Martina Navratilova sends strongly worded message about Imane Khelif after controversial boxer withdraws from event with new sex testing policy

Martina Navratilova has made her feelings known about transgender athletes participating in women's sports. She responded to a recent news report that Olympic champion boxer Imane Khelif has withdrawn from participating in the Eindhoven Box Cup.

Khelif, whose gender has been the source of debate before and after the Olympics, did not show up for the event after World Boxing introduced a more stringent PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test to ascertain boxers' birth gender. That test supersedes the Olympic standard, which was to accept the gender given on an athlete's passport.

Khelif has failed tests before. She was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships by the then-governing body, the IBA, which insisted that their tests showed that Khelif had male chromosomes. 18-time Major singles champion Navratilova has been a vocal critic of transgender athletes competing in women's sport, and used her X account to applaud World Boxing's new test, writing:

"Oops- what a surprise. Hopefully Imane will never get a chance to hit another woman in the boxing ring."

The organizers of the Eindhoven event have criticized World Boxing's stance. They have distanced themselves from the new testing and insisted that "As far as we are concerned, all athletes are welcome in Eindhoven," according to the Daily Mail.

Martina Navratilova is a long-standing opponent of transgender athletes competing in women's sports

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Martina Navratilova has a well-known voice in liberal politics, but her stance on transgender athletes has often been criticized as illiberal. The tennis icon has always been a staunch defender of LGBTQ and women's rights, and often promotes her views on her many platforms, but particularly X, where she has 457,000 followers.

Navratilova sees the issue of transgender individuals in sport through the lens of women's rights. She has often stated that, in her view, it was impossible to achieve a level playing field for women if biological males competed against them. Last year, Navratilova told Express.co.uk that she understood her views were not universally popular, saying:

"Yes, it's been pretty rough, but I know I'm on the right side of history. I'm right on most people's opinion about women's sex-based spaces, and especially sports. They need to stay female but the politics have been kind of crazy about that."

Martina Navratilova was World No. 1 for 332 weeks in the 1970s and 1980s. Many observers consider the Czech-born naturalized US citizen to be the greatest women's player in the history of the sport.