A Brief (Mostly Female) History of Coming Out in Sports [View all]

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/05/04/a-brief-mostly-female-history-of-coming-out-in-sports.html

At last a gay athlete has come out! We’ve all been holding our breath, haven’t we? Jason Collins, an NBA center with the Washington Wizards, was brave to take the first step. And celebrities in major-league sports and politics, to their credit, immediately congratulated him and made it clear that he’s a hero.

A week earlier, women’s basketball phenomenon and number one WNBA draft pick Brittney Griner came out. There was a nationwide yawn. Why no response? “Because, duh!” explained my wife, the jock and 24/7 sports maniac. I mean, just glance at the girl! Does she look straight to you?

Here's the other reason: Lesbians have been out in major sports for the past 30 years.

It started with Martina Navratilova, who dominated women’s tennis in her day. Martina won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 major mixed doubles titles. She won women's singles at Wimbledon a record nine times. Nine! If women’s sports brought in endorsements and advertising deals, Martina should have had her name plastered on every carton of anything. But in 1981, when Martina acknowledged openly what everyone already knew (because, duh!), the reaction was nasty. Back in the Pleistocene, it was just fine to hurl slurs at the homo, and did they ever. She was jeered as queer, as a bad influence on the sport, as the “evil” player versus the “good” Chris Evert, the girly-girl tennis star who stood for sugar and spice and everything nice, just like she was supposed to. Martina’s endorsement contracts added up to zero. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Arguably the greatest women’s tennis player of the 20th century didn’t have her name on so much as a shoelace.