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Mianne Bagger    

First Openly Transitioned Woman to Play in a Professional Golf Tournament

Mianne Bagger is a professional golfer from Denmark. Bagger moved with her family to Australia in 1979, when she was twelve and started to again play golf fully in 1998, first as an amateur player, then turning professional in 2003. In 2004, by playing in the Women's Australian Open, she became the first openly transitioned woman to play in a professional golf tournament. She also became the first trans woman to qualify for the Ladies European Tour in 2004, also becoming the first high-profile transitioned woman to qualify for a professional sports tour since Renee Richards joined the Women's Tennis Association tour during the 1970s.

She has been instrumental in gaining eligibility for transitioned women to compete on professional golf tours. Through her efforts, many professional golf organizations have amended their practices, but the policies generally still constrict rules of gender variance, and view atypically gendered women as something other than women. Bagger has sought to remove gender policies, specifically female-at-birth, as more problematic than helpful, and encourage sports organizations to see "a fuller understanding and acceptance of gender variance and human diversity."

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