“She Spoke Her TRUTH!” Martina Navratilova on Sophie Cunningham & Megan Rapinoe Trans Rows

0:01Piers Morgan:In the year of our law, 2026, some people still believe it's a cancelable offense to say that formerly male trans athletes should not compete against women. Well, the firestorm surrounding WNBA superstar Sophie Cunningham shows the argument somehow is not settled yet. Last week, Cunningham told ESPN that she supports a ban on trans athletes to protect young female athletes. Amid the resulting outcry, she has doubled down. I said what I said. I think it's kind of common sense. And I think I'll always believe in that. I think it's really important to protect children. And that's little girls who are also involved in that category.

0:40And so I stand on what I said.

0:46Piers Morgan:Well, the cost of Sophie Cunningham's common sense has been raucous booing and heckling from crowds at her games. COUNTRY. THE COUNTRY IS NOT A COUNTRY. A RIVAL COACH SMUGLY WORE A TRANS-BRANDED T-SHIRT. PUNDITS SAY CUNNINGHAM SHOULD SHUT UP AND DRIBBLE, A POSITION THEY RARLY TAKE ABOUT THE MANY STARS WHO ECHO THEIR POLITICS. PERHAPS THE MOST SANE COMMENTARY FROM THE WORLD OF SPORT HAS COME FROM STEVEN A SMITH WHO WROTE, YOU CAN SUPPORT PEOPLE'S RIGHT AND BELIEVE BIOLOGICAL MEN shouldn't compete in women's sports. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Common sense still matters. That is where I stand.

1:24Piers Morgan:Well, that's where I stand too. I suspect my next guest feels the same. Before we debate the story of my panel, delighted to be rejoined on Uncensored by the tennis legend Martina Navratilova. Martina, great to see you again. Hello, Piers. Nice to see you. Good to be here again. Thanks. Before we get to this very lively debate, The last time I spoke to you was in 2023, where you announced in an interview with me you were cancer-free, following, of course, that devastating double diagnosis of stage one throat cancer and unrelated early stage breast cancer. So before we go any further, how are you?

2:04Piers Morgan:How's your health? You know, I'm great. And it was funny because as I was setting up for this interview, I was on the other side and I noticed all these wrinkles on the left side of my neck. And there's no wrinkles on the right side. I'm like, why is that? And then I realized that's where I had the radiation, on the left side of my neck. So I own these wrinkles, and I'm good with that because I'm cancer-free. I have no side effects whatsoever, so I'm very, very lucky. Thanks. And Chris Severed, of course, is going through cancer again now. That's brilliant to hear. Going through the treatment.

2:35Yeah, thank you.

2:37Piers Morgan:Yeah, well, on that point, I did notice, I mean, you two have become so close in later life, having been such rivals. How is she doing? Well, we started out as friends and we're finishing as best friends. And she's doing fine. She's gone through two rounds of chemo. She's got four to go and she's a champion. So she'll come through on the other side once again. No doubt about that. Well, you're both very, very tough cookies, as we would say, in the UK. Let's turn to this big debate. So I watched the Sophie Cunningham thing play out. And honestly, Martina, I was kind of incredulous that we are still having a situation where a female athlete is vilified, booed, heckled, you know, abused and ostracized by colleagues simply for stating a biological fact.

3:29Piers Morgan:What is your reaction to what's happened to her? It's just sad. I mean, Sophie spoke the truth. She was not singling out trans athletes. She was only talking about male bodies in women's sports, which clearly is not a fair fight. So it is a WNBA, Women's National Basketball Association, which means women, which means females, not males who identify otherwise. So she just spoke her truth and she did not back away from that. What I find really sad is that she's been vilified for that and called all kinds of names, as I have been as well. but most of all that the league is not supporting this that the league is silent uh which they should be forging forward just like the wta has now saying only female bodies should be playing tennis women's tennis and you do a one-time cheek swab which takes literally two seconds uh you just do it once in your lifetime to to make sure that you are indeed a female and that's the end of that uh and people that have a problem with that there's no there's no ban on trans As athletes, there's no ban on trans, males who want to advise trans, that want to advise women who want to play sports.

4:43They can still play in the male category. The biggest divider in sports in categories, we have two categories, male and female. And then you also have weight categories for different sports. But you don't have any other categories, different age groups, but you don't have any other category. And this is the best dividing line. and when people talk inclusion every time you include a male body in a female sport you are excluding another female from that spot so it is not inclusive it's actually exclusive because there will be fewer women females who have the opportunity to play sports whether it's basketball or rugby or tennis or whatever yeah that's a hundred percent the issue and you know Sophie

5:27Piers Morgan:I THINK THAT'S WHAT I THINK. CUNNINGHAM WENT OUT OF HER WAY IN HER PIECE ON ESPN BY SAYING I GOT A LOT OF NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ABOUT ME HATING TRANS AND I'M LIKE I NEVER ONCE SAID THAT. I THINK THAT I'M HERE TO EXTEND LOVE BUT I ALSO THINK THAT WITH LOVE IS TRUTH BEING HONEST AND I WANT TO PROTECT YOUNG GIRLS IN A LOCKER ROOM OR YOUNG GIRLS IN SPORT WHO SHOULDN'T HAVE TO GO AGAINST BIOLOGICAL MEN. I don't understand, Martina, why every single woman in the world does not agree with that. Well, I don't understand either. I think women that speak for inclusion and that, you know, the coaches that spoke for inclusion, they don't really think things through.

6:07And I think as women, we want to be loving and taking care of everybody. But this is not that. Sports, by definition, is exclusive in that you have to qualify to get to a certain level. And in order for that to happen, those categories have to be very clear. But also, we keep saying, oh, the girls need to protest and boycott and all this. I'm sorry. If they compete, they lose. And if they don't compete, they lose also. And then they may even be disqualified from their sport, which has happened in other sports, where an athlete that complained about competing against the male, they were disqualified from their sport for a year or two.

6:47It happened to April Hutchinson in Canada, a weightlifter. It happened to Lynn Pinches in snooker in England. It happened to a basketball player. So it's hard for girls to speak up. And by the way, it's adults that are pushing these rules. And it's mostly men that make the rules. And it's always men that are intruding into women's sex-based spaces. So this is really on men to speak up. And I wish more male athletes that are active would speak up on the issue. And of course, female athletes, because this is our sport. This is our livelihood. And they should be speaking up and it should not be political.

7:23It has become a political football, which is stupid, because about 80 % of people agree with this position in sex-based basis only for females and then only for males. And about 65 % Democrats, every poll that I've seen, it's about 65 % Democrats that agree with this as well but people turn it into this left right issue and it's a it's a women's rights issue I'm sorry it's women's rights which means again females not males who identify as women

7:52Piers Morgan:yeah and you know the Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve in her first matchup against Sophie Cunningham since Sophie Cunningham said what she said she wore a trans kids belong t-shirt on the BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST CLEARLY MAKING SOME POINT THAT SOMEHOW SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM SAID TRANS KIDS DON'T BELONG IN SOCIETY OR LIFE. SHE NEVER SAID THAT. SHE WENT OUT OF HER WAY NOT TO SAY THAT. SHE HAS THE SAME VIEW I THINK THAT YOU DO AND I DO WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY I SUPPORT TRANS PEOPLE'S RIGHTS TO EXIST AND TO HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS ANYBODY ELSE. MY PROBLEM COMES WHEN TRANS ATHLETES ERODE THE BASIC RIGHTS of women as women.

8:34Piers Morgan:And that's what we've been seeing, and that's what this debate's about. I want to play a clip from Stephen A. Smith about this. Okay.

8:44Being anti-anything.

8:46Piers Morgan:This is about being pro-girls, pro-females, pro-women, pro-ladies. That's what this is about. You are Cheryl Reeve, the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx. That is an irresponsible thing to do. You are a coach for a female basketball team. Do you not think that the females are being screwed over if they have to compete against an individual born as a male? What are you talking about? I mean, I wanted to cheer hearing that because I think people should get angry. You know, this is something that's so ridiculous. I honestly believe in 20 years' time, we'll look back on this period and think the world went, completely nuts.

9:33Well, we can think about that about a lot of things these days, but certainly this is one of them because I disagree with Stephen A. Smith quite often and I agree with him quite often. And on this issue, he is 100 % correct. It is absolute insanity. It's not that women are weaker, which is different animals altogether from men in so many ways, but biologically, physically, so much that it's not even a fair fight. Look, I was about the only girl that could do pull-ups when I was 10 years old. Every single boy in my school could do pull-ups. I was the only girl that could do pull-ups. Even boys before puberty have that advantage.

10:08There's no doubt about it. And it's massive in sports. It's insurmountable at any level. If you're this much of a male, this much of a female, if that male at that level that finished 100th, that will finish 10th or 1st in the girls' level. So it's not a fair fight. And girls, what happens is girls self-exclude. They don't go and try out for the high school team because if there's five boys on that team, they don't have a chance. So it really punishes girls in so many ways before they even get to a high level.

10:43Piers Morgan:Yeah, and as I always say in this debate, there is a reason that we separate the sexes in the Olympics. And the reason is that if we made it gender neutral, then women, biological females, would end up winning barely any medal and therefore the Olympics would just disintegrate and be destroyed. You know, at your peak, Martina, when you were the best women's tennis player in the world, you know, what number of men would you have beaten? Like, would you have beaten anyone in the top 500 men, top 1 ,000? What do you think? Maybe. It's about 500 might be the level at this point. I mean, the power is, it takes so much less power for them to hit the ball just as hard as I do.

11:26Which means to hit it harder at the level that I'm using, they can hit it so much harder and have that much more control and have that much harder ball. And they've moved that much faster and then jumped that much higher. And by the way, they have five inches of height advantage on average. And then with your reach, you've got probably seven inches. So I have to jump seven inches higher to hit the same ball as the guy. So you just can't make up for that. And most sports are very fast twitch and explosive and strength matters. And so maybe 500, you know, maybe I'd have a chance. Maybe wouldn't have said, maybe wouldn't have a match.

12:08But if we do it over and over and over, you know, the guy just takes much less effort to hit the same shot. So at the end, it's a losing effort. I don't know what the cutoff is, but that's not the point. That's not the point. There's over 1 ,000 boys under 15 that have run faster 100 metres than Florence Gifford-Joiner, who still owns the record in 100 metres. So we have no chance. We have no chance.

12:31Piers Morgan:Right. I mean, it's not even an argument. It's like in pretty much any sport that involves physical power or speed, it's obvious. That's why we separate the sexes. and it shouldn't be a denigration of women's sport to just say the obvious. That's why we do it. What do you feel? You've always been incredibly brave in the way you talk about issues that you care about. I've always felt that about you and I admire that enormously about you. But I've also felt that people shouldn't be compelled to speak out on hot issues if they don't want to. But Caitlin Clark is Sophie Cunningham's teammate. she's also the poster girl really for women's basketball the best player in the world uh many people think um she refuses to get drawn into this she won't say either way what what you know people have accused her of being hypocritical that she should and so on what do you feel about that well it is a basketball issue this is every sport issue for women um i think i think i tweeted this couple days ago for me her not speaking about it is the equivalent of Michael Jordan saying Republicans buy sneakers too he did not want to offend anybody so that everybody would love him and everybody may buy his sneakers and I think that Caitlin is trying to be neutral here but you cannot be neutral when it comes to your sport this is not some political issue this is not some outsider issue this is a basketball issue just as much as it was a tennis issue no more and it is every female sport issue.

14:05So I wish she would speak out because that would really help everybody else to speak out about it. And, you know, as I say, courage is contagious and it shouldn't take courage to be able to speak out about it. But listen, the abuse that I have gotten online about this is just, it's crazy. But of course, you know, it's just social media. Nobody says that to my face because they don't have an argument. So I wish more would speak out, but Caitlin Clark's been dealing with a lot of other crap, really, literally. so I don't blame her for it but I do wish that she would speak out

14:37Piers Morgan:If she was to speak out what would you like her to say? Well most of all I would like the commissioner to speak out you know again the head of the WNBA maybe they don't feel that maybe they feel that she feels that males should be allowed but again it's the women's league and I just wish she would say it's about the girls and the women and we deserve a fair fight. And if you have, let's say you would have five trans males on your team playing, they win every time. You have no chance.

15:12So protect the girls as well. You know, everybody says, what about the trans girls and the trans women that want to compete? They can compete in the category. Please leave us alone. We fought so hard and so long to get our own sports and our own competitions in track and field. Women couldn't run a marathon in the Olympics until 1984 because we weren't deemed strong enough to run a marathon. We fought so hard to get to this, and now men want in on it? I don't think so. I'm sorry.

15:45Piers Morgan:One female tennis player, current tennis number one, Irina Sabalenka, has spoken out about this just recently and also did on my show. Let's take a look. Martina Novatova, a former number one, obviously, like yourself, says it's wrong for the Women's Tennis Association to allow trans women to compete in its events. Do you agree with her?

16:10Well, that's a tricky question. I have nothing to do against them, but I feel like they still got huge advantage over the women. And I think it's just not fair to a woman to basically face like the biologically man. And then it's, you know, it's not fair. Like the woman been working the whole life to reach her limit and then she has to face like a man, like which biologically much stronger. So for me, I don't agree with this kind of stuff in sport.

16:46Piers Morgan:I will also want to play what she said this week about it as well. Let's take a look at that. I think it's really important to keep the fairness in our tour and it's obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women, so I feel like it would be not really fair for the women to compete against biological men. So I believe it took them a little while to make the decision and yeah, I support it.

17:20Piers Morgan:Now, the WTA have recently announced that the players will take a one-time gender test, the first pro league to go that way. Do you think every pro league of any women's sport should do that? And secondly, not many tennis players, women tennis players, have come out and publicly supported Sabalenka. She's been, I think, really brave here. Should more come out and support her? Well, I think they will. But I think the support is there because it comes from the top. It comes from the organization that says, this is what you need to do. And this used to be the case. In the 70s, I took the bar body test where you had to prove that you were a female to compete.

18:01All the female athletes did that. They only did away with that, I think, in like 96, 97. I think the Sydney Olympics were the first Olympics where the test was not necessary. And here we are. And there was a 2016 in Rio. The 800-meter finishers were all DSD athletes. Katja Zemeña winning the gold and they were number two, number three. Only the fourth finisher was an actual female that won that, that won that, that competed in that race. And so Sabalenka is right. And I think the support is there. But I think the players and the athletes are just afraid to speak up because they get vilified for that.

18:38Look what's happened to Sophie Cunningham. It'll be interesting to see what her home crowd does when she carries the ball. So it's, it's not easy, you know. But again, those rules, I think most of the sports, all the sports should now follow in the lead. IOC started it with Christy Coventry taking charge because Thomas Bach was horrible on that issue. And the WTA, we had a male as the president of it or CEO for the last 15 years or so. Now we have a female and I think she gets it, obviously, Valerie. And here we are. So I think the ball will get rolling in that way. Trans athletes are not banned at all.

19:17In fact, women, females that identify as males, can compete in the women's category as long as they don't take any testosterone. If they take testosterone, then they need to compete against men. So this is not an anti-trans issue at all. It's a pro-female, pro-women and girls issue, and it should stay that way. It should not be political. 100%.

19:40Piers Morgan:I want to end just with it. Yeah, I agree. I, incredibly, some of America's biggest female sports stars, like Megan Rapinoe, completely disagree, right? She went on The View two weeks ago and she said this. They're using this as a wedge issue because we love sports and, you know, we don't want our little girls to be unsafe in sports. And it's like, unsafe from who? But OK. Yeah. But now we're using this as, like, an overarching thing, when really we're attacking women. We're saying, if you look like this as a woman, you can play. If you look like this as a woman. There's a bill in Washington happening right now that's going to require all girls, just like full stop, to go through a sex test, an invasive, like, examining their genitals to see if they're a woman.

20:28Yeah. And that has not worked out well historically for people to do that. We know what that means. Black girls are going to get questioned more and they're going to get questioned first. Who's doing the examination? Girls who want to subject themselves to that. Yeah, and so they're going to see a pullback. They don't like women in sports because it helps us with confidence and power. And we see so many women in the C-suite played elite-level sports. It's just great for you physically and all of it, but it's an attack on women in society.

20:55Piers Morgan:I mean, aside from the fact she's factually wrong about the genital exams, Washington Initiative only requires a doctor's science certificate of biological sex. Using reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or testosterone levels, a cheek swab can determine sex. No general exam is required. So she's wrong on fact about that. But this idea that keeping biological men out of women's sports, Martina, is an attack on women in society. What's your message to Megan Rapinoe? Well, think about that logic. It is so illogical. It is just so far out. It's so crazy. And by the way, her team lost to a team of 15-year-old boys.

21:38You know, the women top Olympic team lost to a 15-year-old boys team, like 5 '2 or something. They got whipped. I just don't know where she's coming from, that she really doesn't pay attention. Again, exaggerate the issue. What if five boys get on the women's team? Now, five girls did not get on the women's team. And by the way, that team is going to win. So I don't get it. I don't, I, I, what, what upsets me is that people don't get educated better about the issues. And then just the eye test, right? And by the way, I am muscular. I, you know, I'll be 70 in two months. I still have pretty good guns and I haven't done anything because that's my genetic makeup.

22:21I've always been very strong. Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad. And I worked my ass off. But no matter how hard I work, I still cannot compete with the weakest guy on the ATP. atp i still can't bench press 200 pounds you know so um i'm just disappointed with megan that she she's like uh you know feeling this way and basically pulling up the ladder after she retires um yeah it's it's and the genitals that's really that that was never the case never never ever

22:52Piers Morgan:she is full of crap i'm afraid martina it is fantastic to see you and particularly looking so incredibly glowing and healthy. That is wonderful to see. Thank you very much indeed for joining me again. Thank you. Thank you. I actually played tennis yesterday for the first time in a year, so thumbs up. Really? That's brilliant. I love it. Well, great to see you, Martina. All the very best. Thank you very much. All right. Joining us now to debate this, Conservative commentator Blair White, the comedian Jeff Dyer, sports commentator Andrea Richmond and the pro-trans activist Helen Webley. Well, welcome to all of you.

23:30Piers Morgan:Andrea Richmond, I just interviewed Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest female sports stars in history, and she doesn't understand why any woman in the world would not agree with Sophie Cunningham when she says, I'm not transphobic at all. I want trans people to lead good, happy lives and have the same rights as the rest of us. I just don't want women's rights eroded by having biological males compete in women's sport. So I just ask you, Andrea, why don't you want to support women's rights? I don't understand. Well, if you think Megan Rapinoe is basically full of crap, then get ready to see the toilet with me, because I feel like the entire premises, in my opinion, is transphobic.