Lana Lawless

Lana Lawless (born in 1953) is a transgender woman. She was born biologically male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2005. After her gender reassignment, Lawless began playing golf professionally. She became a professional title-holding golfer and received recognition for filing a lawsuit against the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) in 2010 for her right to compete as a woman in the women's long-drive championship.

Personal Life

Although Lana Lawless is open about being a male-to-female transgender, she chooses not to discuss her former name. She explains that she has always been Lana Lawless deep inside. Before her gender reassignment, Lawless had been married but did not father any children. She currently is not married.

Career

Before her gender transition to becoming Lana Lawless, she was a gang unit cop for the City of Rialto in Southern California. As an embodied man, she played golf for 21 years at a private golf club but it wasn't until 2006, after her gender reassignment, that she decided to compete professionally. In 2007 Lawless competed in her first world championship and returned in 2008 where she won the championship in long-drive golf.^[4]

Lawless sues LPGA

In 2010, Lawless filed a lawsuit against the Ladies Professional Golfing Association (LPGA) for her right to compete as a woman in the world championship. The LPGA had a requirement that athletes must be "female at birth" in order to compete. Lawless argued that this requirement violated California's civil rights law and that transsexual competitors should be allowed to compete as the gender of which they identify with. She not only sued against the LPGA but also against Long Drivers of America along with two of their sponsors and LPGA's sponsors. As a result of Lawless's lawsuit, the LPGA reviewed its requirement of having to be born female in order to compete and decided to remove it.