Nicole Powers used to compete against women — but Powers came to the realization that it was unfair.
Powers is a transgender woman who has golfed against biological females.
Powers has also competed in many other sports.
“I had to take a step back and realize that biological realities are real and competitive advantages will always exist despite the number of years or whatever surgeries and hormones you’ve done, and then understood that my place is not in women’s sports,” Powers said in a recent interview with OutKick.
Powers said coaches and other competitors have even said, “‘You belong here.’ And even with me saying, ‘No, I don’t,’ they still are continuing to try to force the agenda that, ‘You’re a trans woman; we’re going to keep championing you in women’s sports.’”
“I’m not a woman; I’m a trans woman,” Powers said. “And it’s like this bizarro world where I’m trying to defend my reality against people who are trying to defend something I’m telling them I’m not.”
Powers said during competitions against biological females, Powers wouldn’t give 100% because of the self-deemed unfair advantage.
“I didn’t want to raise any flags. So if I’m standing on the tee box with three other women, I’m not going to just bomb a drive out on the fairway 310, 315 yards, even though I knew I could. Despite my lifelong transition or transition for 10-plus years, I knew that I could do that, but instead, I would maybe club down; lay off a little bit on my game, because I didn’t want to raise those flags,” Powers said.
“In the back of my head this entire couple years, I was playing in professional tournaments, I knew I wouldn’t feel right if I did take awards [from women].”
More than two dozen states have regulations about trans athletes competing against biological females — President Biden’s Title IX rewrite recently gave trans athletes more protections, resulting in major backlash.
!["In the back of my head this entire couple years, I was playing in professional tournaments, I knew I wouldn't feel right if I did take awards [from women]."](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/im-woman-nicole-powers-dial-92212559.jpg?w=819)
“I don’t know what the governing bodies need to do, but they need to listen to woman athletes. Women, adult human females, they need to listen to those athletes, listen to their pain points and understand that there has to be a change. There has to be a clear line in the sand. And it’s not from a position of discrimination at all,” Powers continued. “It’s just from a position of fairness, from the original reason why we (have) women’s sports and men’s sports.”