Pro disc golf roiled as top transgender player fights tougher eligibility rules

The latest front in the battle over transgender athletes is playing out in pro disc golf, where top player Natalie Ryan is fighting revised transgender-eligibility rules that threaten to knock male-born athletes out of elite women’s tournaments.

Ryan, who made history in 2022 as the first biological male to win a women’s Elite Series event, scored a legal victory last week when a Minnesota judge blocked the Professional Disc Golf Association from enforcing its tougher transgender policy, which went into effect Jan. 1.

The temporary injunction allowed Ryan to compete last weekend at the Preserve Championship Female Professional Open in Clearwater, Minnesota, where the player tied for 14th in the field of 50 players.

Ryan, who began playing women’s disc golf after undergoing gender-transition surgery in 2018, said afterward that the legal tug-of-war “affected my play.”

“The Preserve is over and while I’m not satisfied with my play this weekend, I’m beyond happy I was able to play where I deserve to be,”  Ryan said on Instagram. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s safe to say that my fight off the course very much affected my play on it. While that fight isn’t over, this weekend was a wonderful break from it.”

Where there are male-born athletes in women’s elite sports, protests are sure to follow, and the Preserve Championship was no exception.

The Independent Council on Women’s Sports held a “Save Women’s Disc Golf” press conference Friday that featured top players Jennifer Allen, Rebecca Cox, Kat Mertsch and Catrina Allen, the eventual winner of the three-day tournament that wrapped up Sunday.

Catrina Allen said she was “deeply disappointed” by the court’s ruling, and called the effort to allow male-born athletes who identify as women into female sports “selfish, sad and anti-science.”

“To Natalie Ryan: We respect your desire to live as you choose,” said Allen. “We affirm your personhood, but we also recognize that you have inherent performance advantages conferred through experiencing male puberty that give you an enormous advantage in competing in the female-protected division.”

She added that Ryan’s “refusal to recognize basic biological facts is not commendable, it is rather discriminatory towards those of us who do not have your biological advantages.”

The Professional Disc Golf Association and the Disc Golf Pro Tour’s newly enacted rules lowered the testosterone in serum limit for transgender eligibility from 10 nmol/Liter for one year to 2 nmol/L for two years. The threshold applies to the A-tier level of competition and below.

Transgender athletes are only eligible to compete in the women’s Elite Series “if they began medical transition during Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later,” referring to the second stage of puberty. They must also continuously maintain the 2 nmol/L testosterone level.

Ryan had a breakthrough year in 2022, winning two Elite Series events, earning $19,360 in prize money, and finishing the year ranked ninth in the Female Professional Open division. Under the new rules, however, Ryan is only eligible to compete in non-elite tournaments absent court intervention.

Since the policy kicked in Jan. 1, Ryan has played in A-tier events like the Throw Down the Mountain championship in Brooksville, Florida, which Ryan won, while suing the PDGA to gain entrée into Elite Series events.

In May, Ryan was allowed to compete on the first day of the elite-level OTB Open in Stockton, California, after a judge ruled in the athlete’s favor. A day later, however, Ryan was forced to withdraw when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overrode the lower court.

Last week, Minnesota District Court Judge Kari Willis ruled in Ryan’s favor, citing a state court decision in March in favor of transgender powerlifter JayCee Cooper, who accused USA Powerlifting of violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act’s ban on gender-identity discrimination.

“Based on this Court’s reasoning, along with the detailed analysis and holdings in the Cooper case which this Court finds compelling and persuasive, this Court finds that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits in this case,” said Judge Willis in the Thursday order.

🥏Trans-identifying male pro disc golfer files 2nd lawsuit in MN after failed attempt in CA to force his way back into “Female Professional Open” tournament. MN judge grants him his request to defy league eligibility rules & compete against women.https://t.co/tJY3i4MEHQ

— ICONS (@icons_women) June 29, 2023

Ryan was elated by the judge’s decision, telling Ultiworld Disc Golf that “I am incredibly thankful for the court seeing me as the woman that I am and that I deserve to play in FPO.

The tour disagreed with the ruling.

“The DGPT disagrees with the decision but will comply with the order, and the event will continue as planned,” the tour said in a Thursday statement. “The DGPT remains committed to creating a safe and harassment-free environment both onsite and online for all competitors.”

The association a survey in December showing that 67% of its members and 80% of its female members disagreed with the statement: “Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf and in other sports.”

Disc golf is played on golf courses using plastic discs instead of balls. Players attempt to throw discs into baskets or targets situated on the course.

The first transgender athlete to join the women’s tour was Kelly Jenkins in 2014, and the number is growing. As many as eight male-born competitors, including Ryan, competed in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Disc Golf Championship in Madison, Wisconsin, out of a field of about 320 players.

Ryan vowed to keep fighting after last weekend’s tournament and urged supporters of transgender athletes to “speak up against the hate and show up to fight it with me!”

“This will not be the last time you all see me on the tour, I can promise you that,” Ryan said on Instagram.

At Friday’s press conference, Allen addressed but didn’t dispel rumors that there may be a boycott looming in the women’s division.

“Some have asked whether there will be a boycott of the 2023 championship,” said Allen, “and we just want to say that we are really standing here for fair competition.”