Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Volleyball, 1982. Betty Baxter was a successful Canadian volleyball player and coach. After being named the head coach of the women’s national volleyball team in 1979, she won the Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union’s coach of the year award. Yet in 1982, amid [...]
Posts under ‘Women’
Moment #42: Lana Lawless wins right to play on LPGA Tour
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Golf, 2010. When trans golfer Lana Lawless won the 2009 Long Drivers of America title, it was too much for the organization to handle. They quickly changed their rules stating that female participants must have been born biologically female to compete, [...]
Pat Summit, winningest coach in NCAA history, has dementia
She’s one of the lightning rods of women’s sports with a tough coaching style and lots of national championships. But no matter what side of the fence you’re on, your heart has to feel for Pat Summit. The legendary Tennessee Lady Vols coach announced this week that she suffers from the early onset of dementia [...]
Moment #49: IOC suspends mandatory gender testing for female athletes
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Olympics, 1999. In the early 1960s, rumors swirled around the Soviet and Eastern Bloc Olympic teams that some of the women were actually men. While Avery Brundage requested gender tests as early as the Berlin Games of 1936, it wasn’t until 1968 [...]
Moment #51: Amelie Mauresmo wins Wimbledon
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Tennis, 2006. Amelie Mauresmo seemingly had nothing to prove. She had reached the world No. 1 ranking in 2004 and was the first lesbian to reach the pinnacle of women’s tennis after publicly declaring her homosexuality. Yet the reputation that built around [...]
Diana Nyad quits her Cuba to Florida swim
For a year people have been talking about out lesbian swimmer Diana Nyad’s reported attempt to break a world record and swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. She set off into the water from Cuba Sunday night. On Monday night, she ended the swim halfway to her destination. Her team Tweeted: Realizing [...]
Moment #65: Caster Semenya asked to undergo gender test
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Track & Field, 2009. Across our entire list of 100 moments, this may be the most complicated and most misunderstood. Here’s what we know. In the summer of 2009, Semenya won the 800m World Championship in Berlin (see the full video [...]
Moment #84: Lesbian couple ejected from Dodgers Stadium for kissing creates ‘gay days’
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Baseball, 2000. When Danielle Goldey and Meredith Kott went to the Los Angeles Dodgers game on Aug. 8, 2000, they never imagined they’d set off a chain of events that would lead to “gay days” at pro sporting events for years to [...]
Podcast: Michael Irvin for gay equality, Sheryl Swoopes engaged to marry a man
Everyone seemed to be talking about Michael Irvin’s appearance in ‘Out’ magazine last week discussing his gay brother and his support for gay marriage. We talk about how the article came about. On the flip side, very few people were talking about the revelation that Sheryl Swoopes has ended her relationship with a woman and [...]
Sheryl Swoopes is not a lesbian, now engaged to marry a man
Sheryl Swoopes, who came out as a lesbian to much fanfare in 2005, is now engaged to marry a man. Mechelle Voepel of ESPN uncovers the news and says she first learned of Swoopes’ new relationship status last autumn. She writes in a recent piece on Swoopes turning 40: Yet when Swoopes’ agent mentioned to [...]
Expert panel debates the homophobia that confronts lesbians in sports
When you get Pat Griffin, Lisa Howe, Lauren Lappin, Sherri Murrell and Mechelle Voepel together to discuss the problems facing lesbians in sports, you know the subject will be addressed with honesty, great insight and clarity. The five were on the “Rainbow Ceiling” panel recently sponsored by the Association for Women in Sports Media. Moderated [...]
Moment #92: Pat Griffin publishes ‘Strong Women, Deep Closets’
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Various sports, 1998. Every woman who plays sports is queer, so it’s gotta be easy being a lesbian athlete, right? That was the prevailing myth that pervaded sports (and largely still does). But it was Pat Griffin’s Strong Women, Deep Closets that [...]
Moment #95: Muffin Spencer-Devlin becomes first pro golfer to come out
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Golf, 1996. Few out lesbian athletes have experienced more professional success than Muffin Spencer-Devlin. She was a three-time tournament winner on the LPGA Tour in the mid-to-late ’80s. She is in the top 100 on the Tour’s all-time money list (at just [...]
Moment #96: Savoy Howe becomes first out lesbian in women’s boxing
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in LGBT sports history. Boxing, 1993. Savoy Howe shot into the sports world out of a cannon. She first stepped foot in a boxing ring in 1992; A year later she was fighting in Toronto’s first-ever sanctioned women’s boxing event. And in 1993 she agreed to [...]
Moment #97: Mountain bike racing champion Missy Giove comes out
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Mountain Bike Racing, 1995. She was one of the first female stars of her sport. Originally she took to biking to improve her skiing; She was already a Junior National Champion skier in 1990 and was looking to reach the next level. [...]