{"id":42115,"date":"2026-07-21T11:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/42115\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T11:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:39:28","slug":"martina-navratilova-says-new-sex-test-rule-supports-all-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/42115\/","title":{"rendered":"Martina Navratilova says new sex test rule ‘supports all women’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Former\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Martina Navratilova (Rob Newell \u2013 CameraSport\/CameraSport via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Former tennis player Martina Navratilova<\/a> has shown her support for the Women\u2019s Tennis Association\u2019s (WTA) new sex testing policy designed to stop trans women from participating in the sport on a professional level.<\/p>\n

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\n My profile<\/a> section of your account.\n <\/p>\n

The new policy requires all players to undergo genetic sex testing to remain eligible to compete, despite there being no known transgender women anywhere in professional tennis.<\/p>\n

Under the updated policy, players will have to pass a one-time screening for the SRY gene, which helps determine biological sex, via a cheek swab or blood test. The WTA confirmed the change to Reuters, saying screening would begin in 2026 and that it was committed to \u201ctreating all players with dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navratilova, who called trans women who play tennis \u201cfailed male athletes\u201d in 2023, backed the decision through a series of posts shared to X on 20 July.<\/p>\n

One of the posts came as a reply to a tennis fan expressing her disappointment at the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a queer tennis fan, I feel so ashamed to have even supported this organisation,\u201d the fan wrote. \u201cI stand with ALL women who play tennis and sport and only hope the women of the WTA refuse to do such invasive, transphobic tests. I support trans people. End of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navratilova then replied, writing<\/a>: \u201cWTA supports all women. As in females. There is no such thing as an invasive transphobic test \u2013 just a once in a lifetime cheek swab \u2013 takes all of three seconds. Got it? Males are free to play in the men\u2019s tournaments however they might identify. Simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original poster then replied to dispute Navratilova\u2019s claim. \u201cThe collection of such data on women itself feels invasive and the prospects of the tests are inherently transphobic, there are no biological males trying to play for the WTA either,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Navratilova then served a retort. \u201cIt\u2019s not a collection of data. Nothing transphobic about a sex test cheek swab. And if you think that\u2019s invasive, try peeing in front of a stranger, lol,\u201d she wrote<\/a>, seemingly referring to the sex testing methods professional women\u2019s tennis players underwent in the 1970s to ban trans player Ren\u00e9e Richards from competing.<\/p>\n

The former tennis player\u2019s thoughts were met with disdain from other X users.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when people were calling you a man while you played tennis (and they still regularly do), would you have been happy to have your womanhood tested by a little swab in the cheek? Can we test for how much testosterone is in your body and have it publicly shared? Simple enough?\u201d wrote one.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou played doubles with Ren\u00e9e Richards, what changed?\u201d asked another, to which Navratilova replied: \u201cAbsolutely nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Share your thoughts!\u00a0Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martina Navratilova (Rob Newell \u2013 CameraSport\/CameraSport via Getty Images) Former tennis player Martina Navratilova has shown her support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4631,28,14963],"class_list":["post-42115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-martina-navratilova","tag-tennis","tag-trans-athletes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}