Women’s professional golf tour, NXXT Golf, has changed its eligibility criteria to only allow biological female players to compete 

after transgender golfer Hailey Davidson sparked backlash for winning on the circuit. 

Davidson, 30, who was born in Scotland but now lives in Florida, won the NXXT Women’s Classic at Mission Inn Resort and Club near Orlando in January. 

The victory allowed the Scot to take a step closer to the LPGA with the NXXT awarding its top five players 

with exemptions to the Epson Tour – a step below the top tier of the women’s game. 

News of the win sparked anger online, with many highlighting how Davidson, a three-time winner on the tour, would likely be able to hit the ball further than a player born female.

The NXXT had initially stuck to its strict policy of allowing trans-women to take part in the competition alongside those who were born female, only to perform a U-turn on Friday. 

The tour announced on International Women’s Day that it had reversed its gender policy and that, effective immediately, competitors must be a biological female at birth to participate.

A statement from the tour said that the decision had been made in an effort to underscore the organization’s ‘commitment to maintaining the integrity of women’s professional golf and ensuring fair competition.’

‘As we navigate through the evolving landscape of sports, it is crucial to uphold the competitive integrity that is the cornerstone of women’s sports,’ NXXT CEO Stuart McKinnon said. 

‘Our revised policy is a reflection of our unwavering commitment to celebrating and protecting the achievements and opportunities of female athletes. Protected categories are a fundamental aspect of sports at all levels, and it is essential for our Tour to uphold these categories for biological females, ensuring a level playing field.’ 

‘NXXT Golf is honored to lead in promoting and advancing women’s golf, providing a platform that not only highlights the exceptional talent of women golfers worldwide but also ensures the competition remains equitable for all of our players,’ he added. 

The news broke during an off-week on the NXXT’s schedule with the next tournament, the Dare the Bear Championship, taking place next week from March 11-13. Davidson is not listed in the field. 

She last competed on the NXXT at the Royal St. Cloud Women’s Championship last week, where she finished tied-24 with a score of ten-over for the tournament. 

After one win and two second-place finishes through nine events this year, Davidson currently sits second in the Road to the Epson Tour standings. 

Her finishes this year have earned her a total of 1,801 points – 99 behind leader Maria Bohorquez and a massive 500 ahead of Ji Eun Baik in third.

If she had been permitted to continue playing on the NXXT and maintained her position, she would have clinched an exemption to the Epson Tour, the developmental feeder tour for the LPGA.

The top five earners on the NXXT points list will earn two exemptions into Epson Tour fields. 

The NXXT is the second US mini-tour to make the change after Arizona-based Cactus Tour announced on National Girls and Women in Sports Day last month that it had reinstated a female-at-birth requirement. 

The LPGA’s gender policy, which also applies to the Epson Tour, Ladies European Tour, LET Access Series and LPGA Professionals competitions, still permits trans-women to compete. 

The LPGA Tour, which removed its requirement for golfers to be ‘female at birth’ in 2010, requires players to submit a written declaration stating that they identify as female, proof of gender reassignment surgery, and evidence of at least one year of hormonal therapy maintaining testosterone levels at a specified range. 

In response to the backlash towards Davidson’s win, the NXXT declared in January that it would be requesting her to undergo ‘additional testing’, despite her insistence that she no longer has any physiological advantages over her cisgender competitors.

At the time, Davidson had openly accepted the new regulations, while still maintaining that she possessed no edge over her biological female rivals after almost a decade of taking hormones.

‘I win and people freak out. I play well and the whole world ends and “Oh, I’m destroying women’s golf now!” and all this other stuff,’ she told Sky Sports.

‘I recognize that I did have an unfair advantage a few years ago. I’ve been transitioning now for nine years, I’ve been on hormones for almost nine years. I had surgery coming up on three years exactly. I’ve lost almost 50mph on swing speed.’

She added: ‘Trans athletes shouldn’t be banned, but at the same time, there needs to be regulations in place because it shouldn’t just be a free for all.

‘I think with so many topics, we as a society just need to sit down and listen to each other rather than scream at each other and put hatred on it. 

‘I think we forget that people are actually humans at the same time.’

The NXXT also rolled out an anonymous poll among its players to gather their opinions on the tour’s gender policy, the results of which had not been made public. 

Davidson last competed as a male golfer in 2015, after which, she began hormone therapy treatments and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2021. 

‘I know I have what it takes from being around professional golfers on the LPGA/PGA/Champions Tour over the recent years and staying very competitive with them all,’ Davidson said in 2021 while trying to fundraise for qualifying school.

‘While I know that I have the talent and mental game to make a career out of playing, the initial cost of tournaments and practice expenses is what truly holds me back.’ 

While failing to make qualifiers that particular year, Davidson stayed competitive in other tournaments, ending one match just three shots behind 2010 US Women’s Open champ Paula Creamer. 

Should Davidson finally make the LPGA, she would be the second transgender woman reach the first stage of LPGA Q-School. 

In 2013, Bobbi Lancaster, a 63-year-old physician from Arizona earned Symetra Tour status in 2013, but decided to spend her time traveling the country as a human rights advocate according to Golf Week.

The NXXT’s about-face comes amid a culture war in America over regulations in allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.

Although professional bodies like the LPGA and PGA set up their own rules and regulations many years ago, more recently debates have erupted across the country over athletes competing in high school and college.

The issue took center stage in 2022 with UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, who began competing in women’s collegiate swimming a year and a half after transitioning.

Thomas went on to break several women’s records, much to the dismay of several of her teammates, and the NCAA and US Swimming bodies were criticized for allowing Thomas to compete.

Professional competitive swimming association FINA has since effectively banned trans women from competing in the sport, by saying they must have begun to transition before puberty kicked in, which is illegal or almost impossible to do across most of the US.

18 states have now outlawed transgender students from competing in girls’ sports. 

One notable example is Ohio, which passed a bill requiring students accused of being transgender to provide a doctor’s note detailing their sexual anatomy, their testosterone levels, and their genetic makeup.

In New Jersey, Republican lawmakers proposed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which would require female student-athletes to verify the nature of their genitals to compete.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Testa, compared genitalia checks to random drug tests that college athletes are subject to, and said he didn’t foresee any problems with irate parents accusing girls of being transgender.

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Source: Tampa Bay Times