Lana Lawless

Lana Lawless (born in 1953) is a professional golfer.

Lawless was assigned male at birth and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2005, before 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.

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 and in 2006, after her gender reassignment, 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]

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. As a transgender athlete, this meant she would be ineligible 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. Ultimately, Lawless won the lawsuit and as a result the LPGA reviewed its requirement of having to be born female in order to compete and removed it.

Personal life

Although Lawless is open about being 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.