Court allows Trump’s old Miss USA pageant to exclude transgender woman

A round tiara of a beauty contest with blue rhinestones.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge has ruled that the Miss United States of America pageants are not required to allow transgender women to participate in their competitions.

On February 25, U.S. District Court judge Michael W. Mosman dismissed a lawsuit challenging the pageant’s rules that dictate that their contestants be “natural females.” Anita Noelle Green had filed the lawsuit after being turned away by the pageant in 2019.

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“Because I viewed it as an organization that does promote a message and seeks to maintain control of that message,” Mosman wrote, “I view it as an association that cannot under the Constitution be required to allow plaintiff to participate in what defendant says is a contradiction of that message.”

Green, a trans woman who has held the title of Miss Earth Elite Oregon and competed in Miss Montana and Miss Universe pageants, was preparing to compete in the Miss Oregon contest when she learned that her application was being rescinded and her entry fee was being returned.

Their director, Tanice Smith, told Green “This is a natural pageant” via Facebook. Smith offered to help Green find another pageant but would not allow her to participate because they “do not anticipate the rules changing.”

“I felt as though I was being invalidated… I felt as though the organization was saying I am not a woman and I’m not woman enough,” Green said in December 2019, when she filed her lawsuit. “This is about giving minorities a voice.”

Mosman, a former appointee to the Department of Justice under George W. Bush, said that because Miss United States of America is…

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