LPGA Opens Its Ranks to Women Who Are Trans

The players have voted, and the requirement stipulating that members of the the women's professional golf association must be "female at birth" will be removed from the women's tour rules. The change should be final within a few weeks.

The change was prompted by a lawsuit filed by Lana Lawless, a woman who is trans and was disallowed from competing in this year's annual women's long-drive golf championship after the Long Drivers of America adopted the LPGA's transphobic policy. Once the players were asked to revisit the policy, they voted to change it.

Player Christine Kerr commented: "We certainly don't want to discriminate against anybody, that's not what the LPGA is about. And if she can qualify, she'll be able to play. We're like, the last sports organization to do it, it's just we've never really had to look at it before."

Quite obviously, the policy should have never been there in the first place, but it was, and inclusion moving forward is a great outcome.

[TW for non-consensual gender assignment] As an aside, "female at birth" rules are truly inane. What does it even mean to be "female at birth," really? It says "female" on my birth certificate, but I could be intersex and not even know it. It used to be routine (and still is, in many places) to assign infants as female after botched circumcisions or surgeries to "fix" atypical genitalia. Many (most?) people to whom this happens go through life never knowing about it. Nor would the LPGA, or anyone else who has "female at birth" rules. The idea that "female at birth" is protecting a sport (or whatever organization) from any women with an alleged (nope) advantage (nope) is predicated on disappearing all the women who are "female at birth" by virtue of a doctor's hand or the natural concealment of bits that might indicate otherwise to a culture who can't see intersex woman as a singular concept and not two mutually exclusive ones.

Point is, "female at birth" rules are pointless.

[H/Ts to Shakers cynical1 and koach. Commenting Guidelines: "B-b-but trans women have an unfair advantage!" and "Men will say they're trans just to compete against women!" will not be debated in this thread. Don't even go there.]