A leading transgender disc golf athlete is suing the Professional Disc Golf Association, alleging that the group is preventing her from participating in a Stockton competition in May and seeking an injunction to prevent the group from doing business in California “as long as it continues to violate the rights of Plaintiff and other transgender women.”

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Sacramento federal court on behalf of disc golf athlete Natalie Ryan, says the new policy violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act against discrimination and has caused her to suffer “shame, humiliation, mental suffering, shock, embarrassment, intimidation” and other injuries.

At issue is a new policy adopted by the disc golf association and co-defendant Disc Golf Pro Tour that the lawsuit says requires any transgender woman “to have undergone gender-affirming treatment before the age of 12 years-old in order to compete in the female professional open divisions of its elite events.”

Ryan, a Virginia woman who has competed as a woman since March 2019 and is currently the 9th-ranked player on the disc golf tour, says in the lawsuit that she was notified in a Feb. 7 email that she was ineligible to compete.

“Plaintiff has felt like a female since birth and in January of 2018 had gender-affirming surgery,” according to the lawsuit, filed by Laguna Beach attorney Brian Sciacca. “Plaintiff is recognized under California law as a woman.”

The new policy was adopted in November…