Guest Column by Martina Navratilova
We Need to Refer to Male Athletes as Male
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As you probably heard, two boxers who won Olympic gold medals in the female category in Paris had been disqualified in 2023 because, the International Boxing Association reported, tests revealed XY chromosomes. The IBA later explained their decision at more length, including the appeals process, which did not overturn the disqualification. The International Olympic Committee was informed in advance.
The word for people with XY chromosomes is male. Male athletes have an advantage over female athletes because of their maleness. From female athletes’ perspective, that’s the whole problem: male advantage. Yet many people seem afraid to use the words male and men.
If you want to understand the details about the boxers’ alleged Differences of Sexual Development (DSDs), read Doriane Lambelet Coleman, author of On Sex and Gender – A Commonsense Approach, and evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, who explain XY chromosomes, testes, testosterone levels, and genetic anomalies. To understand how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed those boxers into the women’s category, I recommend Arty Morty’s take on that.
All male athletes possess an unfair advantage over all female athletes.
I’m here to tell you that all males – including those who were born with DSDs1 and those who refer to themselves as transgender women – possess an unfair advantage over all women in virtually all sports. (Except outliers such as equestrian, in which the primary athlete is the horse). In the sport of boxing, men’s physical advantage is massive. A man’s punch is 162 percent stronger than a woman’s.
I’m also here to make a request. Could we please call these people – the DSD males and the males who identify as transgender – what they are? That word is male.
I’ve been advocating for female-only sports for more than six years. Trans activists and allies harass me with taunts and epithets. Just this week, I was called an asshole, a hag, a grandma, a bully. Last week I was called a man. People invite me to speak, write articles, and appear on broadcasts – then sponsors, supervisors, editors, and university presidents rescind the invitations.
As a tennis champion and lesbian, I have a unique opportunity.
I don’t need to do this. I could retire. I keep speaking out despite the abuse and loss of business prospects because I am uniquely positioned to use my voice. People recognize my name. They know at least two things about me: I’m a tennis champion and a lesbian.
As a tennis champion, I have credibility. I know what it takes to succeed, and I know, in an up-close-and-personal way, the difference between male and female athletes. For instance: In 1993, I competed in a Battle of the Champions against Jimmy Connors. To neutralize his inherent male advantage, organizers handicapped the event. He could only serve once, and I could hit into half of the doubles alleys. He still won, 7-5, 6-2.
The fact that I’m a lesbian (and a Democrat) also gets people’s attention. Wait, why is this liberal, LGBTQIA person not supporting trans athletes to compete in the category that “aligns with their gender identity”?
We need to put females first.
Because I’m putting females first. Which is what the female sports category is for: actual girls and women. If there had been no female sports category when I was competing in tennis tournaments, you never would have heard of me – or any female Olympians. The whole reason we can celebrate female athletes is because we have a protected, female-only category.
Fact is, I also support trans athletes. They just need to compete in the category based on their bodies (sex), not their beliefs or ideas about themselves (gender). Sports organizations could make other accommodations for trans athletes — so long as those accommodations do not diminish females’ sport opportunities or financial rewards, nor females’ right to fair, safe, sex-separated sports experiences, as we say in the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group.
My request is simple: Use the word male. And men. And boy. Ordinary words that people understand. Don’t tie your tongue in knots with phrases like “women with XY chromosomes and high testosterone,” which any high schooler could tell you is impossible. People with XY chromosomes and high testosterone are men.
The phrase “transgender woman” is misleading, and deliberately so. It appears to describe a type of woman, but for purposes of women’s sports and women’s safety, we must remember that this phrase describes a type of man: the type who wishes he were female or tries to appear female by wearing clothes, hairstyles, and makeup that are stereotypically female. A woman is not a costume involving pantihose and lipstick. We’re not a makeover men can purchase in a department store. We are human females who dress how we please.
Males who identify as transgender may also dress as they please. They’re still male.
We know the differences between women and men. It’s not confusing.
I know who women are. Don’t you? We know who men are. Some men believe they have a right to abscond with women’s trophies and prize money, then stroll around naked in women's locker rooms. How’s that for male entitlement?
Defending the IOC’s inclusion of the boxers in the female category, President Thomas Bach absurdly claimed that the boxers were “women on their passports.” Since when are passports proof of sex? In the United States, anyone can change their passport to female, male, or X, with no documentation required. In response to protests, why didn’t the IOC conduct its own sex-verification tests, which female athletes want? If the boxers have XX chromosomes, why not prove that?
Before the Olympics, the IOC specifically told journalists to refer to people by their chosen gender identity (which, for a man, could be “woman”), not their actual sex (which, for all men, is male.). Isn’t this incredible? Consider the fact that the IOC oversees a worldwide competition that is divided into two categories: male and female. Yet it actively encouraged the media to obscure the fact that men are male.
Women’s sports are in danger. If you hear “there aren’t very many transgender athletes,” that’s a lie. If you hear “transwomen are women,” that’s a lie. Trans advocates used to say, “if we just suppress their testosterone, they’ll be equivalent to women.” When that failed, they resorted to magical thinking: that a man can become a woman just by “feeling like a woman.” How would he know?
Men can’t become women.
“We all have trillions of cells. Each cell is XX or XY. Adult males have about 36 trillion XY cells; adult females have about 28 trillion XX. Our sex determines, in addition to reproductive and sexual structures and functions, overall size, lung size, heart size, brain size, strength, muscle mass, bone density, physical proportions, body fat distribution, voice pitch, disease propensities and symptoms, baldness propensities, and many more sex-linked differences.” — Mariah Burton Nelson
Most men nowadays don’t even make any physical modifications in their efforts to pass as women. About 84 percent of adults who identify as transgender have not had related surgery, according to the Washington Post. Almost 70 percent have ingested no cross-sex hormones.
Our responsibility is to protect girls and women, not men.
Women’s personal dignity and safety are in danger. If you hear “transwomen need to change clothes in the women’s changing room because otherwise they’d be assaulted by men,” that’s emotional manipulation. True, that could happen. Obviously, someone ought to teach men not to assault men who wear skirts.
But protecting potentially-vulnerable trans-identified males – at the price of our own dignity and safety – is not women’s responsibility. Protecting ourselves and our rights is our responsibility, and the responsibility of our male allies.
Which is why we must hold the line: No males in women’s sports. No males in women’s locker rooms or restrooms.
See what I did there? The word male makes everything clear. Try it.
Martina Navratilova is a former professional tennis player who won 59 major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, the most of anyone in the Open era. A member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, she can be found on Twitter: @Martina.
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This article is being co-published by the Independent Women’s Forum.
A DSD exception would be males with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), which prevents an XY body with normal male levels of testosterone from responding to androgens, including testosterone. These people appear female and would be unlikely to see themselves as, nor to be perceived by others as, male. Swyer Syndrome is another rare XY DSD that results in a female appearance and internal female structures but without ovaries. The only XY DSDs that must be excluded from the female sports category are those in which the person has fully functional testes, normal male T levels, and functional androgen receptors.
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Excellent, Martina! And thanks for all you do for women and girls. I know you could just be living an easy life and resting on your laurels, but I see you everyday on twitter getting abuse hurled at you - yet standing your ground. Women and girls - not just athletic ones - owe you a debt of gratitude. <3
Sincere thanks to you, Ms. Navratilova. You are a genuine inspiration to all athletes.
You are an exceptional athlete and woman.
As a gay woman, who does not conform to American stereotypes of femininity, I cannot believe there are people now, who classify themselves as progressive, who are pushing the notion that because I don’t:
- I might be male;
- I was supposed to be male;
- I am not female;
- I wasn’t supposed to be female.
It is insane.