A trans-identified male has taken home the trophy at a women’s professional golfing tournament in Florida. Hailey Davidson, 30, emerged victorious at the NXXT Women’s Classic at Mission Inn Resort and Club on January 17.
Despite outlining eligibility as being restricted to “female players,” NXXT allowed Davidson to compete. His victory is particularly significant as this year NXXT had partnered with the Epson Tour to award 10 exemptions to their top five players. The exemptions were intended to provide female golfers the ability to compete in the Epson Tour regardless of their specific qualifications, something NXXT boasted would facilitate “unparalleled professional growth opportunities for women golfers.”
Davidson is currently ranked in the top spot to receive two of the ten available exemptions.
Davidson, who is originally from Scotland, last competed as a male in 2015 before declaring a transgender identity. Since then, he has become a vocal advocate for trans-identified males in women’s sports.
Writing for Athlete Ally in 2021, Davidson described himself as the “world’s first transgender woman to win a professional golf tournament, which I have now done multiple times.” He explains that he first began to believe he was a “woman” at age 14, but suppressed his “true self” until he was an adult, at which point he began experiencing severe anger issues.
“I had tried playing golf professionally as male prior to coming out, but I was such a headcase it was not only affecting me but the other players around me,” he writes. “I was at a crossroads at this point since I thought I had to choose between playing golf for a living and hiding who I was forever, or finally be happy as my authentic self and potentially never play golf again … While I did not play nor touch a club at all for over 2 years due to all that came with coming out of the closet, I was finally able to get back into playing when I was lucky to land a job at GolfNow. This got me back into playing for fun, and for once I was playing without anger or this mental time bomb waiting to explode.”
In 2022, Davidson made headlines while attempting to earn a Ladies Professional Golfing Association (LPGA) Tour card. At the time, Judy Murray, an elite tennis coach and mother of Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, blasted Davidson for attempting to join the LPGA Tour.
“No. Not fair at all,” Judy Murray posted to X (formerly Twitter) in heated words that quickly went viral. “Protect women’s sport. Listen to the facts, the scientists and the medics. This is wrong.”
While he was ultimately unsuccessful, Davidson attributed criticism of him playing in women’s sports to transphobia.
“I’ve seen that it’s not about protecting women’s sports or me having an advantage, it’s just that you don’t like trans people,” Davidson said during an interview on the Like It Is podcast. “It’s very sad that that’s what it comes down to. In the last couple of months, that’s what I’ve come to learn.”
On X, Davidson boasted of his victory, writing: “I was finally able to get my 4th professional win after two playoff holes… Also moved me into 1st place in the season rankings for two Epson Tour exemptions!”
The Epson Tour is the qualifying tour for the LPGA, meaning Davidson will not only be taking a major professional opportunity away from a woman, but he may also manage to successfully acquire the LPGA Tour Card he has been fighting to receive. The LPGA Tour removed the “female at birth” requirement in 2010.
Reduxx reached out to NXXT for clarification on their policies, and received a response deferring to the transgender guidance of the Ladies Professional Golfing Association, US Golfing Association, and Epson Tour — all of which have uniform policies allowing males to participate in women’s categories if they meet a certain amount of requirements.
“The LPGA has a comprehensive Gender Policy that allows transgender athletes, including those who have transitioned from male to female, to participate in its events. This policy requires transgender athletes to provide a declaration of their gender identity, proof of gender reassignment surgery, and evidence of at least one year of hormonal therapy maintaining testosterone levels at a specified range. It also includes provisions for confidentiality and the recognition of decisions regarding gender verification made by other golf tours or sports authorities,” NXXT Tour Director Bennett Noe wrote.
“This alignment across the NXXT, LPGA, Epson Tour, and USGA ensures a consistent approach towards transgender athletes, emphasizing fair competition and integrity in the sport.”
But speaking to Reduxx on Davidson’s success at the tournament, Marshi Smith of the International Council on Women’s Sports denounced Noe’s response.
“The NXXT tour is claiming just because their policy is uniformly and consistently unjust alongside the Epson Tour, LPGA and USGA that somehow that ensures ‘fairness and integrity in the sport.'” Smith said.
“It is precisely the opposite. The question they must answer is ‘do women deserve access to fair competition?’ If yes, they must adopt simple and clean rules that create a female protected category without exception.”
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