To think that Martina Navratilova should NOT lose her job at the BBC and that the BBC is biased?

[TeamNavratilova]

On Sunday, Martina Navratilova had an article published in the Sunday Times, giving her views on the inclusion of transwomen (biological males who identify as being women) in women’s sport:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rules-on-trans-athletes-reward-cheats-and-punish-the-innocent-klsrq6h3x?shareToken=45bc9997e063aaf79646a7f12a7363a6

The BBC subsequently decided to have a discussion item on this on 5 Live and invited Dr Nicola Williams from Fair Play for Women - fairplayforwomen.com - to speak on Martina’s side of the argument along with Rachel McKinnon (a male-bodied cyclist who identifies as a woman and now holds a cycling world title in women’s cycling).

Rachel McKinnon refused to appear on the show if Dr Williams was on so the BBC’s response was to uninvite Dr Williams and instead interview Rachel McKinnon along with another trans sportsperson who agreed with Rachel. The other side of the argument (along with all facts about the physical differences between male and female bodies which Dr Williams could have provided) was not covered and both interviewees were asked (on the BBC, by a BBC presenter) whether the BBC should fire Martina to which they both replied yes: twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1097417280084951040 McKinnon has continued to argue for this online.

AIBU to think that Martina should not lose her commentating job at the BBC for expressing her (considered, researched) views and that the BBC has behaved in a biased and unethical way, firstly, by only presenting one side of an argument on a discussion show and, secondly, by using the opportunity to put forward the idea that Martina should be sacked?

I'll see if I can dig out the graphic references got bread but the 100m one showed that Florence Griffith Joyner, the fastest woman ever, wouldn't even make it into the men's top 50, possibly even lower.

Anyone know how to escalate to BBC Executive Complaints Committee? Could they post a link?
Not happy with BBC's dismissive reply but apparently there's a whole process before OffCom will get involved.

It's probably already been shared but the The times aeruckr includes...

"The BBC’s editorial guidelines say that guests do not have the right to bar other contributors. The rules state: “The refusal of an individual or an organisation to make a contribution should not be allowed to act as a veto on the appearance of other contributors holding different views, or on the output itself.”"

I shall be writing to the BBC, this is appalling and against their own rules.

The BBC have either taken the side of male-bodied athletes against females willingly, or allowed themselves to be bullied. Either way it is not on.

aeruckr article!!

I don't find this Serena/Paula would be beaten by xxx men helpful

I don’t understand why the comparison is not helpful - Serena is undoubtably the best female tennis player we have ever seen, even at her very best she would lose to the top 100 rated men. I work with former professional tennis players & this is widely accepted as fact within the sport

I think the comparisons are very useful. If you can show that a man who isn’t even at the top of his own field can beat the best woman then it proves that all this “oh but they lower their testosterone so they’re the same as a woman” mantra is worthless.

Don’t get me wrong, if you are the 10th fastest male marathon runner then you are still damn good, but you probably don’t win many big competitions that often and most casual sports fans have probably never heard of you.

Now dangle the carrot in front of him that all he needs to do is declare himself female, take some oestrogen for a year and hey presto he can go off and win everything in sight by running in times well below his personal best, and you can surely see that he might be tempted.

Top 100 is generous I think, and that’s not to disparage Serena. Tommy Robredo is currently ranked 200, watch this from a few years ago and ask how Serena could compete:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=h-3FMTc7uxw

And it’s highly likely Florence Griffith Joyner was doping, so her times are statistical outliers.

Laurel Hubbard is 40 years old and can easily out lift women much younger.

Thank you to everyone who has complained and to those escalating their complaints. I know it’s a dismissive response this time but hopefully next time it will give them pause before they do it again. It also builds up a picture each time they do this, Women’s Hour, this programme, Newsnight etc so it will be difficult to deny it later on. The sheer numbers of people complaining will help - they can’t keep doing this.

It’s not just the glory of winning, there’s lots of money involved too. The winner of Wimbledon wins about £2 million, for a lower ranked top 100 player that is a big incentive to switch sides

that is a big incentive to switch sides

I'm not sure it matters why a TW has transitioned - they may do so for reasons unrelated to participating in sport, yet still find themselves suddenly much further up the rankings if they choose to be categorised by 'gender' rather than sex. Note that (as far as I know) there is nothing in any sporting body's regulations which precludes them continuing to participate in the male category. I assume there are some ethical TW who do continue to compete as males, and accept any performance hit which their treatment may incur (somewhat similar to if a female athlete chooses to become a mother, perhaps).

even at her very best she would lose to the top 100 rated men. I work with former professional tennis players & this is widely accepted as fact within the sport

I would accept that, but another poster said top 500 and I would question whether those men lower down really are all that good. The fact that there are differences are why we had men and womens' sports. I wonder if the men identifying as women want us to go the whole hog and stop having different categories for children and let 15 year olds compete with 5 year olds?

I don't find this Serena/Paula would be beaten by xxx men helpful

I don't find willful stupidity useful, either, but it exists and I have to acknowledge it.

Don't forget I am on Martina's side - I was glad she'd spoken out, and had hoped that someone who clearly had been top of her field would have been listened to.

When I was timed out and trafficked as a teenager my pimp used to frequently tell me "You're not a real woman".

I actually believed him. I never really understood what it felt like to be a real woman.

I later found out that this "You're not a real woman" narrative as a common one in pimps exploiting young women and girls.

Much later on I started to discover pseudo-spiritual cults involved in sexual offences against women and children, human trafficking and other crimes. A typical feature of such cults was that they tell women and girls that they have forgotten who they really are and need to undertake super secret training courses in how to become real women.

A couple of examples are NXIVM and Agama yoga. There are plenty of others.

We live in a scary time when many women and girls are being brainwashed and exploited by cults that use a typical pimping / trafficking MO and claim to "empower" women to be "real women" but actually exploit them.

Can it be a coincidence that at this time when so many women doubt that they are "real women" that the definition of "real women" is being claimed by a group of activists who possess penises?

The world has gone completely insane.

oops

"timed out" should read "pimped out"

Yanbu I am fuming about this. Love Martina and agree with everything she said. I have complained to the BBC.

Ok, I think anyone in the top 200 would definitely beat Serena. 200-500 could be open to debate. Let’s consider Naomi Osaka who is the current world number 1 and beat Serena last year. She’s 21 years old. Who here thinks Osaka could beat:

Pete Sampras (47)
Andre Agassi (48)
Pat Rafter (46)
Boris Becker (51)
Tim Herman (44)
Stefan Edberg (53)
Jim Courier (48)

I think she would lose to all of them.

I've complained again to the BBC about their untrue & dismissive response, and have asked for my complaint to be escalated.

Martina Navratilova is awesome. Fabulous tennis player (I grew up watching her play), fantastic campaigner for minority rights, excellent commentator/pundit, and comes across as an all-round extremely nice person. I agree completely with everything she wrote in that Times article.

I think it's utterly disgraceful for a BBC employee to whip up an on-air debate about whether one of his colleagues should be sacked. I also think it's disgraceful that they had a debate on transwomen in women's sports with only transwomen athletes and the male host in the studio to discuss it. It's almost like 3.5 billion people in the world don't matter and their views shouldn't be heard...

Sadly, this is how I think it will pan out: the Beeb won't be so stupid as to publicly sack her over this. They will just quietly sideline her and not renew her contract.

Seriously thinking about my licence fee. There's a lot I love about the BBC (radio 3, which I could still get for free, but have always been happy to think my licence fee contributed towards, Dr Who, Horrible Histories, loads of really excellent documentaries), but their out-and-out bias against women's issues is really getting to me.

Someone on here posted a table of the world top male athletes and also where women would rank by their times. It was eye opening, I showed it to my teenage DC as we were talking about the impact of testosterone on muscle development, lung capacity etc.

I'm trying to find it but not having much luck so far.

Responding to the tennis question it depends whether the players cited have kept themselves in any good reasonable shape or have any practice. The men would definitely win if they have done so but when you look at Boris Becker as he is now I can well believe he might lose.

McEnroe is even older and has publicly challenged females but they won’t bite but then he is on the senior tour and plays competitively regularly.

I don’t think any female tennis player has denied the basic advantage and gap. Serena just got miffed with him constantly spouting stuff when he had made no claim to the contrary to begin with. Probably disagreed with the 500 claim also.

In more physical less skilled based sports like running the top male 500 could handily beat any female world number 1. There’s a 10% differential for Christ’s sake. Would be a lot more than the top 500

Complaint to BBC (my first ever!) just submitted.

I think they'll be hearing from me a lot more now I know how easy it is

Its fucking ridiculous the way some are going on because she pointed out facts. Really stupid, but usual in todays climate where womens rights do not matter at all..womens sport? Who cares about fairness if it upsets some men? Bloody bonkers. Glad more sportswomen are standing with her, and pissed off that no male sportspeople are, when they can do so without the rampant abuse from TRAs...everyone knows she is right. But many dare not say it and will actively pretend that males do not have an advantage over females in sport, generally based on one biased 'study' with SEVEN people which had self reported results....this apparently overrules the many studies, and the known fact that males have an advantage in most physical stuff.

I wonder if Andy Murray will say anything about, he's spoken out before about sexism in the sport

The levels of delusion..women who take artificial hormones have an advantage over male people as their testosterone levels will be higher. Apparently

twitter.com/RachelT1722/status/1098472241325592576

This kind of nonsense is what people are blindly agreeing with, in an effort to demonize Martina. Bloody ridiculous.