Tennis great Martina Navratilova roasted a left-wing tennis writer from the New York Times for accusing her of “cyberbullying” and “transphobia” for opposing men taking over women’s sports.
Little-known Times tennis writer Ben Rothenberg took to his X account on Friday to attack Navratilova for “turning this anti-trans crusade into her life’s obsession,” Fox News wrote.
In his post, he put Navratilova on blast, writing, “Martina Navratilova turning this anti-trans crusade into her life’s obsession in recent years remains dispiriting! And she turns it into way more transphobic vitriol than just discussing sports fairness, as I’ve covered before, just being nasty and cruel and dehumanizing. Boo.”
Navratilova saw the attack and replied in kind, saying, “Yet another man telling women what they should care about. And who are you exactly? Oh yeah, the reporter who tells tennis players its off the record and then prints what they said anyway. Good to know you care about women’s sports and women’s sex based spaces. I care.”
Rothenberg, though, wasn’t done advocating for men to take over women’s sports and accused Navratilova of “cyber bullying.”
“I’ve never done that,” Rothenberg insisted. “But I care also about someone who was a beacon of freedom and inclusion in the sport I’ve covered, sadly choosing to erode the platform she built with cyberbullying campaigns aimed at obscure, low-level amateur athletes. I wish you were better than that.”
Navratilova didn’t sit quietly and allow herself to be accused of being a bully.
“Cyber bullying- wow. I am blocking you once and for all. For your information, I am doing a whole lot more than just tweeting. You can just go away now. Hope I see your nasty self at Wimbledon- if you are there,” she wrote to the obscure tennis writer.
Navratilova, who fought hard for the rights of gays to play in professional sports, has been a staunch opponent of men competing as women. She has never said that transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete in sports. She just doesn’t want male bodies with their competitive physical advantages to compete with women.
Indeed, early this year, she wrote, “Once somebody has gone through male puberty, there is no way to erase that physical advantage. You cannot simply turn back the clock, for instance, by trying to lower testosterone levels.”
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