Affirmative Action Takes a Mulligan
The LPGA Will Allow Transgender Players to Compete
L.P.G.A. players have voted to eliminate the tour’s requirement that players be “female at birth” and to allow transgender athletes to compete, less than two months after a transgender woman sued the tour in federal court, arguing that the rule violated California civil rights law.Some names are beyond improvement.
...
The L.P.G.A. was sued in October by Lana Lawless, a retired police officer who had sex reassignment surgery in 2005 and who won the 2008 women’s world championship in long-drive golf. Lawless sought to play in L.P.G.A. qualifying tournaments after Long Drivers of America, which oversees the world championship she won, changed its rules to match the L.P.G.A.’s. Lawless also sued Long Drivers of America.
The golfer Cristie Kerr told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the policy change was now a “dead issue.”Ahem. About that "L" ...
“She can compete if she can qualify,” Kerr said. “We certainly don’t want to discriminate against anybody; that’s not what the L.P.G.A. is about."
posted by Hey Skipper at 10:06 AM
4 Comments:
Only in America!
How many sex changes, lifetime, do you get? Can you switch back and forth between the men's and the women's tour?
Will there ever be enough shemale golfers for their own tour? I bet they would have lots of groupies.
Not only in America. Remember Caster Semenya?
Semenya blew away the competition at last month’s IAAF World Track & Field Championships in Berlin. But the runner's stunning times, coupled with her muscular build and deep voice, led many to question whether she was, in fact, a woman.
The International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body of international track and field, ordered gender tests on Semenya that involved a physical medical evaluation and reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and gender expert.
The Telegraph, citing an unidentified source, reported that they indicate that Semenya is intersex, with both male and female sexual characteristics. The tests reportedly show that Semenya has no uterus or ovaries, and that she has three times more testosterone than a normal woman.
A source closely involved with the IAAF tests said Semenya had internal testes — the male sexual organs that produce testosterone, according to the Telegraph.
Just a few days ago, the NCAA allowed a woman to compete as a man on a women's basketball team, because that is what she says he is.
These stories go straight to the central problem with female athletics. Almost without exception they are, in effect, affirmative action programs that must exclude merit as the primary consideration, instead relying on a barrier that is much more porous than they can really stand.
Just like race based affirmative action relies, and gets snarled, upon classification.
Will there ever be enough shemale golfers for their own tour? I bet they would have lots of groupies.
Especially in Thailand.
Or so I have heard, anyway.
Skipper, you may too young to remember the scandalette about the "female" East-German swimmers at the Olympics (don't remember which one) who were so steroided, they had to shave twice a day.
I guess "Only in America" now applies to the whole world.
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