Sally Ride chose not to be a gay icon
SUZI PARKER
Sally Ride showed Generation X girls that the sky’s the limit.
We could do anything boys could do and sometimes better. If we wanted to go into space, our gender couldn’t – and wouldn’t – stop us. If we studied hard enough and trained our brains, the glass ceiling could be shattered.
Amid all she taught women, one barrier the first American woman in space chose not to break was sexuality. When Ride died on Monday at age 61 from pancreatic cancer, it emerged that Ride had a partner.
Yes, Sally Ride, a theoretical astrophysicist, American hero and feminist icon, was a lesbian.
She had a partner for 27 years. According to some news reports, Ride didn’t hide her relationship from family and friends. Perhaps, but most of us only learned that tidbit of Ride trivia from reading her obituary.
Ride lived a quiet life, a throwback to another time when someone’s personal life wasn’t splashed all over television or Facebook.
Ride’s partner was Tam O’Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University. She and Ride wrote several books together, and O’Shaughnessy also served as chief operating officer and executive vice president of Ride’s company, Sally Ride Science, where children receive encouragement to learn about engineering, math, science and technology.
The media scrutiny made her path to space even more challenging. Some reporters in the 1980s asked her if she planned on having children. Ride hated that she was asked such questions while her male counterparts weren’t.
Ride may have tolerated ridiculous inquiries during the quaint ’80s, but the decade also shielded the shy astronaut. She wasn’t politicized, nor did she trend on social media.
In death, Ride already has become politicized. Progressive and gay blogs are lamenting that O’Shaughnessy will not receive Ride’s federal benefits because of the Defense of Marriage Act, and they’re blaming Republicans.
Ride obviously didn’t want to be a gay icon. If she had, she easily could have sat down with Oprah or Ellen and told the world about her sexuality, her private life and her love for O’Shaughnessy, whom she had known since age 12.
Instead, Ride lived in a world where we all should live, a place where we celebrate someone for her accomplishments and not her sexual orientation.
Suzi Parker, author of “Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt,” is a regular contributor to The Washington Post’s She the People blog, women writing on politics and culture.
