As this country approaches its bisesquicentennial, the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the nation is at a period of extreme polarization.
Racial, religious, and ethnic biases permeate society. Gender discrimination is prevalent. The LGBTQ community, an amalgam of race and culture, carries the torch of freedom and equality that are theoretical pillars of this nation’s founding but are still not tangibly afforded to millions.
Sports has been a vehicle through which many who identify as one of the acronym’s classifications — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning — have championed respect, acceptance, and understanding from the larger population. It has been a long and arduous pursuit.
There was a time when being an openly gay athlete was anathema. For professional athletes, it was potentially career-ending. Gay athletes were compelled to conceal their orientation or be subject to public ridicule and rejection by their teammates and coaches. Up until NFL running back David Kopay publicly revealed he was gay in 1975 after retiring in 1972, no athlete in a major professional team sport had made such a proclamation.
Kopay not only shocked the sports world, but the country in general by announcing he was gay in his seminal interview with the Washington Star.
“There was nobody else out there, and I felt this huge sense of relief. It was just me,” said the now 83-year-old Kopay in an interview with OutSports last December.
It took 38 years before former NBA player Jason Collins tore down a monumental barrier by becoming the first openly gay active player in a major United States professional sports league. The word pioneer will forever be synonymous with Collins, who passed away three weeks ago after a courageous battle with brain cancer.
In a first-person account as told to ESPN writer Ramona Shelburne last December, revealing he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, Collins said, “When I came out publicly as the first active gay basketball player in 2013, … I got to tell my own story, the way I wanted to. And now I can honestly say, the past 12 years, since, have been the best of my life.”
Between Kopay’s and Collins’ notifications, famous athletes, notably tennis icons Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, and Greg Louganis, a four-time Olympic gold medal-winning diver, were among the increasing, albeit relatively small, number of openly gay athletes.
Today, it’s common for athletes to be fearless in expressing their orientation and gender identity. But political weaponization and culture fissures persist. The contentious issue of transgender women competing in women’s sports is a hot-button topic of election debates on the local, state, and national levels.
But inarguably, sports has been instrumental in the progress of the LGBTQ movement.
