A few weeks ago Martina Navritolova remarked on how women with penises had an unfair advantage in women’s sports. She called it insane and said it was cheating. I noted that there might be a price to pay for that and it has come due. Navratilova has had to apologize in part.
Well, I certainly stumbled into a hornets’ nest. The support I normally get from ‘my people’, the LGBT community, was replaced by a barrage of quite nasty personal attacks and I was dropped (jettisoned is a better word) as an ambassador for Athlete Ally.
She backed off the “cheating” bit and clarified by saying she was hoping to open up a constructive dialogue. And then she tossed out this.
Conversely, some publications and people that I am at odds with on most issues, such as the Washington Examiner (gasp) and James Woods (double gasp), were strongly supportive of my opinions. Those are unwelcome bedfellows. So where did I go wrong? Or did I go wrong?
By considering sports science. Biology. Facts viewed free of emotion. That’s where you went wrong with the left. The fact that you were applauded by people on the right who believe these things mean something should not be considered a mistake. In fact, I’d call it, to quote you, this!
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.
A more scientific conversation in search of a solution that allowed for fair competition. Sporting events where women still had a chance to compete against “women” who used to be men.
If you are curious about what that conversation doesn’t look like, stop and recall how you’ve been treaded by ‘Your People.’ They were more concerned about perception and groupthink than reality. And should you persist in your demand for science before feelings, you may find that even your partial apology will be inadequate. To borrow from my first post on this,
The idea of admitting men and women are different will get you excommunicated.
It still might.
