(CNN) -- Lana Lawless and Mianne Bagger are both professional golfers. Both are legally female, but they started their lives as men.
And both, from their own very different standpoint, have battled what they see as discrimination and prejudice in their chosen field.
Lawless is a 57-year-old former SWAT team Californian policeman, who had sexual re-assignment surgery in 2005.
Meanwhile, the 44-year-old Bagger -- a Dane who grew up in Australia -- eventually joined the golfing paid ranks after, in her words, "becoming a transitioned woman" in 1995.
Transsexual athletes treated unfairly
Both fell foul of the American Ladies' Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour's "female at birth" rule which would have prevented them playing on the most lucrative circuit in women's golf.
And both have played a part -- Bagger by raising awareness, Lawless by reason of a lawsuit -- in the landmark decision on November 30, 2010 of the LPGA to dispense with that ruling.
As long ago as 2003, Bagger tackled then-LPGA Tour commissioner Ty Votaw about its rules and has campaigned tirelessly on this and other diversity issues.
Lawless, a one-handicap golfer as a man, took a more direct route.
Having won the women's world long-driving contest in 2008, she was banned from competing in the 2010 edition, with the organizers quoting the LPGA's ubiquitous "female at birth" requirement.
The no-nonsense American engaged one of the top lawyers on the west coast, Chris Dolan, to take up her case and sued the contest organizers and the LPGA, claiming discrimination and loss of earnings.
"I have traveled a long road to get to where I am now, a place where I always belonged as a strong, proud, capable woman," Lawless was quoted on her lawyers' official website when she filed the suit.
"The State of California recognizes me as such and the LPGA should not be permitted to come into California and blatantly violate my rights. I just want to have the same opportunity to play professional golf as any other woman."
With the International Olympic Committee and the Ladies' European Golf Tour, on which Bagger plays, having changed their rules in 2004, the LPGA's ability to defend Lawless' action would have been difficult.
A unanimous vote by players at their end-of-season gathering in Florida marked the end of the "female at birth" requirement.
But, although Bagger welcomed the outcome, she was not in favor of the instrument of change, and does not want to be associated with Lawless or her lawsuit.
"There are many of us around the world that are very upset at the way this has been so sensationalized by way of a legal challenge by one person with a mostly self-serving agenda," she told CNN.
"There is absolutely no education going on here and only an issue of personal gain. It almost comes across as the only way people know how to do things in the U.S.?
"There needs to be a major shift in the way this issue is covered.
"The media just loves this 'transgender' word, but it has nothing to do with it. It is an issue of education with regard to natural human diversity and changing notions of social conditioning.
"It is so sad and so frustrating to continually see comments by people in the media that are so far removed from actual scientific fact and what is really important where this matter is concerned," she added.
Bagger also believes the media are quick to pigeon-hole people and is at odds with the likes of Lawless and Renee Richards, who made headlines in the 1970s when playing professional women's tennis after being born as a man.
"Calling us 'the same' is like calling all women who are survivors of breast cancer the same, merely because of their life experience," she said.
Dolan, whose law firm in San Francisco has successfully fought a number of discrimination and diversity suits, believes his client has won an important battle and, unsurprisingly, does not subscribe to Bagger's viewpoint.
He told CNN: "It is easy for Mianne Bagger to have those views because she was well-established on her European tour. The view from the top always looks rosier.
"The 'female at birth' ruling had been set in stone and despite Miss Bagger's good intentions over the years, nothing had been changed and there was no indication that things would have been changed," added Dolan.
"Asking politely and being rejected wasn't working. Maybe taking legal action is seen as the 'American' way but we were not prepared to sit back and hope the LPGA eventually saw the light of day.
"This was a major victory, not only for transgender golfers, but for everyone who supports full civil rights for all individuals."
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