Sports
Aussie tennis legend under fire for anti-LGBT comments
Unclear if calls to rename Margaret Court Arena gaining traction
Margaret Court, left, in her ‘70s heyday on the international tennis scene. (Photo by Eric Koch of ANEFO; courtesy of the Dutch National Archives)
Tennis players, rock bands, activists and others in Australia and beyond are calling for the Margaret Court Arena, a tennis and entertainment venue in Melbourne, Victoria, to be renamed because of the controversial, anti-gay views of its namesake.
The arena, built in 1987 (it holds 7,500), is part of the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park, itself part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct. It opened in 1988 as Show Court One but was renamed in 2003 after Court, the country’s most successful female tennis player of all time.
Court, 75, was the first woman in the open era (pros/amateurs competing jointly) to win the singles Grand Slam (all four major tennis tournaments in the same calendar year); she was only the second woman in history to do it. With 24 solo wins, 19 women’s doubles wins and 21 mixed doubles titles, she holds a record 64 major titles overall. Several of her records still stand. In 2010, Aussie newspaper the Herald Sun called her “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”
Raised Catholic, Court became a Pentecostal after retiring from tennis in 1977. She was ordained an independent Pentecostal minister in 1991. After founding Margaret Court Ministries, she founded the Victory Life Centre, a Perth-based Pentecostal church, in 1995. She is its senior pastor and broadcasts of her preaching are aired on Australian TV.
She has been an anti-LGBT crusader for years inspiring an effort that began in 2012 for the arena bearing her name to be renamed. Although the issue has been percolating, it reached a boil in May when Court wrote a letter to the West Australian (a Perth newspaper) criticizing Qantas, Australia’s largest domestic airline, for being a corporate supporter of same-sex marriage (currently illegal; a national mail-in vote is in the works) and claiming she would boycott the airline.
In a follow-up interview with Vision Christian Radio, she said lesbian tennis players try to lead young players “into parties,” implying they recruit using tactics similar to Hitler and communism. Of trans issues, she said, “That’s all the devil.”
Out tennis legend Martina Navratilova wrote an open letter to arena owners calling for the change. Navratilova called Court an “amazing tennis player” but also “a racist and a homophobe.”
“How much blood will be on Margaret’s hands because kids will continue to get beaten for being different,” Navratilova wrote. “Too many will die by suicide because of this kind of intolerance, this kind of bashing and yes, this kind of bullying. This is not OK.”
Sigur Ros closed its “Splendour in the Grass 2017” tour in July at the Margaret Court Arena with a light show projection supporting same-sex marriage. The band sold limited edition T-shirts at the concert to raise funds for the marriage effort there. Other acts such as LCD Soundsystem, Grinspoon and Ryan Adams who’ve played there have spoken out against Court.
“I’m not one to get in old people’s faces for being ignorant, but when you come after my family, my friends … you can go fuck yourself,” said LCD Soundsystem singer James Murphy, according to a Junkee concert review.
Tennis Australia praised Court for her “unmatched playing record” but said her “personal views are her own and do not align with Tennis Australia’s values of equality, inclusion and diversity.”
Arena owners have not said if the proposed renaming is being seriously considered but said on Twitter they’re committed to equality.
LGBT Australian activists say the issue has died down some since it broke in May but differ on how significant it is.
Sally Goldner, an activist on trans and bi issues who works with three such agencies, says anti-LGBT rhetoric such as Court’s does have consequences.
“Her trans comments, which didn’t get as much coverage, were pretty extreme,” Goldner said in a Skype interview with the Blade. “To imply that trans people are possessed by the devil, that’s pretty extreme. … She gave several long interviews in mainstream media, yet to my knowledge, at no point were any trans people or families given the same amount of attention. … There’s a lot of issues below the surface beyond just the naming of the arena.”
Anthony Venn-Brown, a former Pentecostal Australian minister who left that ilk of Christianity after coming out at age 40, says that branch of the Christian faith is flourishing in Australia. Though Branch is independent, Venn-Brown says the internationally known Hillsong movement is theologically similar and “has become the largest, fastest-growing branch of Christianity in Australia.”
Venn-Brown says LGBT activists should have simply ignored Court.
“If we would have just let it go, it would have been of no consequence. … She doesn’t have a huge following, she’s not incredibly popular, her church is not huge and she’s getting to be quite old,” he said via Skype. “People are so quick to call for boycotts and names to be changed. It seems to me at times to be playground behavior. … Can’t we just take a deep breath and chill?”
Others disagree.
Filmmaker and clinical psychologist Dee Mosbacher, whose 2009 documentary “Training Rules” exposed the anti-gay policies of former Pennsylvania State University women’s basketball head coach Rene Portland, says homophobia exacts a toll.
“I know well the pain that’s caused by touting someone who is an out and proud homophobe like Rene Portland,” Mossbacher, a lesbian, says. “Some of her players thought about suicide, some felt like their whole lives were wrecked, they had symptoms of PTSD. It had a visceral effect on these women. Some of them hadn’t seen or heard anything about her for decades but it still had a tremendous effect on them. … It’s like a counter to the It Gets Better program. Holding up someone like Margaret Court as a hero is like saying it gets worse. If you allow these people to be out there with their homophobia, you’re saying it’s OK and you’re colluding with them and enabling it.”
Goldner says calls to LGBT support services “skyrocket” when anti-gay views are heavily covered in the news.
“We’ve got plenty of evidence of that,” says Goldner, who’s transgender.
She says the issue needs to be kept in perspective, though.
“We need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is full equality legally and socially,” she says. “Is renaming an arena going to do that? I’m not so sure. It can send a message, but I think there might be some more effective things we could be doing in my honest opinion.”
Venn-Brown, who runs an LGBT outreach program called Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International, also says there are “bigger fish we should be frying.”
“Renaming an arena is not gonna change anything except maybe to make some LGBT people feel they’ve beaten somebody,” he says. “There are more important things for us to focus on.”
Navratilova, Court and management of the Margaret Court Arena did not respond to requests for comment.
Mossbacher understands the perspective, but says Court’s “homophobia and bullying should be called out.”
“It’s not like this is a historical thing where she’s some homophobe from the past,” she says. “They’d never hold her up as some kind of hero if she’d made these comments about aboriginal people or people of color or whatever, so I don’t think it’s OK for her to get away with it when it’s against LGBT people.”
The Margaret Court Arena is used for a wide spate of sports and entertainment events. (Photo by DestinationAlan; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
FIFA has announced Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, despite concerns over its human rights record that includes the death penalty for homosexuality.
The Associated Press reported FIFA confirmed the decision on Dec. 18. The AP noted Saudi Arabia is the only country that bid to host the 2034 World Cup.
“This is a historic moment for Saudi Arabia and a dream come true for all our 32 million people who simply love the game,” said Sport Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al- Faisal, who is also president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, in a statement the Saudi Press Agency posted to its website.
Saudi Arabia is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
A U.S. intelligence report concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “likely approved” the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. A federal judge in 2022 dismissed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed after the Biden-Harris administration said he was immune to the lawsuit because he is the country’s prime minister.
Human rights activists have also criticized the Saudi government over the treatment of women, migrant workers, and other groups in the country.
“No one should be surprised by this,” Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, an LGBTQ sports website, told the Washington Blade in an email after FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. “FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and many other world governing bodies routinely turn to authoritarian countries with terrible human-rights records to host major sporting events. There are simply few other countries willing to spend the billions of dollars it takes to build the needed infrastructure.”
Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a statement described FIFA’s decision as “a betrayal of the values that football should stand for: Inclusivity, fairness, and respect for human rights.”
“This is not about football; it’s about sportswashing,” said Tatchell. “The Saudi regime is using the World Cup to launder its international image and distract from its brutal abuses. By granting them this platform, FIFA is complicit in whitewashing their crimes.”
Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia, hosted the 2022 World Cup.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in Qatar.
“Saudi Arabia was the only country to bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup,” said Zeigler. “So, until FIFA, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and other governing bodies ban major human-rights violators from hosting, we’ll continue to see events like this in Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, and other countries with terrible LGBTQ rights issues.”
The Blade has reached out to FIFA and the Saudi government for comment.
Sports
Controversy grows over member of Calif. university’s women’s volleyball team
Coach suspended, NCAA sued, more rivals forfeit
San Jose State University’s women volleyball team has collected yet another W by forfeit — its seventh so far this season — as controversy swirls around one player on its roster. She’s one of the seniors, and she has been dragged in the media by her own co-captain, who outed her as transgender.
The Washington Blade is not naming this student athlete since neither she nor the school have confirmed or even commented on her gender identity.
SJSU visited San Diego last weekend for a match before the Aztecs’ biggest home crowd of the season — including protesters waving “Save Women’s Sports” banners and booing one player on the Spartans team in particular: The woman who is reported to be trans.
Security was tight, with metal detectors and extra guards and police officers present. Video posted to YouTube by a right-wing sports media site — which names the player — shows an angry fan arguing with security about his First Amendment rights.
Video recorded during Nov. 9’s game shows a player for San Diego was injured following a spike by the player rumored to be trans, and had to be helped off the court. However, the video clearly shows that player was injured by landing poorly on one foot, not as a result of the spike.
The Aztecs defeated the Spartans 3-1, but San Jose has still punched its ticket to the conference finals, thanks to its record number of forfeits.
Wyoming was set to visit SJSU Thursday, but for the second time is joining other universities that have forfeited games against the Spartans, all without providing a reason. Boise State announced it will forfeit an upcoming match set for Nov. 21, its second forfeit against SJSU.
In September, the Spartans’ co-captain, senior Brooke Slusser, outed her own teammate, the player at the center of this controversy, in joining a federal lawsuit against the NCAA spearheaded by anti-trans inclusion activist and former college athlete Riley Gaines.
Slusser said in the lawsuit and in subsequent interviews that the player in question shouldn’t be on her team. The suit claims the NCAA’s policy on trans athletes violates Title IX by allowing “men” to compete in women’s sports and use women’s locker rooms where they display “full male genitalia.”
The NCAA policy for trans athletes participating in women’s volleyball aligns with that of USA Volleyball, which requires trans female athletes to suppress their testosterone below 10 nmol/L for a period of one year before competition. That is also how the NCAA determines eligibility. SJSU has stated repeatedly that all its players are eligible.
The lawsuit also asks the NCAA to revoke any titles or records won by trans female athletes in women’s competitions, which seems to be specifically aimed at stripping out trans NCAA champions Lia Thomas and CeCé Telfer of their titles in swimming and track and field, respectively.
Prior to this season, the player rumored to be trans did not attract any attention other than being a successful starter, like Slusser. But now that she is in the media spotlight, Slusser has come forward to tell right wing media, including Megyn Kelly, why she feels another woman two inches taller than she is poses a danger.
“I don’t feel safe,” Slusser said on “The Megyn Kelly Show” last month. “I’ve gone to my coaches and said I refuse to play against [her] … It’s not safe.”
In the video, both Kelly and Slusser refer to the player as “him” and a “man,” and name her.
Now comes another twist: San Jose State University suspended associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose with pay, indefinitely, after she filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU. She claims the player Slusser identified as trans conspired with an opponent to help the team lose a match and injure Slusser. Batie-Smoose named the player in question in her complaint and on Sept. 23, joined the same lawsuit that Slusser is now a part of.
“Safety is being taken away from women,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now will be forever changed.”
Media reporting on the suspension, including Fox News, continue to name the athlete in question, with some also reporting what they say is the athlete’s birth name.
San Jose State released a statement following the suspension of Batie-Smoose: “The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter,” the team said.
SJSU Coach Todd Kress told ESPN that reports saying that any member of the Spartans colluded with their opponent are “littered with lies.”
The Spartans are currently among the top six finishers in the Mountain West Conference that will qualify to compete in the conference tournament scheduled for Nov. 27-30.
Sports
University of Nevada forfeits game rather than play possible trans athlete
Women’s volleyball team cites ‘not enough players to compete’
For the fifth time, a women’s volleyball team has chosen to forfeit instead of play against San Jose State University, because of rumors that one of its players is a transgender woman.
The University of Nevada, Reno, officially announced on Friday that it would forfeit Saturday’s game against the SJSU Spartans. This followed an announcement by Wolf Pack players who said they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details.
Originally, Nevada’s athletic department had said the program would not back out from the match, citing state equality laws, but also said that no players would be disciplined if they chose to not participate.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Nevada team captain Sia Liilii told Fox News. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.”
“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
Outsports and several conservative and right-wing websites have identified the player who is rumored to be trans, but the Washington Blade has opted to not do so since she herself has not come forward to either acknowledge or deny she is trans.
As ESPN reported, Nevada follows Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, and Utah State in canceling games against the Spartans. Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada are all members of the Mountain West Conference, so those contests are considered forfeits and count as valuable wins in the league standings for San Jose State.
Riley Gaines, the anti-trans inclusion activist for the Independent Women’s Forum has joined the chorus in claiming the Spartans’ roster includes a trans woman.
If you're wondering why teams are forfeiting against @SJSU, here's the reason.
Last night another woman was smashed in the face by a kill from a man posing as a woman.
It's unfair, unsafe, and regressive, yet our "leaders" remain silent. pic.twitter.com/OS15AFxQsp
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) October 18, 2024
Despite this, neither San Jose State nor any of the other forfeiting teams have said the university’s women’s volleyball team has a trans player. SJSU issued a statement defending its roster.
“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. We will continue to take measures to prioritize the health and safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete,” the statement read.
The governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming — all of whom are members of the Republican Party — have issued public statements supporting the cancellations, claiming it’s in the interest of fairness in women’s sports. This week, Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee and former president, spoke at a Fox News televised town hall when asked about trans athletes in women’s sports.
“We’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said. “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. We can’t have it. You just ban it. The president bans it. You don’t let it happen. It’s not a big deal.”
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