Former LPGA Tour pro, Amy Olson believes that transgender golfers have "hijacked" what the US circuit's 13 founders originally worked for and wants the LPGA Tour to revert its gender participation policy in order to protect opportunities for female-born players.
Olson - who announced her retirement in April 2024 - is an Independent Women's Forum (IWF) ambassador who strongly believes that the LPGA Tour should only allow players who were born female to compete in the interest of competitive fairness.
In 2010, the LPGA changed its participation policy to allow trans-identified male golfers to participate in the women’s division - saying it would “assure fair competition for all members and participants.”
According to the LPGA's gender policy, men who self-identify as women and have undergone at least one year of hormone therapy and a gonadectomy - a surgical procedure to remove the male testes - are cleared by the LPGA in tournaments and eligible for membership open only to female athletes.
The issue has been brought to light over the past year in particular after transgender pro, Hailey Davidson progressed through LPGA Tour Q-School and earned a spot on the Epson Tour - the circuit which feeds directly into the top US competition.
Olson says she had been looking into the controversial policy since 2019 and recently signed a letter to the LPGA Tour, along with around 275 of her peers, calling on the US circuit to tighten up guidelines which she claims have been loosened in recent years due to the threat of legal action.
While Olson believes the LPGA Tour understands the sentiment from many of its members, the 32-year-old is not confident the governing body will go as far as she feels it needs to.
Olson said: "[This issue] is really on people's minds now because it's right in front of us, but it's been there for 13 years - since we changed our policy... We want it to be female at birth - end of story. If you're born female, you're a female. If you're born male, you're a male.
"I do believe that the LPGA has heard us. I'm not sure if they'll have the courage to go that far, but I know they update their rules in December and so I'm really hoping that we have something to celebrate here in the next couple weeks."
Olson's thoughts are shared by several current and former pros, with Epson Tour pro, Olivia Schmidt recently speaking to the IWF for a documentary series called 'Tee Time: Keep Women’s Golf Female.'
Schmidt detailed her frustration at the policy's current state and wants it reverted to pre-2011 in order to "protect" female-born golfers who are hoping to carve out their profession in the game.
Olson agrees and says it is not only the current crop of golfers who need their interests safeguarded, but also those who created the LPGA Tour in the first place.
She said: "Women started the LPGA tour, a group called the 13 founders. They loaded everything up in their vehicles and went from golf course to golf course, gave clinics, did everything that they could to get public interest and built this tour from the ground up.
"Women did that and they did it for women. And so it's not right to have what they've worked for hijacked by men who feel that they're women but have a distinct competitive advantage over us. That's just not fair.
"And that's why myself and 275 other women are saying 'no,' we need to protect the opportunities that our 13 founders fought for."
Previously, the LPGA Tour told Golf Monthly: "We are currently conducting a thorough review of our Gender Policy. We intend to conclude our work by year-end and announce any updates for the 2025 season, following our standard policy of updating regulations and policies annually."
Asked what success or even progress would look like for Olson, runner-up at both the 2018 Evian Championship and 2018 Women's PGA Championship, the North Dakota State University graduate believes the only safe way to make change is to ban male-born golfers completely.
Olson said: "What you see a lot of organizations do is take what they call a middle ground, which is banning any athletes who transition after puberty. So if you undergo the hormone therapies or surgeries after puberty then you're no longer eligible to participate.
"It's a step because there will be additional protections for women in that case, but I see that as incentivizing earlier transitions for children and I think that that should never be encouraged.
"So, in some ways it's progress, but I think that it has a lot of other implications that we don't want as society."
Ahead of any potential changes by the LPGA Tour in the coming weeks, the North Dakota resident hypothesized over viable alternatives for those who could be affected.
"They can play on the male tours," she said. "What we have in golf is an open division, which is usually referred to as the men's side like the PGA Tour, but we've had Lexi Thompson, we've had Michelle Wie-West, we've had Annika Sorenstam, we've had a long list of women tee up in those competitions because it's an open category and if you can play there, you can tee it up. I mean, that is the solution at this time.
"I mean, I know a lot of people have talked about a transgender league or something where people can compete and play, and if people want to start that up and fund it and get it going, that's fantastic."
