Tennis icon Martina Navratilova has been a strong advocate of fairness in women’s sports, and on Tuesday she once again spoke out against transgender athletes competing in women’s slots.
Navratilova responded to a post about transgender women playing in the Australian Football League. The club in question, Flying Bats FC, won the Beryl Ackroyd Cup. The team also received a check for A$1,000 for the win.
“I’ve been angry for years. The injustice is outrageous. Once again, please keep women’s sports women’s sports. It has no place for (failed) male athletes,” Navratilova told X. wrote.
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Flying Bats Football Club forms a guard of honor during the A-League Women’s Round 19 match between Sydney FC and Western United at Leichhardt Oval in Sydney on March 9, 2024. (Jason McCauley/Getty Images)
Flying Bats describes itself as “Sydney’s premier LGBTQIA+ football club for women and non-binary people”. But the backlash was palpable on social media.
“Are you mad yet? Sky Australia contributor Katherine Devs Morgan wrote in X. “There were five guys on the winning women’s soccer team. The girls will be fined for forfeiting. “What a joke!”
Navratilova has long supported keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports.
Last March, she praised World Athletics for developing an open category for transgender athletes. She wrote in her op-ed that this was “a step in the right direction.”
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Martina Navratilova attends a joint press conference with Chris Evert of the United States on the fifth day of the Hologic WTA Tour’s GNP Seguros WTA Finals Cancun 2023 on November 2, 2023 in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Following World Athletics’ announcement, I think the best idea is to have categories for ‘biological women’ and ‘biological girls,’ followed by an ‘open’ category,” she wrote. “This is going to be an all-comers category: men who identify as men, women who identify as women, women who identify as men, men who identify as women, non-binary. This is going to be inclusive. This is already being studied in the UK for athletics and swimming.
“Biological women are most likely to compete in the biological female category because that is the best way for them to win and upholds the principle of fairness. The ‘open’ category includes , no question mark, no proviso, no asterisk, no room for doubt. It’s an easy solution.
“Once a male has reached puberty, there’s no way to erase that physical advantage. You can’t simply turn back the clock, for example by trying to lower testosterone levels.”
Martina, a Czech-American former professional tennis player, competes on day 8 of the GNP Seguros WTA Finals Cancun 2023, part of the Hologic WTA Tour, on November 5, 2023 in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico.・Navratilova. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Navratilova said she hoped the decision would be followed in other sports.
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