Transexual Golfer Uses Regulation Balls

“Transexual golfer to make history
By Brendan Moloney
February 15, 2004



Breaking new ground: Mianne Bagger will make history when she tees off in the Australian Women's Open at Concord next month.

Golfer Mianne Bagger will make history in Sydney next month by becoming the first player born a male to tee up in a national women's championship.

Bagger, 37, who underwent complete sex change surgery and treatment in 1995, will play in the Australian Women's Open at Concord Golf Club against a field that includes Karrie Webb, Laura Davies and Rachel Teske.

Her step up from obscurity to the big league is doubly daunting because of the controversy over women playing in men's events. This has produced open hostility from some men, with World No. 2 Vijay Singh saying he would refuse to play with World No. 1 Annika Sorenstam on the US Tour last year and Greg Norman adding that Davies should not have played in this week's ANZ Championship at Port Stephens.

It is a huge step up in class for Bagger. After starting to play at the age of eight and achieving a man's handicap of four, she won the South Australian women's amateur championship in 1999, when the national amateur body changed the rules to allow her to compete, and went on to win again in 2001 and 2002.

"It is very nerve-wracking," she said before a practice session on Friday at Melbourne's Southern Golf Club, where Bob Shearer is the most famous member. Shearer came out to meet her.

"It is my first professional event and as far as I know, I am the first transexual golfer anywhere in the world to complete with the professionals," she said.

She hopes the opposition will be open-minded and remember the game's basic tenet of fairness.

Bagger said: "I would like them to see my game, meet me, have a chat and form some opinions after that rather than judge me on some preconceived ideas or what they think they know."

"There is a lot of misunderstanding about transexual women in society.

"I can't blame people for that. Why would people know anything about it? There is not much else I can expect, really. But if they want to talk about it, I am pretty open about my situation, explaining what goes on and what changes happen to the body. I would like people to have all the facts before they judge me."

Bagger, who was born in Denmark, raised in Copenhagen, London and Adelaide as a boy and now lives in Melbourne, says she does not have an unfair advantage because she was once a male. The reverse is the case, she says, because her hormone treatment has left her with less testosterone than anyone else in the Women's Open field.

Bagger suffers from the same frustrations as all older golfers when she sees willowy teenagers knocking their drives 20 or 30 metres past her best effort.

"I have no concerns about fairness whatever," she said. "I would not feel comfortable competing if I felt I had an advantage. From what I have experienced and from the medical research I have read, there is no advantage at all. All I want to do is carry myself with dignity."

Bagger's inclusion came about as a result of Women's Golf Australia becoming aware of women in Bagger's situation in the late 1990s who were threatening to do well in a range of sports. It commissioned former Victorian Equal Opportunity commissioner Moira Raynor and lawyer Lisa Comben, who had done her masters thesis on a study of transexual women in sport, to formulate a policy and paved the way for Bagger to play in and win the 1999 South Australian Amateur.

The British Women's Open, which has has been won by Davies, Sorenstam and Australians Corinne Dibnah, Karen Lunn and Webb, has changed its rules to allow women who have had full sex-change surgery to compete.

The International Olympic Committee followed this decision last November and although the details, especially the drug aspects, won't be worked out in time for Athens, they will allow all athletes to represent their country.

This is what keeps Bagger going. "Hopefully people will see that I am not a freak and, like the other women in the field, that I love playing golf," Bagger said.

"I have been playing since I was eight years old and just want to keep playing."

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/14/1076548274856.html”

“I wonder what she do with wang?

I could use.

I very sad, good wang go to waste.”

“i can't believe ya'll didn't jump on this one. must be old news....”

“So she's no longer a 'Log Cabin' Type Golfer now that she's had the surgery?

This is going to weird-out the golfer-#&%!$ers at the National in a major way.... And anything that does that is probably a good thing, LOL”

“LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Transsexuals were cleared Monday to compete in the Olympics for the first time.

Under a proposal approved by the IOC executive board, athletes who have undergone sex-change surgery will be eligible for the Olympics if their new gender has been legally recognized and they have gone through a minimum two-year period of postoperative hormone therapy.


The decision, which covers both male-to-female and female-to-male cases, goes into effect starting with the Athens Olympics in August.

The IOC had put off a decision in February, saying more time was needed to consider all the medical issues.

Some members had been concerned whether male-to-female transsexuals would have physical advantages competing against women.”