Love Martina Navratilova

I'm not familiar with Kara Swisher but she comes across as a complete imbecile. I'm so angry that this is reduced to a left/right, Dem/Republican, Lab/Con issue. The Democrats are supporting the mutilation of children's bodies and are morally bankrupt. Meanwhile organisations like Genspect are helping families being destroyed by gender ideology. I'm so glad that people like Martina can see this and are speaking out.

I highly recommend listening to this interview, Martina is magnificent and knowledgeable and unshakable.

And in listening, I really struggle to understand the mindset of people like the interviewer. How hard is it to comprehend that men are bigger, stronger and faster than women and even if they identify as women, even if they have taken hormones and had surgery, it's not fair to expect women to compete against them, and not reasonable to ask women to sacrifice their fair sports to spare the feelings of men who want to be women.

Or perhaps the interviewer was just doing her job and giving Martina the opportunity to explain her position?

Martina is a goddess, though.

“use tactics which look to me very much like guilt-tripping and lecturing her”

This was the overall impression, yes.

This is the exchange about Semenya:

Navratilova: Well, she is a physical male without descended testicles and I did not know enough about her physical insides when I wrote that piece years ago. I thought this was a one-off. It’s unfair for us to say you have to take drugs, but also you are a biological male. So regardless of how she was brought up or what she believes, what she identifies as, what she feels like, the facts are, she’s got an XY chromosome. She’s, what is it, sexual dimorphism. She’s a biological male.

Swisher: Well, she’s not. She isn’t a biological male, but go ahead.

Navratilova: Well, she’s not a female.

Swisher: She identifies as female.

I don’t believe anyone who can have these words come out of their mouth can be accurately described as “brilliant” 🙄.

I suppose if the benchmark is whether she give a hearing to a gender critical person or not then this interviewer gets a million more points for journalistic integrity than most in the US.

But that is a pretty depressing benchmark.

I don't for one second criticise the journalist for challenging Martina's views - that's her job. But it would be normal to challenge interviewees from a neutral position by saying something like: 'critics would point to discrimination against trans people and question whether your stance is making things worse for them.'

But time and time again in this interview, it looks like the journalist is seeking to proselytise and convert Martina to her own subjective viewpoint, and to use tactics which look to me very much like guilt-tripping and lecturing her.

"Do you feel empathy for the broader cause? You understand how this moves you into a very controversial space."

"But you understand where it leads to, the dangers for trans people."

I just question whether this interviewer would take this pseudo-evangelising line with a man, or would adopt this line of questioning with any other topic.

Well she knows nothing about sport and this interview was a car crash for her. Good for her if she’s a respected tech journalist and good for her for taking on something outside her area of expertise, but it was an absolute pile of garbage of an interview that Martina overhand smashed back over the net.

So many people here bashing Kara Swisher. I have to disagree. Kara's a brilliant and quite well-known tech journalist who's lately branched out with her own podcast. She's also active in SF Bay Area politics - right in the lion's den. So it's absolutely fantastic she's decided to do this interview AND got it taken on. I'd frankly expect her to bring up the usual bingo card of TRA arguments because let's face it, given her readership those were going to come up anyway and this way they've been addressed.

Martina is so positive and kind. I have to say I'd be really tempted to say 'are you genuinely suggesting that people attempt suicide because they can't be in a particular sport event or category?'

Both Rene Richards and Mianne Bagger were ground breakers in forcing open their respective sports to allow them to compete. Both have now said that they realise it was wrong and that they no longer support male inclusion in female sports categories since seeing the studies pulling together all the studies on how physical advantages cannot be mitigated.

in the end that interviewer was basically reverting to the usual, ‘but if they don’t get to compete the female category for sport, they will be depressed and may consider suicIde.’ While not once understanding the harm women and girls face doing damage to their bodies trying to squeeze that extra performance to not only beat female competitors but now male competitors, and the depression those displaced women must feel if they cannot compete.

That interview showed all the flaws in the inclusion argument. Because ultimately those using those arguments are shown to only be focused on prioritising male people. They have disregarded female competitors in their consideration.

This interviewer brought out all the trope. From

—authentic living,
-to ‘there has to be a way, you all are just not trying hard enough to find a solution’,
-to the Phelps ambit to the Semenya argument
-to LGB inclusion,
-to ‘what about your friend Rene’
-to the ‘surely you don’t want to be seen as aligned with the Republicans’,
-to ‘surely the controversy should have kept you quiet’,
-to people thought you were male too once, now you are punching down.’

I think once you see through the misinformation and the emotional manipulation, you really cannot go back to seeing this line of questioning as being intelligent, researched or anything but mindless. It is glaringly obvious that some people are absolutely more concerned about being perceived as being aligned with the right side of history politically than conceiving they could be wrong because that fear has fully prejudiced their critical thinking on the topic. But this interview really shines a spotlight on how it is done. On how the mind works through it to reveal exactly that motivation.

Martina is great, but that interview was painful, I had to stop reading it. And Kara Swisher was just wrong about Caster Semenya, saying that Caster wasn't male. Why would you so plainly state something you actually don't appear to know anything about?

I can’t understand how the interviewer could listen and not take in a single point. If she’s a representative of “Intelligencer” then that is a wholly misnamed publication!

Anyway, as others have said, thank goodness for Martina (and Sharron Davies). Brilliant women both.

Yes @NumberTheory you're right that at least she was given space to answer.

It boggles my brain though to see thought processes like that of the interviewer laid down so clearly, where suspicion of any woman trying to outline a woman-centric point of view is baked in to all the questions. No doubt she is unaware of this herself and is trying to be an 'ally'.

The US press (print not TV) used to look down on the British press for being too partisan. But it's almost like this journalist needs desperately to signal through her questioning which side she is on, even to the point of making herself look silly.

It makes your realise that the myth of non-partisanship was only ever reserved for men's causes.

Fabulous woman.

I listened to this on podcast (it's part of an hour long interview).

Spotify
https://link.chtbl.com/karaonspotify?sid=post&origSession=D231202VK12nki7vuxWlSSlVxjf0qFh0JFp0%2Bk8kzRBjBvzJk4%3D

Apple
https://link.chtbl.com/owks-ap?sid=post&origSession=D231202VK12nki7vuxWlSSlVxjf0qFh0JFp0%2Bk8kzRBjBvzJk4%3D

Martina was amazing.

At the start of the podcast the interviewer does some big preamble about how she doesn't agree with Martina. I think she is worried she's going to get "cancelled" by associating with Martina.

Oh wow, how amazing is Martina Navrata??!!

With nymag you get one free article a month, so if you clear your cookies or open in a no-cookie browser you can read it.

either Kara knows nothing about swimming or she used that question to give Navratilova an opportunity to squash it.

Yes almost too perfect a stooge - either she's sympathetic or she's really not very clever. To contrive sporting metaphors she's serving Martina a series of looping balls perfect for smashing to all corners of the court.

I remember watching her play towards the end of her career when I was young. Initially I was cheering on her opposition - plucky young kids going up against the champion etc. Then I remember her pioneering wearing shorts at Wimbledon, something I can't believe didn't catch on more. Doing sport in little skirts always looks so impractical. Perhaps any tennis players out there can explain. But at a time we were fighting to be allowed trousers at school that made me team Martina.

And all the more so now, she's been such a icon for LGB and yes T rights through her friendship with Richards, her credentials are impeccable. And while I don't agree with her approach of trying to find a way men can be handicapped to enable them to compete with women, the fact that she tried and failed shows how very sympathetic she is and how weak the case is for sport by identity.

God, this interviewer is a right numpty.

Martina's fantastic. I was delighted to see her mentioned in a book I was reading that delved into feminist history. She's consistently stood for women's rights all this time - what a legend!

Maybe the editors cut this for clarity because I was expecting Navratilova to point out the lack of sports knowledge for anyone talking about Phelps. He is a great swimmer but other male swimmers have beaten his records and he's got some events where other male peers could routinely beat him in. Phelps also was a crazy disciplined athlete and trained harder than a lot of other competitive swimmers (his daily training regime was almost 365). He deserved his accolades not because he's some human marvel but because he worked his tail off (pun intended).

You'd have to know the ins and outs of competitive swimming to elaborate on this, so maybe she as a tennis great didn't want to get into the weeds on another sport but I can always tell if one is a non-sporty person if they bring up the Phelps argument, so either Kara knows nothing about swimming or she used that question to give Navratilova an opportunity to squash it.

Either way, Martina gave a genius interview!!!

The interviewer manages to squeeze in the lies of Michael Phelps AND Caster Semenya, that’s quite an achievement🙄

Is there a link that doesn't require a membership to read? Thanks

You're right @NumberTheory. And it would be just as bad not to give any kind of challenge or probe.

For all that some of those questions lacked any sort of journalistic professionalism, Swisher did interview her and gave her the space to speak. And to speak to an audience that is not normally given access to those views.

I wonder if Kara Swisher had even a moment during or after that interview where they had a flicker of insight or doubt. Imagine asking Martina Navratilova some of those questions and not dying of embarrassment on the spot.