"Male bodies don’t belong in women's sports": Martina Navratilova hits back after criticism over view on Joe Biden's administration scrapping Title IX

Martina Navratilova has once again put the transgender athlete issue on the menu by responding to a post on X regarding that topic. The American former tennis player has been very active on this topic, publicly advocating against the inclusion of trans women in women's sports. She's hardly the only one, as the topic remains a really polarizing one due to many factors.

Navratilova has been very open about her stance on the issue, believing that a trans woman simply has competitive advantage over a person who was born a woman.

The most recent news she reacted to was from a US Senate hearing about the topic of transgender athletes, where a Senator said that there were fewer than ten transgender athletes in US college sports. She responded on X, writing:

"So says a man. Who doesn’t realize how exponential it is to have 1 male athlete on a team. How many would be too many for you? 100? 1000? More?"

Another person then responded to Navratilova that many people act like there are many transgender athletes, but there aren't. However, that didn't really change the opinion of the tennis legend, who said that trans women do not belong in women's sports, falling in line with her previous comments that being born in a male body is simply a huge competitive advantage.

"Doesn’t matter. Male bodies do not belong in women’s sports. Whether it’s 1 or 1000 or 100.000. And shouldn’t need to be explained," Martina Navratilova wrote on X.

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Martina Navratilova's previous comments on the issue

Martina Navratilova's stance on trans athletes has by some been described as transphobic. It alienated a good amount of her fans from the LGBT+ community because they saw her as an icon who fought for the rights of that community for decades, especially during a time when it wasn't particularly popular.

Her stance, however, has mostly been related to sports as she has said multiple times that she supports trans individuals and their rights, but not the inclusion of trans women in women's sport. As a former athlete, fairness in competition and sports is a very important topic for her.

"A man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires," Martina Navratilova in the Sunday Times in 2019.

The above comment is what initially created the backlash as several LGBT+ organizations severed ties with Navratilova due to the comments. She didn't, however, back down and continued to raise the issue.