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Special Features Index  

 
Spotlight Lesbians and Sports
 
Lesbians and athletics have been identified with each other since long before the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion alerted mainstream straight America that there was a large queer minority in its midst. Despite that long history, many Lesbians in Sports continue to face homophobia and other obstacles today.
 
 
 
Babe Didrikson Tees Off In Scotland
Babe Didrikson
 
 
 
  Bodybuilding includes many lesbians and gay men both as athletes and consumers of the physical culture and entertainment products the sport sponsors. The important role of lesbians and gay men in the sport is more often denied than recognized.  
 
 
  Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) is a lesbian poet and novelist best known for the highly successful novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Her novel Sudden Death, which looks at life within the women's tennis circuit, was inspired by her relationship with tennis star Martina Navratilova.  
 
 
  Mildred "Babe" Didrikson (1911-1956) was one of the greatest women athletes in history. Despite all of her triumphs, she was taunted by charges of "mannishness" and "unnaturalness."  
 
 
  Frontrunners is an international confederation of gay, lesbian, transgendered, and gay-friendly runners, joggers, power walkers, strollers, rollerbladers, and sometimes bicyclists of all abilities. The group takes its name from novelist Patricia Nell Warren's The Front Runner.  
 
 
  The Gay Games is a quadrennial sporting and cultural event designed for the glbtq community that has become a lucrative attraction for host cities.  
 
 
  Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) who lived her lesbianism openly and proudly, is best known for The Well of Loneliness, arguably the most important lesbian novel ever written. Stephen, the protagonist in The Well, exhibited her lesbianism by engaging in traditionally masculine activities including sports.  
 
 
  Billie Jean King (b.1943) helped transform the world of professional tennis. She denied her lesbianism in the 1980s, but in 2000 became the first openly lesbian coach of an Olympic team.  
 
 
  Lesbian Sports Literature is a surprisingly small literary genre. Despite the high representation of lesbians in women's sports, sports and sportswomen have played a minor role in lesbian literature.  
 
 
  Martina Navratilova (b. 1956) is one of the greatest tennis players in history and has become an outspoken supporter of lesbian and gay rights.  
 
 

 
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