Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson returns to LPGA Qualifying School as tour continues policy review

Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson is one of 332 players signed up for LPGA Qualifying School later this week.

The Pre-Qualifying Stage (formerly Stage I) takes place Aug. 22-25 at Mission Hills Country Club (Tournament and Palmer courses) and Indian Wells Golf Club (Classic Course) in Rancho, Mirage, California.

The top 95 and ties advance to the Qualifying Stage (formerly Stage II) in Venice, Florida, in mid-October.

There will be a cut after 54 holes to the top 125 and ties. Players must advance to the Qualifying Stage to earn 2025 Epson Tour status. The final stage of LPGA qualifying will take place in December.

Hailey Davidson poses with a trophy after winning on the NXXT. (courtesy Hailey Davidson)

On Friday, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan sent out a memo to LPGA and Epson Tour players regarding the tour’s Gender Policy. Golfweek has confirmed that in the memo, Marcoux Samaan stated that the tour planned to conclude a lengthy review of its current policy by year’s end and would implement any updates to the policy before the 2025 season.

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The commissioner stated that the tour’s top priority must be to have a policy that provides for fair competition and considers “first and foremost” competitive advantage.

In 2010, the LPGA voted to eliminate its requirement that players be “female at birth” not long after a transgender woman filed a lawsuit against the tour.

Three years ago, Davidson became the second transgender player to compete in LPGA Q-School, where she did not advance past the first stage. She tried again in 2022, missing the 54-hole cut by a single stroke.

Earlier this year, Davidson came within one spot of qualifying for the 79th U.S. Women’s Open, the biggest championship in women’s golf.

Davidson had primarily competed on NXXT Golf until the Florida-based mini tour announced in March – on International Women’s Day – that competitors must be a biological female at birth to participate.

A three-time winner on the tour, Davidson ranked second on the mini tour’s season standings at the time of the ban. She had played nine times this season on the NXXT.

The NXXT was the second U.S. mini-tour to make such a change. In February, the Arizona-based Cactus Tour announced on National Girls and Women in Sports Day that it had reinstated a female-at-birth requirement.
Davidson earned a scholarship to play on the men’s team at Wilmington, an NCAA Division II school in Delaware, before transferring to the men’s team at Christopher Newport, a D-III school in Virginia.

On Sept. 24, 2015 – a date that’s tattooed on her right forearm – Davidson began undergoing hormone treatments, and in January 2021 underwent gender reassignment surgery, a six-hour procedure that’s required under the LPGA’s current Gender Policy as well as the USGA’s.