Kayleigh Bush, a 19-year-old pageant winner, was stripped of her Miss North Florida 2025 title after refusing to affirm unbiblical language in the Miss America Organization’s revised contract. According to Liberty Counsel, which represented Bush, the contract required contestants to accept that “biological males—who have been subjected to medical mutilation as minor boys—are female.” Bush declined to sign, citing her “religious, scientific, political, and moral beliefs that sex is immutable” and that “individuals are born and remain either male or female.”
Despite appeals from Liberty Counsel to reinstate her crown and revise the contract, both the Miss America Organization and the Miss Florida Scholarship Program refused. Bush chose to walk away rather than compromise her convictions.
In recognition of her stand, Bush was honored with the 2025 Young Christian Woman of Distinction award and crowned “Miss She Leads America.” Her recognition was entered into the Congressional Record. Rep. Lisa McClain declared, “Her story reminds us that courage is contagious, truth is not negotiable, and that no earthly crown compares to the one given by Christ.”
