While many of the various issues and battles of the culture war have proven incredibly divisive and embittering, one of the issues that has heated up the most in recent years is whether transgender athletes should be able to compete in women’s sports, with some female athletes alleging it is unfair to allow their participation and many transgender athletes and allies arguing it is discriminatory to not allow them to do so.

The fight over what should be allowed has drawn in even people who would normally stay out of politics or be arguing from the left on political issues, such as “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, who is generally far left but has taken a strong stand against transgender involvement in women’s sports, and anti-Trump athlete Martina Navratilova.

Navratilova, who has entered the arena to bicker about the issue before, did so again on November 21st with a post on X (formerly Twitter) about transgender individuals competing against women in women’s sports, saying, “Women’s sports is not the place for mediocre male athletes who compete as women. Period.” As of the time this article was written, her tweet garnered almost 2 million views.

Predictably, the post led to strong feelings from both sides. Some commenters were all on board with her sentiment. One such commenter, for example, said, “It’s not even the place for horrible male athletes. The focus must not be on the men who steal championships, but on how every man steals the opportunity to compete from some woman. There is great value in sports, even (or maybe especially) when you lose and have to try again.”

Similarly, another account that agreed with Navratilova said, “Big kudos to you Martina for saying things straight. Keep fighting verbally for women’s rights, your good example is even more needed today. You did a great deal of work early on for the recognition of lesbian rights. And you were a fantastic tennis player and many of us enjoyed watching you play.”

Disagreeing, another commenter said, “I will probably delete this tweet. But, as someone who looked up to you, I feel like the stumbling block is in misgendering and calling these athletes male, which is how this can be called a transphobic argument. Simply asserting that biological men who’ve been through puberty have an advantage in cis women’s sports, well, I feel like most people cannot deny that. But, calling trans women men is hurtful. You don’t need to misgender in order to make the argument that biological men who’ve been through male puberty have an advantage in sports. It’s not right to say trans women are men but, I think, tautologically, we can say that trans women are not cis women and each group has a distinct experience with the world that is not necessarily, entirely, similar. And perhaps there are competing interests. And that’s where all the tension with all of this is……”

This isn’t the first time that Navratilova spoke out about the issue on X. Shortly after Elon bought Twitter, she wrote, “To say this won’t end well is an understatement. To say Gymnastics Australia just threw females and girls under the bus is an understatement. What is wrong with you guys??? This “inclusion” actually will EXCLUDE biological women and most of all girls. #whataboutthegirls ???”

That tweet was sent in reply to a post from journalist Oli London which said, “Gymnastics Australia changes guidelines to allow Transgender athletes to compete in the women’s category and for biological males to undress in girls locker rooms and showers. 93% of 800,000 Australians involved in gymnastics are under the age of 12. Under the new rules, biological males will be allowed to compete in whichever category matches their gender identity and will be allowed to wear women’s uniforms.”