( CNN ) -- Lana Lawless hits golf balls . She hits them hard and far , with astonishing accuracy . She won the Women 's Long Drivers of America competition in 2008 when she hit a ball more than 250 yards . Lana is so good , in fact , that the LDA changed the rules this year to prevent her from competing . The LPGA has a rule to specifically exclude her , as well . In August 2009 , 18-year-old runner Caster Semenya from South Africa won the gold medal in the 800-meter event of the World Track and Field Championships , beating her nearest rival by an astonishing two seconds . Afterward , she faced weeks of humiliating psychological , gynecological and physical testing to prove that she was female ordered by International Association of Athletics Federations . She eventually was allowed to keep her medal . In 1936 , Jesse Owens won four track gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin . He faced German taunts that his African heritage somehow provided an innate athletic advantage and that blacks should be banned from competing in future games . And when baseball player Jackie Robinson shattered the racial barrier in professional sports , an act that we now celebrate for its courage , some players refused to share a locker room with him . Prejudice , discrimination and unfounded charges of advantage or somehow cheating are nothing new to sports . It raised its ugly head again in Lana 's case . Lana is transsexual . She had sex-reassignment surgery in 2005 . In every way that our society legally , socially or physically defines gender , she is female . She sued the LPGA and others , claiming a requirement in their bylaws requiring that participants be `` female-born '' is discriminatory . Make no mistake -- it is . We 've been down this path before . In 1976 , transsexual tennis player Renee Richards was banned from competing in the U.S. Open because of a similar `` women-born-women '' rule . The New York Supreme Court struck down the rule , and Richards competed professionally from 1977 to 1981 . Despite concerns of that allowing her to compete against women gave her an inherent advantage , her highest overall ranking was 20th in 1979 . Thirty-five years later , you 'd think that we would be past this , but here we are . Different sport , same unfounded fears , same dehumanizing situation . And , same discrimination . I , too , am a transsexual athlete . Although the last time I competed on a mat was more than 30 years ago , I trained to compete against some of the elite women athletes in this country at the U.S. Open Freestyle Wrestling Championships in April . I finished sixth in my weight class . Some charge that we compete because of some inherent competitive advantage . Such charges are as ignorant as they are absurd . We compete for the same reasons that others do : Because we love our sport , because we are athletes and because we want to continue doing something we enjoy . Competition is a fundamental right that we refuse to relinquish simply because our path to manhood or womanhood was nontraditional . Click to read more opinions . The rest of the world is far ahead of the United States in this regard . In 2003 , the International Olympic Committee became the first international sports organization to develop a policy of inclusion for transgender athletes . Recognition that a person 's gender is more complicated than any single factor , combined with the inability to identify medically sound testing criteria , led to discontinuation of mandatory sex testing on female athletes 1999 . ( Tests may be done on a case-by-case basis , however . ) According to IOC guidelines , transsexual athletes must have undergone hormone replacement therapy for at least two years , be legally recognized as the sex in which they want to compete and have had `` sex reassignment '' surgery in order to compete in their authentic gender . Many international sports organizations , including the governing body for wrestling , have adopted or defer to the IOC policies . As transgender people continue to integrate into all aspects of broader society , the practices that have historically been accepted as `` just the way it is '' will be identified as discrimination . So , too , will the daily indignities that so many of us face regarding bathrooms , jobs , housing , harassment and having to prove our manhood or womanhood be identified as unacceptable , illegal and inherently unfair . Lana 's experience with the LPGA demonstrates that the combination of transgender people and athletics continues to be a volatile mixture that can easily devolve into an irrational , emotional argument rather than one based on fact or measurement . Regardless , it 's only a matter of time before a transsexual athlete becomes the first to represent his or her country at the Olympics . That day will be one to celebrate as another part of a long tradition of overcoming barriers to competition . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Rose .
Golfer Lana Turner banned from Women 's Long Drivers , LPGA by anti - transsexual rule . Donna Rose : Discrimination against women similar to past treatment of black athletes . Transsexual tennis player Renee Richards won this title back in 1970s , Rose writes . Olympics exclude transsexuals under rules , she says , that U.S. LGBT groups cannot adopt .