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”).

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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.”

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He accused the organizations of a “bait-and-switch tactic.”

According to the letter, the contract Bush refused to sign said all females could compete, including those who had “fully completed sex reassignment surgery via vaginoplasty (from male to female) with supporting medical documentation and records.” Trans activists would more than likely argue that this criterion is far too strict, as genitalia does not dictate gender. Additionally, many people cannot afford surgery or do not want it for a variety of personal reasons.

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.”

To advance in competition, Miss North Florida 2025, Kayleigh Bush, was told to sign a contract that forced her to compete against men. She refused.

“Miss” America and “Miss” Florida advertise as women-only competitions, which is misleading and may violate FL law. This is wrong! pic.twitter.com/UJoAzyUOl1

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) April 10, 2026

In a TMZ interview from February, Bush says she was punished for being “unwilling to agree that little boys can become girls.” She said the organizations changed the contract between the first time she signed it and the second time it was presented to her.

“I lost the crown because I was unwilling to rewrite the truth,” she said.

Uthmeier has long used his position to vilify and terrorize LGBTQ+ people. Last year, he launched a crusade against a Life Time Fitness in Palm Beach Gardens after discovering that the private business had a trans inclusive policy. State law requires people to use facilities aligned with their sex assigned at birth, but that does not apply to private businesses.

Uthmeier, however, claimed otherwise in a letter sent to the gym. He falsely claimed that trans inclusion leads to “assaults, exploitation, and fear” and that he was merely doing this to protect women and girls.

Even after Life Time said it would comply with his demands, Uthmeier posted a video in which he visited the gym in person to make sure they are “not allowing trans women into women’s bathrooms, not in Florida,” and “actually following the law.”

“It appears they are,” he reported to followers, though it’s unclear how he could have confirmed this without major privacy violations of the individuals entering and exiting the locker rooms there.

In October, Uthmeier also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a parental rights activist who dubiously claimed her child’s middle school helped her child secretly transition. Uthmeier’s brief claimed government officials across the United States “are fundamentally altering the upbringing of children and keeping parents in the dark” with “secret transition” policies.

These policies do not involve schools encouraging students to be trans or transition, but rather to support any students who willingly communicate that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth and to allow the student to choose when to share that private information with their parents. For some students with anti-trans parents, telling them could be dangerous.

He also wrote a letter in November urging the Pensacola City Council to shut down a Christmas-themed drag show, which he deemed “demonic” and “harmful” to children, despite how it was exclusively for adults over the age of 18. But Uthmeier said children would be nearby at a Winterfest festival, which he apparently found just as bad as them actually being present at the show.

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