Tennis legend Martina Navratilova called out Minnesota state Rep. Leigh Finke this week, saying the transgender legislator’s “male entitlement is off the charts.”
The comments came in response to Finke’s appearance on PBS Newshour, where he said that there was “no reason” to be talking about males using women’s bathrooms or participating in women’s sports.
“That is not a problem,” Finke said.
The male entitlement is off the charts. Increased visibility is not the problem. Males, however they might identify- whether for the day or forever- coming into women’s SEX based spaces is the PROBLEM. https://t.co/WdvJCms5DG
— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) December 8, 2024
Referenced during the interview was the nation’s first transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride. Finke said that Republicans are “taking away her fundamental, basic dignity” by introducing a bill that would require individuals to use Capitol bathrooms that align with their biological sex.
Finke responded to Navratilova’s comments on social media. “Martina Navratilova went at me on Twitter. And while I knew she was a TERF these days, I also grew up admiring her, and it sure hits differently when someone you admired for so long treats you in such a degrading manner. Oh well. Trans liberation now,” he said.
Finke recently traveled to Washington, D.C. for the Supreme Court’s hearing in United States v. Skrmetti, which centers on a Tennessee law that has been challenged by the Biden administration.
MN Rep. Leigh Finke calls Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton "despicable" for expressing concern about his daughters playing sports with biological males pic.twitter.com/KaSmsDS3Nq
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) December 10, 2024
The law restricts minors from receiving treatments for identities “inconsistent” with their sex, which the Biden administration argues violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“Today I am heading to Washington, D.C., where the US Supreme Court will debate whether young people should have access to the healthcare that has saved my life,” Finke wrote in a social media post.
Finke, a biological male who identifies as a woman, was elected to his first term in 2022. He has championed controversial legislation like the Trans Refuge Bill and the Equal Rights Amendment.
He said that “gender affirming care” is just healthcare and is a right.
“It matters that the nine justices who sit on the Supreme Court are not trans. It matters because they have not been transformed by this care. It matters that the lawyers arguing to ban access to our healthcare are also not trans. The doctors, the specialists, the experts that have testified against us, their lives have not been saved by gender affirming care,” Finke wrote.
The lawmaker also said he “trembles” at the thought of losing access to so-called gender affirming care and that “the loss is too great to accept.” Finke continued the post by calling his gender transition “glorious.”
“Trans people do not deserve to lose what we have found: happiness, freedom, self-determination, all the glorious (and it is glorious) elements of life in and after transition,” he wrote. “Those nine justices have not found the liberation we have found.”
Finke followed up by posting a selfie in front of the Supreme Court building with the caption, “Trans the courts.”
Finke also did an interview with CNN while in D.C.
“I describe it as discovering gravity,” Finke said in the CNN interview regarding his childhood and becoming transgender.
Hayley Feland
Hayley Feland previously worked as a journalist with The Minnesota Sun, The Wisconsin Daily Star, and The College Fix. She is a Minnesota native with a passion for politics and journalism.
