FILE PHOTO: Jul 28, 2024; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Official LPGA sign seen during the final round of the CPKC Women's Open golf tournament. Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo
(Reuters) - The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) updated its gender policy on Wednesday, and players assigned male at birth and who have gone through male puberty will not be eligible to compete.
The new policy comes into effect in the 2025 season, and covers the LPGA Tour, Epson Tour, Ladies European Tour, and all other elite LPGA competitions, where athletes who are assigned female at birth are eligible to compete.
"Our policy is reflective of an extensive, science-based and inclusive approach," LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said in a statement.
"The policy represents our continued commitment to ensuring that all feel welcome within our organization, while preserving the fairness and competitive equity of our elite competitions."
The policy was informed by a working group of top experts in medicine, science, sport physiology, golf performance and gender policy law, the LPGA said.
This working group advised that the effects of male puberty give competitive advantages in golf performance compared to players who have not undergone male puberty.
A player whose sex assigned at birth is male must satisfy an expert panel that they have not experienced any part of male puberty, and since receiving gender reassignment treatment the concentration of testosterone in their serum must remain below a set limit.
Trans golfer Hailey Davidson, who came up short in an LPGA qualifying event in October, had hoped to get into a few Epson Tour events next year but said on social media on Wednesday that she was "banned" from both circuits.
"All the silence and people wanting to stay 'neutral' thanks for absolutely nothing," she wrote on Instagram. "This happened because of all your silence."
Several sports governing bodies moved to limit transgender athletes' access to elite competition in recent years and the England and Wales Cricket Board said in October it will bar transgender women from the top level of the women's sport.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, additional reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Toby Davis and Pritha Sarkar)
