The Peculiar Truth about the Gay Miss America

• Dr. Deidre Downs is an inspiring woman. At just 45 years of age as of this writing, she has an impressive list of accomplishments.

• After being selected as Miss Alabama 2004, she entered the Miss America contest the following year. In 2005 at age 25, she received the national crown in Atlantic City.

• Prior to that, though, she attended high school in Pelham, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham. She won her high school’s beauty pageant as a senior. Upon graduation, Miss Downs received a volleyball scholarship to the University of Virginia. She was also a debate society member.

• Then she transferred to a private Christian school in Alabama, Samford University, to begin medical studies. That move, however, meant she lost her scholarship. She had to find other ways to afford college.

• So she entered beauty pageants. That’s how she paid for her full tuition.

• Beginning in the year 2000, she ran in the Miss Alabama contest every year. Twice she was third runner up and once the first runner up. She finally won on her fifth attempt in 2004.

• Miss Downs received her BA from Samford in 2002, graduated magna cum laude, and just missed out on being named a Rhodes Scholar. While at college, she met her future husband, Andrew Gunn.

• In 2005, she was named Miss America. During her one-year reign, she lived in Birmingham. She also made numerous public appearances across the country. As per her duties as Miss America, Miss Downs appeared at charity events, civic ceremonies, fundraisers, and events held by the military and the pageant’s corporate sponsors. As her website states, “she traveled the country as the spokesperson for CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation.” Miss Downs was also required to attend Miss America preliminary contests as well as the 2006 pageant.

• Part of her Miss America award included a scholarship which she used to further her studies the University of Alabama. After handing the crown to her successor, Miss Downs focused on attaining her medical degree.

• In 2008, she married her college sweetheart Andrew Gunn. Two years later, they had a son.

• That same year, she received her Doctor of Medicine degree. She finished her residency in 2014, and is now an obstetrician and gynecologist. Dr. Downs specializes in fertility.

• She and her husband divorced later, and she reclaimed her maiden name. Deidre Downs was single again and began dating.

• That was when she met a lawyer named Abbott Jones. They fell in love and were married in a private ceremony in 2018.

• Abbott Jones is a woman. With their wedding, the former Miss America came out as gay.

• And as a fertility specialist, she helped her wife get pregnant. They have one child together.

• In 2025, Dr. Downs joined the REACH clinic in North Carolina where the doctor continues her work as an obgyn and fertility specialist. As her website states, she also continues to “Advocate for women’s health and fertility issues, access to care, and LGBTQ patients.”

  ALSO:

• She isn’t the first former beauty pageant winner to come out as gay. The former Miss Oklahoma of 1983, Trelynda Kerr, is also openly gay and was married in 2011. She was a cheerleader at the University of Oklahoma who also entered the Miss America contest in ’83. She lost to Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America.