Martina Navratilova slams Neil deGrasse Tyson’s views on gender identity

One thing about Martina Navratilova, she doesn’t hold back when it comes to talking about – or reacting to – subjects she feels passionate about. For years she has tweeted about or given interviews about how she feels about transgender men taking part in women’s sports. She doesn’t like the idea.

In fact, a group called Athlete Ally actually let her go as an ambassador in 2019 when Navratilova wrote in an English newspaper, “To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires. It’s insane and it’s cheating.”

You can decide on your own whether you think Martina Navratilova is correct in her thinking or not. But that some in the LGBTQIA+ community, such as Athlete Ally, don’t know whether she is an ally of the community seems ironic when Navratilova is herself gay.

Which brings me to Martina Navratilova reacting to something astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said last month. During an interview on the podcast TRIGGERnometry (which is a far-reaching interview that covers lots of sub-topics), Tyson says something quite odd which is, “Suppose no matter my chromosomes, today I feel 80 percent female 20 percent female. I’m gonna put on makeup. I’m gonna do this. Tomorrow I might feel 80 percent female. I’ll remove the makeup and put on a muscle shirt.”

Martina Navratilova calls Neil deGrasse Tyson ‘clueless’

The problem with the statement is that he is talking about a very small group of people who days feel “80 percent” male or female and then reverse that feeling the next day. In other words, Tyson sounds like he is trying to be overly wordy about a subject that is a bit out of his realm of expertise.

This is what Martina Navratilova had an issue with. She tweeted a response to a reaction Linda Blade, a sports performance coach, had about Tyson’s comments. Navratilova called Tyson “completely clueless” about the subject he was speaking about.

To be fair, Tyson does come off a bit combative in the interview and as if he knows more than the hosts on the subject, which he doesn’t. Martina Navratilova’s response was just being consistent with her pattern of responses on the issue of gender identity for the last many years. She has a right to speak her mind, of course, but you can decide who you believe.