A Scottish-born transgender golfer has made it through qualifying and is just two steps away from becoming a member of the LPGA Tour, a move that one former professional on the top women’s tour called “unfair.”
Hailey DavidsonThe first male-born golfer to win a women’s minor league professional event three years ago, advanced through the early stages of Qualifying School over the weekend and now moves on to the next phase in October.
The 31-year-old, originally from Ayrshire but now based in Florida, has said she intends to “make Scotland proud” by earning an LPGA card, despite the likes of Judy Murray branding the ongoing quest “misguided”.
On Monday, Amy Olson, who finished second in two women’s majors in her decade on Tour, added her voice to the dissenters.
“It’s unfair,” the American posted on social media. “These women have worked too hard and for too long to have to sit back and watch a man compete for and take their place. The only fair way forward is a policy based on sex, not gender.”
However, Davidson, who nearly qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open in June, is unapologetic and recently lashed out at detractors. “I will never understand athletes who blame a transgender competitor for their own athletic failures,” Davidson wrote on Instagram. “If you don’t take responsibility for your failures, you will never be good enough to make it.”
Davidson competed as a man in 2015 before starting hormone therapy and has since rejected allegations of an unfair advantage, reporting that the driver races 30 yards shorter than before the gender change.
Other sports have announced greater protections for women’s sport in recent years, but Davidson would not be the first transgender golfer to play on a major tour. In 2004, the Denmark-based golfer Mianne Bagger qualified for the Ladies European Tour (LET).
Bagger, born a boy in Copenhagen, began playing golf at the age of eight and was considered such a hot prospect that, when he was 14, he was photographed at a golf clinic alongside Greg Norman.
Bagger underwent sex reassignment surgery and by the age of 37 had persuaded the LET to change its “female at birth” membership rule and spent several years on the Tour, recording some top-10 finishes.
But now, at 58, Bagger believes there should be limits on transgender women competing in women’s sports. “I’m seen as a bit of a hypocritical voice, so I just have to accept the abuse,” Bagger said in 2022. “I still think there could be access for women transitioning into women’s sport… (but) I just don’t agree with the current watered-down policies that require less and less medical intervention for a male-bodied person entering women’s sport.”
