Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova Calls Out Megan Rapinoe Over Her Trans Athletes Comments: 'Really Megan?'
Politics and ideology often make for strange bedfellows — and no topic makes that clearer than transgenderism.
Take, for example, the concept of a “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).
There’s not much conservative about a radical feminist. In fact, radical feminism is about as antithetical to conservatism as transgenderism is, and yet, when it comes to boys and girls suddenly deciding that they’re not a boy or a girl, conservatives and TERFs are actually in wholehearted agreement.
Perhaps the most famous TERF going right now is Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, but don’t discount tennis legend Martina Navratilova.
She’s another woman who is sick and tired of men spontaneously deciding that the women’s bathroom is right for them or that women’s sports are fair game for athletes who are naturally bigger, faster and stronger than women.
One female athlete who doesn’t seem to care as much about men running rampant in women’s sports is soon-to-be-retired soccer star Megan Rapinoe — and Navratilova took her to task over it.
On Monday, Time magazine published a puff-piece interview with Rapinoe in which the U.S. Women’s National Team player tore into the people trying to preserve the integrity of women’s sports.
“We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,” Rapinoe said.
“It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized,” she continued. “Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports? That’s total bulls***.
“And show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening.” (Well, it is happening, actually.)
“I don’t want to mince words about it,” Rapinoe said. “Dave Chappelle making jokes about trans people directly leads to violence, whether it’s verbal or otherwise, against trans people.
“When Martina [Navratilova] or [ESPN host Sage Steele] or whoever are talking about this, people aren’t hearing it just in the context of elite sports. They’re saying, ‘The rest of my life, this is how I’m going to treat trans people.’”
After Rapinoe directly called out Navratilova, the tennis icon returned fire, at first merely expressing shock at Rapinoe’s comments, which were reported on by CNN.
“Yikes…” Navratilova tweeted.
Yikes… https://t.co/lfKs34dSN5
— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) July 10, 2023
It didn’t take long for her to go after Rapinoe by name, however.
“Hmmm,” she wrote the next day. “Really Megan?”
Hmmm . Really Megan? https://t.co/DxzQGvkPd8
— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) July 11, 2023
Perhaps the worst part of the Rapinoe interview was when she said she would have “absolutely” no problem with a transgender “woman” taking the place of a real woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team.
“‘You’re taking a ‘real’ woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic,” she said. “I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument — you’re sort of telling on yourself already — is you don’t believe these people are women. … I don’t feel that way.”
Gee, what an awfully convenient bit of virtue-signaling right as Rapinoe’s forthcoming retirement ensures this hypothetical trans athlete can’t take her spot on the USWNT.
“Interesting how these women at the end of their career or have retired kick the ladder from under younger female athletes to appear progressive. They are a disgrace,” one Twitter user said.
“I really don’t get it,” Navratilova responded.
I really don’t get it.
— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) July 11, 2023
There’s not much to get. Rapinoe is accumulating as much clout as she can before she fades into relative obscurity; it’s just a shame that she can use the “pro-LGBT” label as a guise for it. (Her “wife,” WNBA star Sue Bird, also recently retired, leaving the LGBT power couple to face the frightening prospect of life outside the spotlight.)
Who cares if future generations of female athletes are sidelined while men take the winners’ podium if you’re on your way out anyway?
Rapinoe has milked every last bit of personal gain that she can out of women’s sports, so who cares if it gets razed to the ground now?
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