by WorldTribune Staff, March 1, 2021
A U.S. district judge has ruled that Miss USA is within its First Amendment rights to accept only biological females into its pageant.
Judge Michael W. Mosman, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, dismissed a lawsuit brought against the pageant company by trans activist Anita Noelle Green.
OregonLive.com noted that Green, who holds the title of 2019 Miss Earth Elite Oregon and competed in the 2018 Miss Montana contest, had applied to participate in the Miss USA national pageant in 2019 but her application was rejected.
“This case brought awareness to an issue many people were and still are unaware of and that issue is that discrimination against transgender people is still actively happening in the private and public sector even within the pageant circuit,” Green said in a statement.
Miss USA asserted that it has the right to pursue its mission of promoting “natural-born” females. Judge Mosman agreed, saying that the pageant has freedom of association.
“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,” Mosman ruled.
Attorney John T. Kaempf, who represented Miss United States of America LLC, praised the ruling: “My client is not anti-transgender but it just wants to be able to hold a pageant that is only for biological females.”
Green said she viewed Judge Mosman’s ruling as a “minor setback” and would be exploring options for a way to move forward.
“I believe Miss United States of America is on the wrong side of history for choosing to actively discriminate against transgender people, but the road to creating meaningful change has always been a long and bumpy one,” Green said.
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