Martina Navratilova Slams LGBT History Month Post For Featuring Drag Queen

Kelby Vera
·2 min read
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Former tennis player Martina Navratilova caused a racket over a seemingly simple tribute to LGBT History Month this week.

The legendary athlete and out lesbian slammed Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for including a drag queen in a video celebrating LGBTQ+ Americans’ place in the nation’s history, calling the performer a “pathetic parody of women.”

In the video, Haaland and drag queen Pattie Gonia spoke outside New York’s Stonewall National Monument, the site of a 1969 clash between gay men, drag queens and police, which marked the start of the modern fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

Navratilova seemed incensed by Gonia’s appearance despite drag’s undeniable role in the LGBTQ+ movement.

“Is this a joke?” the tennis veteran asked. “The pathetic parody of women continues.”

Martina Navratilova before presents the winner's trophy during the 2022 U.S. Open Tennis Championship on Sept. 10, in New York City.
Martina Navratilova before presents the winner's trophy during the 2022 U.S. Open Tennis Championship on Sept. 10, in New York City.

Martina Navratilova before presents the winner's trophy during the 2022 U.S. Open Tennis Championship on Sept. 10, in New York City.

When another replier tried to remind Navratilova the drag queen was, in fact, a parody and not a transgender woman, the athlete swerved into intentionally transphobic territory.

“And how exactly are we supposed to know the difference?” the 18-time singles champion wrote before asking the poster to “not compare males to butch females.”

While Navratilova was hailed as an LGBTQ+ trailblazer after coming out in 1981, she has been a vocal opponent of transgender women competing in women’s sports.

In August, she called the U.S. Tennis Association’s (USTA) policy on including transwomen unjust in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“Women’s tennis is not for failed male athletes- whatever age,” she wrote. “This is not right and it is not fair. Would this be allowed at the US Open this month? Just with self ID? I don’t think so…”

USTA’s policy requires trans athletes to declare their gender as female officially and to undergo appropriate hormone treatment to “minimize gender-related advantages in sports competitions.”

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