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.CHISARAOKWU.'s avatar

—The idea that Black women and girl athletes are “too masculine” and the claim that trans women athletes are “not real women” come from the same place — a covert fear of women who do not fit neatly into the narrow, white and delicate box of femininity that our society loves to celebrate.— THIS. Periodt.

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Nancy Jane Moore's avatar

I was thinking about this subject this morning -- before I read this excellent piece -- and the only example of a woman athlete condemned for being "too strong" who wasn't either Black or Brown (Imane Khelif being a recent very obvious example) I could come up with was Martina Navratilova. I went to see her play in the 80s sometime after reading all the news stories about her and realized she was about the same size as me and while I'm not small, I'm also not outside the female norm in size. I'm not sure she was completely a white exception, though, because she was constantly contrasted with Chris Evert and she was originally from Czechoslovakia at a time when Soviet and East German women in international competition were the focus of gender exams. Given this history, it is a shame that Navratilova has been so opposed to trans women participating in women's sports.

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