Tennis great Martina Navratilova hit out at Democrats this week, saying the party "totally failed women and girls" after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect female sports.
Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order on Wednesday, which empowers federal agencies to ensure that institutions receiving federal funding operate under the original Title IX criteria.
Navratilova shared a video on social platform X of women and girl athletes and advocates filing into the White House to watch the president sign the order barring transgender athletes from female competition.
"I hate that the democrats totally failed women and girls on this very clear issue of women's sports being for females only," she wrote.
It isn't the first time that Navratilova, a longtime Democrat and advocate for fairness in women's sports, has criticized her party on the issue of transgender athletes in women's and girls' sports.
Last month, when House lawmakers passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, only two Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill.
"More Dems need to step up here," Navratilova wrote on X then. "I know many who agree but are scared to speak up because of re-election. I say do the right thing. Grow a spine...."
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt urged the Senate to take up the legislation because executive orders issued by one administration could always be reversed by the next.
"It's incredibly important Congress immediately acts on this priority," Leavitt said. "I think the president is really setting the tone, making this a very immediate priority for this administration, just as he promised to do on the campaign trail."
In 2022, Breitbart News reported that Navratilova spoke out about transgender athletes competing against "biological females."
"It's not about excluding transgender women from winning ever," the 59-time Grand Slam champion said at the time. "But it is about not allowing them to win when they were not anywhere near winning as men.
"You try to keep it as close as possible to what it would have been, were you born in the female biological body in the first place," Navratilova continued. "And even saying that, people take exception to 'biological females.' People don't even want to use those words. I don't know what else to say, other than that."