In a column for The Sunday Times of London entitled, “The rules on trans athletes reward cheats and punish the innocent,” nine time Wimbledon tennis champion Martina Navratilova doubled down on comments she made in December when she got into a “Twitter” war with trans athlete Rachel McKinnon.
Navratilova, who came out as a lesbian in 1981, has long been a champion of gay rights but has taken a lot of heat for what have been perceived as transphobic comments after doubling down on her comments about McKinnon.
Saying that she has done her research, Navratilova said in the column: “Simply reducing hormone levels — the prescription most sports have adopted — does not solve the problem. A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood. Training increases the discrepancy. Indeed, if a male were to change gender in such a way as to eliminate any accumulated advantage, he would have to begin hormone treatment before puberty. For me, that is unthinkable.”
A long time champion of women’s rights, she has been referred to as being a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist or TERF for the comments. “There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard,” Navratilova said
