Lawless is a transgender woman and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2005 before playing golf professionally.
[1] Before transitioning to female and changing her name to Lana Lawless, she was a gang unit cop for the City of Rialto in Southern California.
[4] In 2010, Lawless filed a lawsuit against the LPGA for her right to compete as a woman in the world championship.
Lawless argued that this requirement violated California's civil rights law and that transsexual competitors should be allowed to compete as the gender that they identify with.
[3] Ultimately, Lawless won the lawsuit, and as a result the LPGA reviewed its requirement of having to be born female in order to compete and removed it.