Should transgender golfers be permitted to play in womens golf?

Photo Source: dailymail.co.uk

Who said this blog doesn't explore all the issues in sport?  Legally when a man undergoes a transgender operation they are considered to be a women at the conclusion of the procedure.  However, it can get a little trickier when sport is involved.  Lana Lawless has been officially banned from competing on the US tour because she was not born a woman, much of the reason no doubt attributed to the fact that officials believe she is still gaining some sort of physical advantage as seen by her incredibly long driving.  If the law recognises Ms Lawless as a female (both physically and mentally) then shouldn't the LPGA do the same?

Katie Thomas's article explores the events that led to transgender golfer Lana Lawless's decision to sue the LPGA for violation of civil rights.  The article provides quite a simple yet descriptive and informative recount of the events surrounding this saga how they have impacted the different parties directly involved. Thomas quite rightly illustrates the point of view of Miss Lawless first to correctly establish to the reader her motivation for taking such a path as a result of feeling discriminated against. 

Thomas follows this up by highlighting relevent comments from representatives from the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, former transgender tennis player Renee Richards and states that LPGA officials refused to give comment on the issue.  Thomas could have added another element to the story by gaining the perpective of a current player on the LPGA tour.  This would have been very intriguing and made the article more appealing as common question many readers would have been left wondering is whether or not fellow competitors Miss Lawless would be competing against believe she is entitled to play on the tour and if so does she gain an unfair advantage or not. 

The article is a fair piece of online journalism displaying key fact supported by insightful and relevent sources and solid a structure.  Although failure to seek comment of current or even past LPGA tour players weakens the article and takes away from much of the good work achieved throughout the story. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/sports/golf/13lawsuit.html