Tennis great Martina Navratilova is the target of LGBTQ scorn after dropping a truth bomb on transgender women. On Sunday, Navratilova wrote a controversial op-ed wherein the 18 time Grand Slam champion called transgender women who compete in women’s sports “cheats.”
“Letting men compete as women simply if they change their name and take hormones is unfair — no matter how those athletes may throw their weight around,” Navratilova wrote. This was too much for some folks. Immediately, Athlete Ally, a non-profit organization that advocates for LGBTQ inclusion and equality in sports, particularly transgender athletes, severed ties with Navratilova and released her from their board.
Navratilova identified as bisexual in the 1980s and later identified as a lesbian. She’s been married to Julia Lemigova since 2014.
The incredible, visceral backlash demonstrates the clash many predicted would happen between the gay and transgender movements. The transgender ideology insists upon dressing, acting, or having hormones and surgery to live as another gender, based on a feeling of dysphoria. The extent to which transgender people are now forcing this on society is an affront to men and women, straight, or gay — insurance companies must now pay for gender reassignment surgeries and workplaces and schools must now allow them to use the bathroom of the assumed gender.
For a woman like Navratilova, it’s insulting that a male who decides to take estrogen, get breast augmentation, then change their name, should believe they are allowed to compete in sports as a female. Navratilova became one of the best tennis players in the world due to intensive training and dedication to the sport, not because she took testosterone or otherwise cheated. This is fair and just.
Likewise, the fact that she called out transgenders in sports and received the backlash she did shows how unstable the LGBTQ movement is becoming. If they truly stood firm on the ground of transitioning and gender-bending sports play, one former professional athlete’s comments should not have unnerved them in the slightest.
If there is a weakness in the armor of the LGBTQ movement, it is the issue of transgender sports, Navratilova exposed that weakness perhaps more than anyone else has.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
