First of all, let’s get this clear– when it comes to the physical body, men and women are not the same. The male body has a physical advantage over the female. There I said it. Now throw stones at me if you will but it’s a fact. Look at any illustration of a male and female body and you’ll see that a male body is wider, taller and bulkier, to put it a bit simply. The female body is designed to reproduce. The male isn’t. So the way the female body functions inside is very different to that of a male. No amount of surgery or reconstruction can change that.
Why the hell am I even talking about this on a tennis blog? Well, a few days ago, in an op-ed in the Sunday Times, Martina Navratilova wrote noted that transgender women should not be allowed to compete athletically in women’s sports. She also tweeted, “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women.” This has caused one big uproar in the LGBQT world resulting in a, NY-based LGBQT support group to remove Martina from their advisory board.
Just go to Twitter and you’ll see the Martina bashing going on. It’s baffling, really.
Thing is, what Martina said in her op-ed is absolutely true (but, as I said, no one has the balls to say it- God no, no pun here). A person who was born with male traits and male genitals, even after transitioning, after the hormone therapy, still retains some of those traits– height, bone density, girth to name a few. These things don’t change. This is a conundrum that all trans athletes face. Should they or should they not be allowed to compete with the gender they have chosen.
There was an initiative in California to prevent trans students from using the locker-room of their chosen gender. In Ohio, a ruling that female trans athletes be checked for bone density and muscle mass; the International Olympic Committee allows trans athletes to compete in their chosen gender group as long as they have undergone genital surgery (which many LGBQT supporters view as being transphobic).
No one has, as of yet, been able to figure out a fair compromise.
In the op-ed, Martina apologizes for her brashness but she really didn’t need to. She said what no one has. (Billie Jean King sits on the fence on this one as does Chrissie).
We live in a world these days where we have to be so careful about what we say and how we say it, that truth and honesty have no place in it anymore. We live in a world where etiquettes are more important than facts, where no one can speak their minds anymore. People have opinions, we just aren’t allowed to reveal them because they are not ‘politically correct’. Well, it’s all political crapness if you ask me. How is this democratic or equal in any way?
But, as Martina says in a tweet to The Guardian–this is not about her. We’re missing the larger issue. No one is, of course, talking about the issue. It’s much easier to twitter-bash.
I have no authority to talk about the science behind gender transitioning. But, bravo Martina for opening the Pandora’s box.