Recently, the professional women’s golf tour, NXXT, moved to ban transgender golfers from competing against biological women. The rule change came after transgender golfer Hailey Davidson, who had previously competed on a men’s golf team in college before identifying as a woman, won a female tournament earlier this year in Florida.

NXXT CEO Stuart McKinnon defended the league’s decision to bar transgender athletes, explaining that, despite the polarizing and controversial nature of the topic, it was a well-thought-out move in the interest of maintaining a level playing field for its female athletes.

“We didn’t make this decision lightly. We knew it was a polarizing topic and would evoke a lot of emotions from people out there,” McKinnon told Fox News. “We took a lot of time in educating ourselves, spoke to many stakeholders in the golfing community and the sporting community at large from coaches and players and doctors and scientists, and educated ourselves.”

A common argument for those calling to prevent transgender athletes from competing against women is that men naturally have physical advantages granted to them through their biology. McKinnon cited this when discussing the tour’s decision as the driving principle behind the rule change.

“It really came down to one principle, and that was about competitive fairness,” he continued. ‘We felt that the biological male had a physiological advantage against the woman on the tour, and we made the decision to change,” he said.