A United States Federal Court of Appeals ruled that a beauty pageant had retained the right to bar a transgender woman from competing because allowing her to compete was going against the beauty pageant’s message about a so-called “ideal woman.”
The ruling, made by judges in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, came after Anita Green, a transgender woman, was barred by the pageant from joining the competition. Green accused the Miss USA beauty pageant of violating an anti-discriminatory law by the state of Oregon when it banned her from participating in their pageant in 2019.
The transgender woman has competed in numerous pageants, including Miss Universe and Miss Montana USA.
At the time of her rejection, Greene was an Oregon resident. She was busy preparing to compete in Miss USA’s Oregon pageant when she received a rejection notice. They rejected her application because the organization did not consider Greene a natural-born female.
Greene’s lawsuit accused the organization of violating an Oregon state law that makes it illegal for any institution, business, organization, or person to deny public accommodations to other people purely based on their gender identity or sex.
However, Miss USA’s legal team argued that the pageant program’s main agenda was to celebrate and uplift natural-born women and send a message of empowerment to biological females. Like many other pageants, Miss USA has several requirements that contestants must fulfill, including gender, marital status, and age.
The three-judge panel voted in favor of the Miss USA organization by 2-1, saying that if they forced the pageant to include transgender contestants, they would critically alter the message the pageant was trying to portray.
Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote a statement representing the majority, saying that as it is with theater, the Super Bowl halftime show, and even cinema, beauty pageants combine music, dancing, and other live performances to express a particular message. Even though the message portrayed varies in different pageants, it is common knowledge that most pageants are designed to represent the “idealistic vision of American womanhood.”
The Court agreed with a previous ruling by a lower court that found anyone could understand the pageant’s decision to exclude the transgender woman to mean that the organizers did not think transgender women are eligible to be real women.
According to the appellate court, the First Amendment allowed the organization to voice its message and enforce its rules on natural-born females.
The panel said forcing Miss USA to include the transgender woman would be “compelled speech,” a First Amendment violation.
Judge Susan Graber, who was of the dissenting opinion, said the other two judges should have considered whether state laws applied to the case before jumping to the First Amendment angle.
John Kaempf, Miss USA’s lawyer, said the court had dismissed the case out of simple fairness.
Although neither Greene nor her lawyer commented on the court’s ruling, Greene did speak out last year after a lower court made a similar ruling and expressed her disappointment. She also said that the case showed the discrimination that transgender people go through in the pageant world.
