U.S. beauty pageant can exclude transgender contestants, court rules

2017 Miss USA – Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., 14/05/2017 - Three out of the five finalists, Miss South Carolina Megan Gordon, Miss Illinois Whitney Wandland and Miss Minnesota Meredith Gould, stand on stage. REUTERS/David Becker

Beauty pageant operator Miss United States of America LLC cannot be forced to allow transgender women to compete because doing so would interfere with its ability to express "the ideal vision of American womanhood," a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision rejected a lawsuit by Anita Green, a transgender activist, claiming that Miss United States of America's policy of only allowing "natural born" women to compete violates an Oregon anti-discrimination law.