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A golfer who made history when she became the first transgender player in a professional golf tournament at the Women’s Australian Open is now against transgender women competing against females.
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Mianne Bagger, a Danish golfer who is now 55, knows that would have meant she wouldn’t have gotten her chance back in 2004, but she’s fine with it.
Bagger told Australia’s “Insight” that she now supports a bill seeking to ban transgender athletes from female events in that country, but she knows it’ll leave her regarded as a “hypocrite,”news.com.au reported.
Bagger said that current laws allow “male-bodied people presenting as women, who live as women, with varying degrees of medical intervention and in some degrees, no medical intervention.”
“It’s crossed the line, in my view, it really has,” she said, according to the report. “It’s a slap in the face to women.”
Bagger said it was “utter rubbish” that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) now says gender reassignment surgery is no longer required for a trans female athlete to compete.
The decision to allow trans athletes to be eligible after a year without hormones — down from the previous two — “almost denies the impact of testosterone on physical performance,” Bagger said on the broadcast.
“Anyone with any basic understanding on biology and the difference between men and women knows it’s ridiculous. It’s male puberty that really grants boys and men that physical performance in sport,” she said.
“And I think it’s irrefutable — it’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise.”
