The LPGA and U.S. Golf Association announced in tandem Wednesday changes to their transgender policies, effective for the 2025 season, prohibiting athletes who have experienced male puberty from competing in women’s events.
As reported by USA TODAY's Golfweek, Hailey Davidson, a transgender athlete who competed in the second stage of LPGA Qualifying in October, fell short of an LPGA card but did earn limited Epson Tour status for 2025. She became the second transgender golfer to earn status on the developmental circuit. Bobbi Lancaster earned status in 2013 through Stage I of LPGA Q-School but never actually competed in an official event.
The LPGA’s new policy states that players whose sex assigned at birth is male must establish to the tour’s medical manager and expert panel that they have not experienced any part of male puberty, either beyond Tanner Stage 2 or after age 12 (whichever comes first). They must also maintain a concentration of testosterone in their serum below 2.5 nmol/L, Golfweek reported.
Under these updated guidelines, Davidson, who played men’s college golf at Wilmington University, an NCAA Division II school in Delaware, before transferring to the men’s team at Christopher Newport, an NCAA Division III school in Virginia, would be ineligible. Davidson began transitioning in 2015 and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2021.
In August, the Independent Women’s Forum sent a letter to the LPGA, USGA and IGF (International Golf Federation) signed by more than 275 female golfers that called for the organizations to repeal all policies and rules that allow biological males to compete in women’s events.
The USGA’s new policy, now called the Competitive Fairness Gender Policy, largely mirrors that of the LPGA with only minor differences.
According to Golfweek's Beth Ann Nichols, golf’s new transgender rules align with those of World Aquatics and the World Athletics Council, which oversees track and field. In June, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, the first transgender athlete to in an NCAA Division I title, lost a legal challenge against World Aquatics that argued its policies were discriminatory. In 2022.
Related: Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas Fails in Challenge of Rules That Ban Her From Elite Women's Events
“It was all based on competitive fairness as the north star,” USGA CEO Mike Whan told Golfweek of the process. “Right or wrong, let’s be able to look ourselves in the face and any competitor in one of our women’s events in the face and say if you’re in this event, nobody has a competitive advantage relative to their gender.”
