Tennis icon Martina Navratilova is challenging a fellow legend of the court on her stance regarding transgender athletes.
The two have clashed over the issue for years, with Navratilova opposing the inclusion of trans athletes in women’s sports.
King, meanwhile, has long been a vocal advocate for trans athletes competing in sports and once called a broad ban against trans competitors a ‘nightmare.’ In 2020 she put a finer point on her position: ‘I’m proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love.’
Now Navratilova is accusing King of hypocrisy over her past comments on the issue.
In an interview with right-wing sports outlet OutKick, Navratilova said King’s position ‘doesn’t square’ with the physiological differences between the two sexes.
‘I think she thinks that they play fair and square, meaning males identify as women, take all the hormones and do everything, like Renée Richards did 50 years ago,’ Navratilova said. ‘And that it’s just nice to include everybody.’
Martina Navratilova is challenging Billie Jean King’s position on the trans athlete debate
King has long supported the inclusion of trans athletes in sports, but has also previously admitted to the existence of physiological differences between biological men and women
Navratilova says King expressed a desire to discuss the issue with her, but it hasn’t happened
However, Navratilova believes that inclusion can only go so far. She offered up a hypothetical scenario where a high school boys basketball team accepted ten boys from a tryout and rejected five other boys. If those five rejected boys then tried out for – and made – the girls team, then five other girls would lose their spots.
‘That’s not equality,’ Navratilova said. ‘That’s a total takeover.’
‘The solution is obvious,’ she told the outlet. ‘No male bodies in women’s sports and no male bodies in women’s sex-based spaces for many different reasons, not the least of which is women’s rights to safety, dignity and fairness and privacy.’
Navratilova added that private conversations she’s held with King have led to frustration.
‘Billie Jean has repeatedly told me over the last four or five years that she would love to talk to me about it, that she defers to me because I know a lot more about it than she does,’ Navratilova said.
However, those conversations never materialized – leading Navratilova to believe King has never ‘heard the other side of the debate.’
‘Without talking to me really and listening to what my points were, she just went her way and put out the statement by her and the Women’s Sports Foundation about inclusion and all this stuff,’ Navratilova said.
She added, ‘Please get Billie Jean on record. I’d like to know how she explains it because she hasn’t been able to explain it to me.’
