Martina Navratilova defended herself against a tennis reporter who accused her of being “transphobic” and on an “anti-trans crusade.”
Navratilova’s face is on the Our Bodies, Our Sports “Take Back Title IX” bus that has been touring the country and was vandalized in Chapel Hill, N.C., with messages accusing the women participating of being anti-trans bigots, according to photos posted on social media.
In response, tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg took aim at Navratilova.
“Martina Navratilova turning this anti-trans crusade into her life’s obsession in recent years remains dispiriting! And she turns it into way more transphobic vitriol than just discussing sports fairness, as I’ve covered before, just being nasty and cruel and dehumanizing. Boo,” Rothenberg wrote in an X post on Friday.
The 67-year-old tennis legend replied to Rothenberg’s tweet.
“Yet another man telling women what they should care about. And who are you exactly ? Oh yeah, the reporter who tells tennis players its off the record and then prints what they said anyway,” she wrote. “Good to know you care about women’s sports and women’s sex based spaces. I care.”
Rothenberg, a former New York Times writer who hosts the “No Challenges Remaining” podcast, then accused Navratilova of being a cyberbully.
“I’ve never done that. But I care also, about someone who was a beacon of freedom and inclusion in the sport I’ve covered sadly choosing to erode the platform she built with cyberbullying campaigns aimed at obscure, low-level amateur athletes,” he wrote. “I wish you were better than that.”
At that point, Navratilova had enough.
“Cyber bullying- wow. I am blocking you once and for all,” she wrote to Rothenberg. “For your information I am doing a whole lot more than just tweeting. You can just go away now. Hope I see your nasty self at Wimbledon- if you are there.”
Navratilova, who is a lesbian, wrote in a separate tweet that the people who vandalized the bus are “cowards and anarchists who don’t give a s–t about women.”
Navratilova is one of the most decorated athletes of all-time, having won 18 women’s singles grand slam titles, 31 women’s doubles grand slam titles and 10 mixed doubles grand slam titles.