Natalie Ryan, a transgender woman and Disc Golf pro with 2 career Disc Golf Pro Tour Elite Series wins, has been in the eye of a storm starting since the Professional Disc Golf Association changed regulations that would keep her out of the female division for Elite Series and major-event competition.

In response, she filed a discrimination suit against the PDGA in February.

On Thursday, a federal judge in California threw her a ray of sunshine.

U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley granted a temporary restraining order allowing Ryan to compete in her first Elite Series event in 2023, the OTB Open starting Friday in Stockton Calif., in the Female Professional Open division.

Nunley’s main contentions concerned the policy itself, which states that a transgender woman can compete in the elite tournament if they meet one of three criteria covering hormone replacement, affirming surgery, or puberty blockers prior to age 12.

The court noted pieces of the regulation that could be ruled as discriminatory practice.

“It appears there was an intentional act, the creation of a policy, that excludes individuals based on their protected status as transgender women,” Nunley wrote in the decision. “The Court makes no determinations as to whether this is sufficient to actually establish intentional discrimination, but it raises serious questions.”

The court paid particular attention to the third criterion of the PDGA policy, which states that transgender woman seeking to play would have to start medical transition such as puberty blockers prior to age 12 or before Tanner Stage 2, whichever comes last.

“This section appears to directly target an individual’s sex and gender by creating a temporal line when one must transition,” Nunley continued in his decision. “Those who fail to comport with this timeline are forever barred from the FPO. This policy seems inextricably tied to sex and gender and, at this stage of litigation, the Court can see no way to separate them. Accordingly, the Court finds serious questions going to the merits of the intentional discrimination claim.”