Lana Lawless, 2008 women's world champion in long-drive golf recently sued the LPGA. The reason for doing so, Long Drivers of America, which overseas the competition, changed the rules to match the LPGA which does not allow transvestites. After Lawless was ruled ineligible to compete, she wrote a letter asking for permission to compete in women's qualifying tournaments, and was denied yet again.
Once a man for 52 years of her life, Lana Lawless underwent gender-reassignment surgery in 2005. As already mentioned, she won a women's golf event three years later before being ruled ineligible by gender. Is this right? She is a female (now), she competed before...How do you feel?
Personally, I feel as though Lana has no right being in the LPGA and I find it very weird she won a case and eventually changed the ruling. The LPGA should have stated in the rules, only women at birth are eligible. Lana has a competitive advantage over other female athletes in the LPGA as she was born and lived as a male with testosterone. Nonetheless, it should be interesting to see where this issue goes from here.
I agree with you that she should not be allowed to compete in the LPGA. I liked the rulings that the NCAA did with the transgender issue. You have to stick with the competition of your sex no matter sex change or not. You still have the testosterone and competitive advantage over women being a male. This would not be fair to let him compete in the LPGA when his sex no matter what is still male.
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree with letting her play in the LPGA. Part of me feels it wrong because she did still have testosterone when she won a competition. On the other hand she did change her sex to be biologically female and she considers herself a female therefore I believe she should be able to participant in the sporting event she choices despite the fact that she was born a male.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that she should NOT be allowed to compete in the LPGA. They really need to implement a rule that says you can only compete if you were a female at BIRTH! It really doesn't matter what type of surgery was performed because when she won that competition she had testosterone in her system, giving her the advantage to hit the ball further than the real women in the tournament. I don't feel sorry for her at all.
ReplyDeleteIf you apply the Stockholm Consensus, Lana would be able to compete 2 years post-SRS. It sounds like she had Sex Reassignment Surgery, and not Gender reassignment surgery.
ReplyDelete