"Trying to suggest I am male"- Martina Navratilova hits out at "pathetic" attempt by "leftist" after controversial Imane Khelif take at Paris Olympics
Martina Navratilova faced a lot of backlash for her comments regarding the controversy surrounding the participation of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif at the Paris Olympics. Navratilova has now defended herself against the 'pathetic' attempts to 'misgender' her.
Khelif is a boxer competing in the women's 66kg category at the ongoing Olympics. The Algerian was at the center of a huge controversy as her allegedly failed gender test came to light. According to the rules of the IOC, Khelif is eligible to participate in the Games, which caused outrage in the sporting community.
Navratilova is a supporter of the exclusion of transgender people from women's sports. The tennis legend has taken a stance against Khelif's participation amid the controversy regarding the latter's gender test.
Navratilova took to X (formerly Twitter) to share a post about South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya talking about the Differences in Sexual Development (DSD) that she was born with. The post suggested that Semenya 'cheated women out of medals' and the American reposted it, writing:
"Sounds familiar?"
Navratilova's comments were seemingly linked to Khelif's participation in the Paris Olympics. The American was subsequently met with allegations from an X account that called her:
"The most masculine of all the tennis players, even of the known men"
Navratilova responded:
"Yet another left-winger trying to misgender me. You guys are pathetic."
The X account also posted an image of Navratilova from her playing days prominently showing her muscles and wrote:
"You attempted to misgender Imane Khelif."
Martina Navratilova defended herself against that by writing:
"Are you jealous? I worked my ass off- always a female. Imane not so much…"
Furthermore, the 18-time singles Major winner reposted the image and wrote:
"Here is another leftist trying to suggest I am a male. Nice try, buddy…"
Martina Navratilova was 'disappointed' with IOC’s clarification over transgender-DSD slip-up regarding Imane Khelif at Paris Olympics
The controversy regarding Imane Khelif's participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics escalated through social media. The IOC President Thomas Bach addressed the issue during a press conference.
He stressed that if a person is born and raised a woman and has been assigned the female gender on her passport, she can compete in women's sports. Bach also spoke out against the hate speech received by Khelif and called for it to stop. Moreover, he said:
"But I repeat, here, this is not a DSD case, this is about a woman taking part in a women's competition."
The IOC's official social media account later clarified that what he meant to say was:
"But I repeat, here, this is not a transgender case."
Martina Navratilova was unimpressed by the slip-up and wrote:
"Very disappointing and disingenuous…to say the least."
Imane Khelif, however, has not let the controversy affect her performance at the Games. She has reached the gold medal match and will face China's Yang Liu on Friday, August 9.