Tennis great Martina Navratilova took a swipe at transgender activist Lia Thomas for claiming that women are using feminism as a means to promulgate “transphobia.”
Thomas, who was a failed college swimmer when he competed as a male, but suddenly shot up to championship status when he announced he was a female swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, appeared on transgender activist Bailar Schuyler’s “Dear Schuyler” podcast this week and accused women of hiding behind feminism while attacking transgenderism.
“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,” Thomas said on the podcast.
But Navratilova, an openly gay, nine-time Wimbledon champ, wasn’t amused at all and took to Twitter to blast the trans swimmer.
“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.
Navratilova has been a fierce opponent of allowing men claiming to be women to compete in women’s sports.
Last month Navratilova praised the new policy posted by World Athletics banning transgender athletes from women’s categories, calling the new policy a “step in the right direction.”
On the tail of the sports organization’s decision, Navratilova, 66, spoke up to support the rule saying she hopes that the sports world is “finally waking up” to the threat trans athletes pose to women’s sports.
Navratilova, who has won 59 Grand Slam titles over her long career, noted that champions “rise above the rest when everything else is equal.”
The tennis legend suggested a way to make sports fair for all, saying, “I think the best idea would be to have ‘biological female’ and ‘biological girls’ categories and then an ‘open’ category.”
“It would be a category for all-comers: men who identify as men; women who identify as women; women who identify as men; men who identify as women; non-binary — it would be a catch-all,” she said.
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