Martina Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam tournaments —including nine Wimbledon championships — during her spectacular career in women’s tennis. This next part would not normally be germane to the story, but in this case, it’s paramount: Navratilova lived and played as an openly gay, outspoken superstar.
Navratilova penned an op-ed in The Times (of the UK) on Sunday about the recent decision by World Athletics to ban transgender women from elite female competitions if they have undergone male puberty, which the governing body said had been taken to “protect the future of the female category.”
Speaking after the ruling, which goes into effect on March, 31, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe agreed that the decision would be contentious but said his sport had been guided by the “overarching principle” of fairness, as well as the science around physical performance and male advantage.
Navratilova called the decision a “step in the right direction.”
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.
Bingo. And, final. I mean, the left loves science. What’s that? Oh, yeah — I forgot: only when science doesn’t fly in the face of any of the left’s narratives. (See: Anthony Fauci, AKA: “I Am Science.”
Navratilova, unlike most of those on both sides of the contentious issue, offered a simple solution to the problem of so-called “biological males” (pretend-females are males) kicking the hell out of females in women’s sports: she called for a separate category for transgender athletes.
In the wake of World Athletics’ announcement, 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.
This is already being explored in athletics and swimming in Britain.
Biological females are most likely to compete in the biological female category, as that’s their best shot at winning and it maintains the principle of fairness. With an ‘open’ category there are no question marks, no provisos, no asterisks, no doubts. It’s a simple solution.
As is the case with much in life, simple is not synonymous with easy.
If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, you already know the left would break into histrionic fits about the fair-to-all-sides solution proposed by Navratilova, squealing at the top of their “woke” lungs about how such a policy would imply that transgender “women” aren’t equal to biological women.
Guess what, sports fans? They’re not only not equal, but to paraphrase a famous line from George Orwell’s classic, “1984,” biological males are more equal than biological females in athletic competition.
I should note that I’ve always admired Martina Navratilova for her courage and willingness to speak out for — or against — issues that have concerned her. As my colleague Sister Toldjah wrote in March 2019, Navratilova was in the process of learning that apologizing to transgender activists would never be enough. The former Wimbledon champion wrote at the time, on her personal website, about comments she’d made in reference to the unfairness of men competing as women in women’s sports. Excerpts:
What I really wanted to do was try to open up the debate about equality and fairness in relation to transgender participation in women’s sport. There were too many voices that were silenced and shamed into submission and that is not right.
My aim was to encourage a more scientific, rather than emotional, conversation and to search for a solution that would work better than current arrangements.
I was motivated by concern about the future of women’s sport and my worry that by trying to be fair and inclusive for one group, others can be adversely affected, that eliminating one kind of discrimination can inadvertently give rise to another.
[…]
I know that my use of the word ‘cheat’ caused particular offence among the transgender community. I’m sorry for that because I certainly was not suggesting that transgender athletes in general are cheats. I attached the label to a notional case in which someone cynically changes gender, perhaps temporarily, to gain a competitive advantage.
I find it inexplicable that rational people capable of objective analysis of science, physiology, biology, and damn common sense, can come to a conclusion different than the one above. Then again, I find most of the left’s radical nonsense beyond inexplicable.
Coincidentally, I reported on Monday about a National Public Radio (NPR “correction” to its recent claim that there’s “limited scientific evidence” that men have athletic advantages over women. The “correction” was just as ridiculous — if not more so —than the initial absurd claim.
“Science.” Right, Lia Thomas?
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