Regarding William McGurn’s “Martina Navratilova’s Girl Power” (Main Street, Feb. 19): Martina Navratilova has the LGBTQ street cred that might very well be the silver bullet to dismembering the “identity” from identity politics. The tennis legend says allowing transgender women in women’s sports is cheating. “Identity” is the totally subjective self-definition of gender identity while biological sex is, well, biological sex and all the genetic and biological stuff that comes with it.
Ironically, in education and in the antediluvian days of 1972 when Title IX was passed, it referred not to gender identity but rather to sex: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Initially, Title IX was applied principally to ensure equality in women’s sports but under identity politics subsequently was expanded to cover a host of other topics including, most recently, campus sexual misconduct.
Ms. Navratilova and Title IX must become the common-sense beacons of light with both sports and social policy based on biological science rather than progressive ideology.
Published in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, February 26, 2019.
Em. Prof. Gordon E. Finley, PhD.
Florida International University
Miami
