Bush], over terms that are void under Florida law and public policy,’ they added. According to the group, the contract contradicts Florida’s legal definition of sex, which classifies people as ‘either male or female’.