Tennis legend Martina Navratilova recently pushed back on comments made by former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas over the transgender athlete debate.
Thomas spoke on fellow transgender swimmer Schuyler Bailar’s podcast Dear Schuyler on Monday, saying that she thinks sometimes transgender athletes receive “half-support” from people who identify as feminists.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, we respect Lia, as a woman, as a trans woman or whatever, we respect her identity, we just don’t think it’s fair.’ You can’t really have that sort of half-support where you’re like, ‘Oh, I respect her as a woman here, but not here.’
“They’re using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don’t want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half-support.”
That caught the attention of Navratilova, who responded on Twitter with a harsh assessment of Thomas’s comments.
“NEWSFLASH Lia- it’s not fair. We shouldn’t have to explain it to you over and over. Also- stop explaining feminism to feminists….” Navratilova wrote.
When one Twitter user responded by saying “I’m a feminist and I don’t like how it’s being weaponized against the Trans community either. I agree issues around professional sports are complicated but I’m with Lia on that point,” the tennis legend responded by saying “So you’re ok with biological males competing against biological females? I am not.”
The debate over transgender athletes is likely to be a hot-button issue in the months and years ahead and society confronts and adjusts to a new level of acceptance.
[NY Post]
